or Kaalachakra, as is known to Indic Religions, is a concept of cyclic time, of cosmos and mythos. It is also a fantasy (specifically, sword and sorcery subgenre) series by Robert Jordan, spanning 11 novels, and what is more, still incomplete! :(
Damn! why did Robert Jordan have to die so early? He could atleast have lived enough to complete his magnum opus. But then again, the Wheel Weaves as the Wheel Wills. Which is the adage that the inhabitants of Robert Jordan's world live by. It brings to mind a common Telugu adage: "Antaa Vishnu maaya".
A basic premise that the world of the Wheel of Time is built upon, as is obvious from the very title, is that Time is cyclical. The Wheel of Time has seven spokes, each representing an Age (which again is reminiscent of the Hindu concept of Yuga), and the Wheel itself is slowly turned by the combined effort of saidin and saidar, the male and the female halves of the One Power. As the Wheel rotates through the Seven Spokes, the Pattern is woven, and each Age comes to pass. Individuals may or may not have the ability to channel the One Power, which in turn leads to the individual being capable of fantastic feats. Females can channel only saidar, and males respectively saidin, and each cannot see the weaves of the others. Individuals while channeling the One Power weave the flows of the five elements, that is, Earth, Fire, Water, Air, and Spirit. Weaving the flows in a particular pattern creates a particular effect. Although any individual who can wield the One Power can channel all the five flows, it is said that females are generally more efficient/stronger at weaving Water and Air, and males at Earth and Fire. Very few individuals can in fact wield the One Power, and especially fewer males, which leads to the general populus looking askance at these special individuals. Especially males, who are doomed to go mad and die, ever since the Dark One left his taint on saidin, the male half of the One Power.
So much to say magic exists.
One thing that sets the Wheel of Time world apart from other fantastic or sci-fi worlds is the fact that Robert Jordan carefully avoids giving this world a different name. Consider this, vis-a-vis the other major creation of Robert Jordan, Conan the Cimmerian. Or as is better known by the name Conan the Barbarian (yes yes, the same B-grade flick which stars Arnie... I know what you're thinking, you pervs... ). Conan hails from Cimmeria, a polar country in Hyboria. As much as the map of Hyboria is verisimilar to that of Africa and Asia, it still is Hyboria, which by virtue of its name is not the same as our earth (more on this shortly). Consider other fantasy world creations, and you will most probably find a name they give for the planet/world they live in ("they" here being the creatures/people about whom the fantasy creation speaks of). Or, as is also widely prevalent, the creation is set in a timeline which is either far into the future of our current time, or has happened in the past of which no evidence remains (Hyperboria is a case in point: Its geographical setting is the same as the earth, but is supposed to have happened around 14,000 B.C - 10,000 B.C. ) Or as in the cases of The Chronicles of Narnia and Artemis Fowl, parallelly co-exist with our regular conception and perspectives of the world. The world of Wheel of Time is different in this sense: since it is based on a cyclical time line, one can never say whether the events occur far into the future or have occured already. Yet, one can still draw parallels with our regular earth, be it in artifacts (like the steam engine, or the skeleton of prehistoric animals as mentioned in the palace of the Panarch of Tarabon), or socio-cultural revolutions (Industrial revolution), and such others. Which only adds to the mystery, and leaves the readers contemplating whether the world as we know it might not also be one of the seven Ages.
Mention is made of Ages which are technologically much advanced, (sho-wings, shock-lances, stasis boxes) although the people in the current Age rely to a great extent on their own hands and feet, on horse-drawn carriage and carts, and weaponry is still limited to bows and arrows. This fall in technology, and the very obvious difference of the geographical structure of the world (as compared to our continents), is explained by the Breaking of the World. A cataclysmic event, at the end of the Age of Legends (called the second Age by some), when Lewis Therin Telamon binds the Dark One at Shayol Ghul, and as a last counter-attack, the Dark One taints saidin, which leads to Lewis and all the male Aes Sedai going mad. In their madness, the male Aes Sedai wreak havoc on the world, and even the geography of the world is changed, raising mountains from lake beds and submerging lands under the sea. So now in the Third Age, everybody looks at male wielders of the One Power with disgust, fear, loath, and other dark thoughts. For who was it that broke the world? And everybody knows they are doomed to die, as saidin is tainted. But then, the Dragon Reborn, a man who can channel saidin, is the only hope of salvation for people, as Tarmon Gai'don, the final battle, approaches. Or atleast so the Dragon Prophecies say. A man who can channel saidin, a man looked down upon by the female Aes Sedai, a man loathed by many, a man feared by all. Will he rise to the occasion? Will he save these same people? How will he do it, when he himself is fated to go mad and die?
