James Oliver Ridney, Jr. – AKA Robert Jordan – was born on October 17, 1948. Sadly, he passed away on September 16, 2007, from a rare medical condition that directly affected his heart.
Best known as the author of The Wheel of Time fantasy book series, he was and still is beloved by his fans. I’ve mentioned several times that my son is a longtime, hardcore fan of the WOT series which has exposed me to a lot about this extremely interesting man over the years. In fact, I read the Origins of the Wheel of Time: The Legends and Mythologies That Inspired Robert Jordan by Michael Livingston earlier this year and found it fascinating. So I thought I’d share a few quotes from it that jumped out at me about what Jordan accomplished in The Wheel of Time.
About Jordan as successor to Tolkien by creating the extremely diverse Wheel of Time world
For all these similarities, however, Jordan is not simply a Tolkien imitator. I have elsewhere called him “an American Tolkien,” and that adjective signifies more than just nationality in this case. It points to a significant difference in his creative approach. America is, famously, a melting pot of culture, and Jordan subsumed this same quality in The Wheel of Time. Tolkien wanted to construct a myth for England and so confined himself often to what he considered a Western cultural heritage, but Jordan aimed at much bigger things. Everything was fair game for his creation, from Eastern myths to Native American cosmology. There are connections seemingly everywhere.
Origins of the Wheel of Time: The Legends and Mythologies That Inspired Robert Jordan by Michael Livingston, chapter 2
About Jordan as the ultimate collector and combiner of mythologies, aka stories for the ages
King Arthur is in The Wheel of Time. Merlin, too. But so are Alexander the Great and the Apollo space program. The Norse gods and Napoleon’s greatest victory. It’s astonishing how much is in these books once you see what he was doing.
Origins of the Wheel of Time: The Legends and Mythologies That Inspired Robert Jordan by Michael Livingston, Introduction
About Jordan, the gleeman at heart
The gleeman Thom Merrilin actually tells us as much when he first appears in The Wheel of Time. After introducing himself as a storyteller—he is, we’ll see, a character rooted in both Merlin the magician and one of the greatest bards of myth—what he goes on to say is this:
“I have all stories, mind you now, of Ages that were and will be. Ages when men ruled the heavens and the stars, and Ages when man roamed as brother to the animals. Ages of wonder, and Ages of horror. Ages ended by fire raining from the skies, and Ages doomed by snow and ice covering land and sea. I have all stories, and I will tell all stories.”
Thom speaks not only for himself, but for the greater work of literature of which he is a part. This is The Wheel of Time at its heart: All stories.
Origins of the Wheel of Time: The Legends and Mythologies That Inspired Robert Jordan by Michael Livingston, chapter 2
I’ve never heard anyone speak of gleeman Thom Merrilin being the avatar of Jordan himself but, yes, I can definitely see it.
And finally, thank you, Robert Jordan, for your storytelling that almost single handedly taught my son to love reading. A lot. For that alone I am forever grateful.