The year was 1996, maybe. I was in university. I didn't know what to read, and lamented this fact to my friend Liz. I always loved fantasy but was not abreast of new releases up to that point, aside from Discworld. She handed me the paperback of Eye of the World from her shelf. I read it. I handed it back. She said, "It's good, right?" I nodded yes. She probably loaned me the next two books at least. She also gave me [b:The Sword of Shannara|15575|The Sword of Shannara (The Original Shannara Trilogy, #1)|Terry Brooks|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1470063017l/15575._SY75_.jpg|877015] and [b:The Magic of Recluce|185253|The Magic of Recluce (The Saga of Recluce, #1)|L.E. Modesitt Jr.|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386922249l/185253._SY75_.jpg|1246811] and I hated both of those, but the Wheel of Time stuck.

I don't recall exactly how quickly I worked through the series. When I started there were already six or seven books out. I do remember acquiring, disposing of, and re-acquiring the series multiple times over the following years, never spending a dime to do so. At that time and place, I could literally find copies lying in hallways and on sidewalks. This was the age of the famously shoddy Tor paperback editions, whose covers could barely endure a single read-though before coming unglued. (The later books I read without paying by borrowing from a friend who bought them as they were released.) I was of an age when I thought nothing of re-reading the earlier books endlessly, to "catch-up" whenever a new volume presented itself. My Wheel of Time series reading history looks something like this, referring to the book numbers:

1-2-3. 1-2-3-4-5-6. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. 5-6-7-8. 7-8-9. 9-10. At this point I said, "Fuck it," regarding re-reading any of them again. 0. 11. Jordan dies, fuck. 12. 13. 14.

This brings us up to the present, eight years after I last ventured into WoT, to do it all over again. But this time, dammit, I'm paying attention! If I ever re-read them after this, it will be out of joy, not because I think I need to refresh my memory or experience. I still have barely spent a dime on the books, ever; I lucked into the entire series in hardcover for a dollar each at my public library's donation-driven book sale. The plan is to blitz the whole 4,410,036 word series in 2021, and I have a wonderful group to share this experience with. So, once more a wind rises in the Mountains of Mist. It is not the beginning, but it is a beginning . . .

Reader Warning: there are likely spoilers in the rest of this review. I will tag the worst of them, but will openly mention things that, if you are brand new to this series, you might not want to hear about in advance.

On this re-read, I am astounded by how much of the saga Jordan had planned out from the start. There is a ton of lore and a ton of series fantasy elements that I was suprised to rediscover making their first appearance so early. This series has a glossary, to my mind the most well-known glossary in literary history. I have never found it srictly necessary; I can't recall ever encountering a term that I didn't understand, once it had been defined in-book, but it's a joy to flip through the glossary and dwell in the worldbuilding reflected there anyway. Maybe if I thought to refer to the glossary more often, I wouldn't have felt the need to re-read the books so damned much. I digress. Feast, if you will, on a short list of the author's imaginings:

Aes Sedai. Ajahs. Saidin. Saidar. Whitecloaks. Trollocs. Halfmen/Myrddraal/Fades. Wolfbrother. Ogier. Heron-mark. Warder. Shayol Ghul. Shadar Logoth. Aiel. Treekiller. Draghkar. Steddings. The Ways. Gleemen. Tar Valon. Tuatha'an. Ta'veren. Angreal; sa'angreal.

It's a lot to take in, but it is all presented manageably. Jordan is not the absolute greatest writer, but he's not bad by any stretch. Adverbs are few and far between. Necessary information is presented organically through the characters' experience. There are some frustrations for the reader; why doesn't Moiraine explain things more? Why do the boys keep their insanely scary dreams secret from the wise and powerful person protecting them? You can explain these and more away in the context of this world and characters, but it can admittedly be annoying at times. The plot moves along at a good pace, after a somewhat slow start until the gang leaves the Two Rivers. The time that the book spends there pays off; despite the fact that it's left in the dust, it's important that it's firmly fleshed out as the main characters' home, for which they feel genuine longing to return to, and the series does turn back to it later.

One aspect of this book and series that many people find grating: the way that men and women interact. They frequently seem like different species, sparring and taking gender-based sides over other divisions even when this might go against some of their interests. Two Rivers has both a male-populated Village Council and a Women's Circle, often at odds and both highly territorial. There was one passage in Chapter Twelve that struck me on this reading which, though not particularly exciting or specific, puts this issue in perspective and, for me, spelled out the author's intent in this matter :

"The One Power", Moiraine was saying, "comes from the True Source, the driving force of Creation, the force the Creator made to turn the Wheel of Time." She put her hands together in front of her and pushed them against each other. "Saidin, the male half of the True Source, and Saidar the female half, work against each other and at the same time together to provide that force."

See, it's not just an old-fashioned conception of men and women, it's foundational to the cosmology of this world. This is how the Wheel turns, with male and female pushing against each other and at the same time working together. This is not terribly profound, and you're probably thinking, "Well, duh," but this is going to help me throughout this series whenever that gender clash plays out. Especially with Nynaeve.

