Better than Lord of the Rings

I’m about to make a bold statement.

Last year, in my English 3 class, we had an elective called British Modern Fantasy, and in it we studied The Lord of the Rings saga (it’s not a trilogy). I loved it of course; it is pretty difficult not to love Tolkien. However, there is a certain similar set of books which I personally think are better than The Lord of the Rings.

The books I’m talking about are the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. The first book is called Eragon  and I read it for the first time when I was about 12-years-old. The series grew to be extremely popular among young adults as the second (Eldest) and third (Brisingr) books were released. There was a three year wait between each book, which meant that by the time the final book (Inheritance) was released I was almost 18, and I have to say that I was in no way patient in each of those three year gaps.

I had such conviction during the Christmas holidays that I was going to sit down and read every book on my list that I had been wanting to read but had not gotten around to. This failed miserably. I spotted Eragon on my bookshelf one day towards the end of the holiday and I couldn’t restrain myself from plucking it off the shelf and starting to read it. Before I knew it, I was just as engrossed in the series as I had been back in high school. I sat and read them at every spare moment. I sped through them at a pace that alarmed even me, especially since the entire cycle consists of about 2 779 pages. I realised with only 4 days to go in my holiday that I still had the whole of Inheritance to read. I knew that I couldn’t take it back to Rhodes with me because 860 pages was a few too many to fit into my carryon bag. Let’s just say I may not have spent as much time with my family as I should have in those last few days. (I did manage to finish it, in case you were wondering).

Amortentia – my love for Harry Potter

People with a love for books will often speak of a specific book from their youth that has affected them in a profound way. For Njabulo S Ndebele it was No Longer At Ease by Chinua Achebe and for J.K. Rowling it was Emma by Jane Austen. For me, the book that shaped me in my teenage years was Harry Potter.

It sounds like exactly what you would expect from a teen of my generation, but that’s what I like best about it. I’m part of the only generation that had the opportunity to read the Harry Potter series as they were written and released. There will never again be lines of hundreds of fans all around the world waiting all night outside their local bookstores for the clocks to hit twelve and the doors to swing open. The next generations will not experience the exhilarating torment of waiting an entire year to find out what happens to the characters that they love in the same way that they love their best friend.

They will experience the instant gratification of being able to immediately read one after the other, but they will miss out on the feeling that has you close to tears, shaking with excitement as you wait to buy your copy. And then staying up all night because there is no way you are going to wait until morning to jump back in and immerse yourself in your favourite fictional world. However, the worst thing that the generations after me will not experience is the feeling that I felt when I was reading the last book. That bittersweet notion of wanting to race towards the end and find out what will happen to Harry, Ron and Hermione, but also being constantly aware of the fact that it is the last time you will ever be reading a Harry Potter book for the first time.