Starlog Interview
From A Wheel of Time Wiki
From STARLOG January 1991; pg 16-18, 58; BY: William B. Thompson - Mr. Thompson "is a Charleston, South Carolina-based journalist. He profiled Alan Dean Foster in STARLOG #81."
When Robert Jordan's parents couldn't find a babysitter, they would utilize the services of his redoubtable older brother, who read to his four-year-old sibling from a rich varied repertoire of Mark Twain, Jules Verne, H.G. Welles and the like.
The common thread was a zestful, somemtimes wry imagination. And Jordan was an exceedingly quick study..
"It was galvanizing, better than a movie. I could visualize all of it in my head. By the time I was five, I had taught myself how to read."
A sort of slenderized Burl Ives, with the same intelligent, probing eyes, ebullient manner, and faintly mischievous grin, Jordan,, now in his 40s, is exploring the realm of fantasy after successful sogourns along a number of literary paths.
Judging by the review and the sales-his pen seems as formidable as a highwayman's blade, or a sorcerer's talisman.
Jordan, who also writes under the pseudonyms "Reagan O'Neal" and "Jackson O'Reilly," recently completed the second ina planned six-book fantasy series for Tor Books collectively entitled "The Wheel of Time." The first installment, The Eye of the World, was four years in the writing. It was released in February 1990 to broad acclaim, ascending the bestseller list. Volume two, The Great Hunt, was published this fall, with the third book tentatiely scheduled for December 1991.
"Actually, I prefer not to use the term "series" because it sounds so open-ended, like the writer will continue to produce books in the same creative surroundings indefinately," says Jordan, a life-long resident of Charleston, South Carolina. "Each book is designed to stand alone. The Great Hunt is a sequel, yes, but I've put a good deal of effort into it to ensure that whoever picks it up first will not feel left out or cheated." Since the books meld elements of Celtic, Norse, Middle Eastern and American Indian myth in a largely Medieval setting, obligatory comparisons with J.R.R. Tolkien surfaced almost immediately. Jordan accepts them with resigned good humor.
"On the one hand, I'm flattered. On the other, I would have to say it's overplayed. On the third hand, Tolkien encompassed so much in The Lord of the Rings and other books that he did for fantasy what Beethoven did for music.
"For a long time, it was believe that no one did anything that did not build on Beethoven. For his part, Tolkien did provide a foundation while himself building on an existing tradition. Although it's difficult now to forge a singular place in this foundation, people like Stephen R. Donaldson are doing it. I hope I am as well."
Throughout the years, genre fiction always has suffered from a sort of stepchild reputation, in part because so much formulaic, derivative, clumsy work has been produced in the various catagories. Then again, as Jordan points out, much the same can be said of any litary form. Regardless of the fictional landscape he explores-fantasy, Westerns, historical- he rejects the creative straitjacket whose constraints allow no deviation from a basic genre formula.
"Genre survives, Moby Dick is an adventure story, for heaven's sake. William Shakespeare wrote comedies. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote mysteries. What dooms a book is believeing you have to stay within the guidelines. And with each book you write, in whatever genre, you must strive to make it better than the preceding one. You hope one day to write The Canterbury Tales, something that will last 1,000 years."
Robert Jordan '91 Interview with STARLOG / Carolyn Fusinato
