Why I don't read epics right now

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

I shudder to think of what The Sword of Shannara in hardcover cost to produce...that thing was over seven hundred pages long with expensive, thick paper, and with the artwork as well which I honestly didn't find really necessary, though it was quite good.


Not to mention that Tad Williams had to split the last piece of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn into two separate volumes for paper back, and both of them were quite long as well. (I think over six hundred pages each.) It really annoyed me for a long time, that, because for years I simply could NOT find Volume III, Part II anywhere.


Luckily a few years ago I found a singular, solitary copy in Borders and pounced on the opportunity, but you get what I'm saying, surely.

 

[goldhawk]

On the other hand, several pieces by Olaf Stapledon, usually at 200 pp. or less, most definitely are... and then there's Hodgson's The House on the Borderland, which takes you clear across the cosmos and to the end of the universe and back, at about the same length....

To me, epic means big; lots of characters doing many things. Are you sure you're not confusing epic with chivalric romance?

 

[Phyrebrat]

This may be nothing more than an uninteresting anecdote, but....

One of the hardest struggles for me in living memory was finishing The Passage by Justin Cronin. Not because it was badly written (it wasn't) and not because I loathe pretty much anything with vampires these days (I actually quite liked the Smokes in the book - they seemed half-velociraptor, half-Judderman), but because whilst it felt epic as most Post-apocalyptic concepts do, I suppose, there were whole events I thought could have been excised. The opening to half-way were great, but then I feel it dragged somewhat and I started to not care about some of the main characters. And this was not that they were unsympathetically written, but it just all became a bit of a drudge...

So that's a starter; but I think more importantly, when I finished it, my sister mentioned that it is one of a series....! Now I am torn between my obsessive compulsion to finish the series, once published, or to .... well, or to nothing.

How often does this occur? When does a standalone become part of a larger mythology? Was I just behind on info? There was nothing in the book that suggested 'Coming Soon!'

 

[j d worthington]

To me, epic means big; lots of characters doing many things. Are you sure you're not confusing epic with chivalric romance?

"Chivalric romance"? The two, while not incompatible, are generally quite different. Here's the OED definition of epic:

1. Pertaining to that species of poetical composition [...] represented typically by the Iliad and Odyssey, which celebrates in the form of a continuous narrative the achievements of one or more heroic personages of history or tradition.

Since we are not talking epic poetry here, the verse form can be discarded for the following definitions derived from this origin:

A composition comparable to an epic poem

and

A story or series of events, worthy to form the subject of an epic.

In other words, a narrative of heroic events, generally told on a grand scale, either in terms of duration (a chronicle of a decades- or centuries-long war or struggle, for instance), or of vast numbers of heroic figures involved. (This is, of course, the more modern interpretation. The Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, has a very limited number of characters, and focuses almost entirely on Gilgamesh and Inkidu.)

The things I mention are of that type: they deal with grand, even apocalyptic, events and situations (including the witnessing of the passing of the universe) in a manner which enhances the grandeur and awe of the experience. Chivalric romance is another sort of thing altogether and, by the very use of that title, is narrowed down to that which takes place during a medieval or feudal period in history, or within a similar setting. The Chanson de Roland, the cycle of legends concerning Ogier the Dane, the Carolingian cycle, etc., are prime examples of these from the originals; a fair amount of William Morris would be good examples of more modern handling of such material.

But in any event, none of the works I mention above would fit at all the description of "chivalric romance", but they do indeed fit very well the concept of the epic... e.g., Milton's Paradise Lost....