The writer weaves, and the story unravels

Four point four million words. Or, to be precise, 4,410,036 words and 2,782 characters, if the Wikipedia article is correct. This is the length of The Wheel of Time series of fifteen books by Robert Jordan — the last three completed by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan’s death. This is an astonishing achievement in itself, more than twice the length of India’s epic poem, the Mahabharata, and it has earned a place of a classic in the generations of fantasy literature that came after Tolkien. I needed some two years to work my way through the series, and having finally reached the end, I have thoughts in response — alas, ones that are not the expression of much love for the books.

The series comes some two decades after the death of Tolkien, and it exists in the context of his œuvre. Jordan from time to time is called the American Tolkien, and the structure of The Wheel of Time as the tale of destiny of prophesied figures who must go on a quest to save the world has obvious parallels — if only Joseph Campbell will let them get on with it. But Jordan chooses eastern philosophy as the basis of his mythology, staking out a distinctive territory from the Oxford don’s medieval Christian world.

In terms of cultural norms, this places Jordan in contrast with his own country, since America’s founding principles come out of western Enlightenment, though the…