Winter’s Heart is an improvement over its immediate predecessor (which also represented something of an improvement). The tension has been ratcheted up and the story benefits. In fact, if there is a complaint, it is that there is not enough of a lull for readerly breathers. Jordan doesn’t do clean; he does cluttered. And with so much urgent clutter, well… I could use a little of the literary version of the clean, untroubled geometries of Scandinavian Modern.

More than in the last book, Jordan lets us spend longer stretches at a time with characters, with more chapters focused on the third person limited perspective of a single hero or (more frequently) heroine.

The first few books had most of the major characters together much of the time, but now, they are splitting up more and more and I’m not sure that Jordan always got the balance right (in the previous book, for example, Mat Cauthon, one of my favorites, seem to drop off the face of the earth).

While I haven’t given the Wheel of Time thorough analysis using the Bechdel Test (which is intended for movies, actually: are there at least two women characters, who talk to each other, and who talk about something other than a man?), Jordan gives plenty of time to his female characters. More than to his male characters, in truth. I’m not sure how deliberately feminist this is: he probably realized that Egwene and Elayne, in particular, are far more interesting than the main hero, Rand, and one of his two friends,Perrin (Mat, his other friend, I think is a pretty interesting and enjoyable character and it’s good to see him given a solid run out in this book).

He likes to insert chapters from the third person limited perspective of certain villains, often letting us see how their plans will muck up those of our heroes or how said heroes are walking into a trap. This has the effect of ratcheting up the tension but also of appearing to be just another means to avoid moving the story closer to completion. Certainly, one can’t blame Sanderson for taking three books to finish the series (supposedly, Jordan intended to complete the series at twelve volumes, but having spent at least five of the eleven books he wrote in the series dragging things out, it seems unfair to expect someone to reasonably and fairly to the readers wrap it up in just one) on account of this kind of behavior.

There’s been a sort of Tantric Sex thing going on in the last few books, with Jordan denying me a climax. But, this time, he does deign to give the reader a pretty significant climax. Too bad he mucks it up.

Rand cleans the taint from the male half of the One Power, saidin. This is not, actually, a kinky sex thing (mother, if you’re reading this… ask my cousin), but kind of a big deal, since not only does the taint (giggle) give men who use saidin debilitating nausea, it also drives men mad.

And the worst thing is that its effects appear to have transformed the hero of prophecy, the man who will save the world from the Dark One at the final battle between good and evil, Rand al’Thor, the orphaned son of a Spear Maiden, into a whiny little b—h.

While cleansing the taint from the source of men’s magical power makes me look forward to the next book more, it was handled poorly in this one.

First of all, it was a surprise. Sure, we’d read about his desire to do so, but the reader was kept too much in the dark as regards the studies, plans, and preparations to do it. Frankly, I felt cheated and disrespected by what was, essentially, an ill-conceived authorial trick.

Secondly, there was a big battle surrounding the actual cleansing ceremony, but it was described in such a disjointed and muddy fashion that I finished with little feel for what actually happened, who was involved, and where they stood in relation to each other.

But I do have hope that things will start moving again and the mere narrative fact of cleansing saidin opens up a lot of opportunities for improvement in the readability of the next book (which I already have in my hot little hands).

Jordan knew he was dying. Did he, I wonder, see the constant extension and expansion of the epic that must e considered his life’s work as a means of extending his own life? Unconsciously feeling that not finishing the series being a way to keep his own story from being finished?

While this whole New Year’s resolution thing has definitely gotten me to settle down and focus on getting some real reading done, the one book a week test I’ve set myself has some downsides. Mainly that, in order to meet my weekly goal of finishing a book, I’m somewhat discouraged from diving into more works that are both challenging and lengthy.

I’m currently reading Rimbaud’s Illuminations, which is challenging, but not long. This book, of course, is long (750 odd pages), but not challenging. And you saw that last week I rather cheated and read a chapbook. But, I did get myself a copy of Crossroads of Twilight, the next book in The Wheel of Time. At this rate, I may finally finish the series before the end of the year and put this part of my life behind me.