Speaking of Nynaeve, guess who else was introduced in this book? That's right, Nynaeve's braid!

Nynaeve al'Meara stepped into their huddle, the dark braid pulled over her shoulder almost bristling with anger.

The braid has its own anger! It's almost bristling with it! Even if you have not read Wheel of Time before, you may have heard tell of how Nynaeve pulls her braid at great frequency and with much ferocity. For this read-through, I decided to track for myself how often this occurs. Sure, it's been counted and documented elsewhere, but what fun would it be to just look it up? So, do you want to know how many times Nynaeve tugged at the braid in this book? Only once. I was amazed. Either Jordan had not latched on to this particular mannerism quite yet, or the situation of continuous danger simply didn't lend itself to it. Another thing I decided to count on this outing is the number of times that Rand thinks he doesn't understand women but Mat or Perrin does, or Mat thinks he doesn't understand women but Rand or Perrin does, or Perrin thinks that he doesn't understand women but Mat or Rand does. I remember getting extremely tired of this recurring gag around book nine or ten. It happens six times in Eye of the World. Ugh.

One other thing that I missed during past readings but noted well this time was the burgeoning romance between Lan and Nynaeve. It flew totally over my head every other time I read this book, so that when they openly discuss the matter at one point I was like, "Heh?" Now older and wiser, I had more acute awareness of the prior moments leading up to this. Yay, me.

The following section contains real spoilers, really don't read it if this book is new to you. I am tracking all of this for my own sake. I'm serious, this has ALL the spoilers.

Spoiler

Characters introduced: Two Rivers: Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve. Travellers: Thom Merrilin, Padan Fain. Tar Valon: Moiraine, Lan. Whitecloaks: Bornhold (captain, older, calm and extremely clever), Byar (young, virulently devout). Elyas wolfbrother. Tinkers: Raen, Aram. Shadar Logoth: Mordeth ("person"), Mashadar (evil mist/spirit). Caemlyn: Queen Morgase, Elayne, Gawyn (Elayne's brother), Galad (tattletale), Gareth Bryne (Captain General), Elaida (Aes Sedai). Loial. Bail Domon (ship captain that Rand and Mat sailed with). Min.

Main events: Moiraine comes to the Two Rivers and leads Rand, Mat, Perrin away with Egwene and Thom tagging along, pursued by the Dark One's forces and followed by Nynaeve. Eventually pursued to Shadar Logoth, separated in flight from there. Rand, Mat and Thom sail downriver to Whitebridge, Thom fights Fade while boys run to Caemlyn. Egwene and Perrin cross river, meet Elyas and Tinkers, get captured by Whitecloaks and are rescued by Moiraine, Lan and Nynaeve. All meet in Caemlyn. Rand falls into castle and meets Elayne and Gawyn and others. Loial joins. The boys finally tell Moiraine of their dreams and mention of the Eye of the World, so they all use the Ways to get to Fal Dara and journey through the Blight to find the Green Man and the EotW. Aginor and Balthamel reveal themselves. Balthamel and the Green Man kill each other. Rand kills Aginor by drawing the connection to the EotW away from him, Aginor burns up. Rand makes portal to castle to confront Ba'alzamon (really Ishmael?), severs his power connection to the Dark One with a white light sword and burns him with white light, and like Aginor he burns up. Weeks pass and Rand starts sword training with Lan.

Timeline: Spring (with Winter weather hanging over unnaturally until the end).

Min's visions:
Lan: seven ruined towers and a baby holding a sword (obvious).
Thom: a man (not him) juggling fire, and Tar Valon.
Perrin: a wolf (obvious), and a broken crown, and trees flowering all around him.
Mat: a red eagle (Manetheren), an eye on a balance scale, a dagger with a ruby (Shadar Logoth dagger), a horn (Horn of Valere), and a laughing face.
Rand: a sword that isn't a sword, a golden crown of laurel leaves, a beggar's staff, you pouring water on sand, a bloody hand and a white-hot iron, three women standing over a funeal bier with you on it, black rock wet with blood.

Forsaken:
Ishmael: "walks the world". Pretends to be Ba'alzamon. Killed by Rand? (no)
Aginor: Greedy for power. Green cloak. Killed by Rand at the Eye of the World; burned up when Rand stole away the connection to the EotW saidin.
Balthamel: enjoys "pleasures of the flesh" (torture). Grey cloak. Killed bodily by the Green Man.

I enjoyed this in its original hardcover format from Tor; it feels like the right format for these books. The inside front and back covers have a warm, full-color two-page image, similar to the cover art, with the characters on horseback (would Moiraine really ride side-saddle? I don't think so) and thankfully with most of the Two Rivers folk far enough in the background that I can't complain about their depiction, not like on the upcoming covers. Stay tuned for my Great Hunt review for that particular rant. I did find it odd to have first the prologue, then the maps before chapter one; later books more properly move that famous map to the inside covers, where it is a lot easier to reference.