The Wheel of Time is said to be High Fantasy, an epic saga of the battle between good and evil, and the "epic"ness of this saga not only comes from the setting and the premise mentioned above, but also due to the level of detail that the author portrays the peoples of the world. Each country has a significant culture, a significant fashion sense, and sometimes even a significant manner of speech. The different peoples even have different physical characteristics of the human body. Short pale-faced Cairheinin, usually dressed in somber dark clothes, sporting only slashes of colours. Tall, dark, flame haired Aiel, with their cadin'sor and algode clothes. Even temperaments of the people are characteristic of the place they hail from. Touchy Altarans, secretive Cairhienin, and outspoken Andorans. This level of detail, of the peoples and cultures, adds to the richness and colour of the vivid imagination that is evoked as one reads through the novels. Not only that, each of the peoples have their own set of moral values, sayings and adages, that a child is brought up upon and invariably imbibes, which is probably the mould for the cultural leanings of that people. Another interesting diversity among people is the differing concepts of shame and modesty, of what is appropriate and what is not, of reality and dreams, of freedom and slavery, of humour and sobreity. The Aiel and Seanchan cultures are cases in point, and I feel that the concepts of da'covale and gai'shain are probably related. Although this portrayal of cultural and other diversities of the peoples is detailed in its own way, it is probably lacking in one major aspect, that of language. One has to agree that creating different languages for different countries, given that there are more than a dozen of them, is particularly tasking and the effort may not be fully justified. But having the same language for all the peoples of such a huge continent, however convenient it may be for the author, cuts down on the behavioural differences and a lot of other aspects. Also, the Old Tongue is never explained fully, and one only has bits and pieces to contend with. This is probably due to the fact that Robert Jordan was much more interested in history rather than linguistics. Tolkien, on the other hand, was a linguist and that might have had a larger influence with the popularity and the quality of his novels, than his mere skill at writing stories. Also, Tolkien writes primarily in the third person, and manages to create a sense of detached awe and respect, as it were, whereas Jordan almost continually slips into the first person, which only makes the novels that much more earthy, bawdy, and closer to the heart.
Apart from the diversity of the peoples, one aspect which is especially endearing to me is this sub plot which runs constantly throughout almost all of his books: the apparent difficulty with which men and women have to put up with when dealing with individuals of the opposite sex, especially the ones they care for and are close to. All men agree that they'll never understand women, and all women are contemptuous at why men have to behave so and so. This constant rift, this friction, is almost always given a sarcastic or a humourous twist, and inevitably makes me chuckle at the stupidity of either sex, while at the same time has me ruefully acknowledge that our real world is not very different. How many ever times one hears it said that "talking and opening up to the other" helps in dealing with issues, some things just can't be talked about, and they are not the same things for both the sexes. Wherein lies part of the difficulty. The greater part of the difficulty is simply acknowledging that the other person is correct, if only for a moment, and this is brought out beautifully in the novels.
Another observation that I feel compelled to point out, is this: the novels often get repetitive, as if reminding the readers of the character's temperaments or the views of a particular group of people. I personally feel this is very unnecessary, completely redundant, and only adds to the total length of the novels. These personal views might also have been evoked due to the fact that I have read all the novels back to back, which might not be the case with the general public. Maybe, just maybe, the general public do not read all the novels back to back, and may need to be reminded of particular events/places/thoughts/characters, though it is beyond my imagination why the general public would NOT read all the books back to back. Atleast now, that all the books have been released. In my opinion, as most of the books have less than 500 pages, sets of these books should be aggregated into volumes, and redundancy/repetitive information should be removed from these books. Four or five larger volumes make for a better reading than eleven smaller novels. And frankly, the story and the plot is gripping enough to merit such an aggregation.
Yet another important concept worth mentioning, along with the dualities between good and evil, man and woman, saidin and saidar, is that of the Pattern and Chaos. The Dark One is said to be the Lord of Chaos, and the Creator is said to have created the Wheel of Time which weaves the Pattern. This duality between Pattern and Chaos is almost synonymous with the duality between good and evil, and reminds me of another epic fantasy series, Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber. These (set of) 10 novels are based on a different premise, but the central structure is the Pattern, and that which opposes it, the Chaos. One singular difference is that Zelazny rarely attributes "good" or "evil" connotations to either the Pattern or the Chaos. In the Wheel of Time, though, the Dark Lord is attempting to unravel the Age Lace, and step out of the Pattern, thus putting an end to Time itself. What is the Age Lace? That is rarely mentioned in the novels itself, since very few people even understand it now. A lot of knowledge and a lot of technology was lost in the Breaking of the World, and the Aes Sedai that have survived are but a mere patch on the former glory and achievements of the Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends. Also briefly mentioned are matrices and transformations, in relation with the Age Lace, although never explained. A lot of such things are left to the reader's imagination, which also makes up for the mystery effect.
To set the die rolling, I would like to end this post with the characteristic signature of every book of the Wheel of the Time:
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
