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Sep. 17th, 2014 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretOne of the weird/cool/interesting/stupid things about the Wheel of Time is that the book titles are deliberately bad.
Okay, bad is possibly not the right word, though I rather think they are bad. The Knife of Dreams, which I am reading presently, may be the worst, though The Crossroads of Twilight, the last one, was nearly as bad.
The titles of the books of the Wheel of Time are quotations from the Karaethon Cycle, a Wheel of Time version of the Book of Revelation, and written just as elliptically. Within the story, understanding what the prophecy means before it happens constitutes a major political advantage, and therefore people are constantly trying to make sense of the Karaethon Cycle's obscure poetry. Usually they are unsuccessful at figuring out who or what is described by these strange epithets and allusions.
In other words, the point of the titles of the books is to be incomprehensible to the reader. Sometimes I'm not sure if Robert Jordan was a mad genius or just mad.
Okay, bad is possibly not the right word, though I rather think they are bad. The Knife of Dreams, which I am reading presently, may be the worst, though The Crossroads of Twilight, the last one, was nearly as bad.
The titles of the books of the Wheel of Time are quotations from the Karaethon Cycle, a Wheel of Time version of the Book of Revelation, and written just as elliptically. Within the story, understanding what the prophecy means before it happens constitutes a major political advantage, and therefore people are constantly trying to make sense of the Karaethon Cycle's obscure poetry. Usually they are unsuccessful at figuring out who or what is described by these strange epithets and allusions.
In other words, the point of the titles of the books is to be incomprehensible to the reader. Sometimes I'm not sure if Robert Jordan was a mad genius or just mad.