Book review 2 -- Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

Book read: Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

A different childhood

When I compare my childhood with that of Eragon’s, I feel that I lead a dull and boring life. In this novel, Eragon faces many adventures and even found a dragon’s egg in the first book. Although he faces many life threatening situations, he was still able to overcome them, either by his own determination or from other people’s help. Eragon leads an interesting life as he can meet up with elves, dwarfs and all the magical creatures. However, unlike Eragon, I lead a very uninteresting life as nothing fun and exciting has really happened to me before. Although the adventures I seek are not as dangerous as Eragon’s, the only interesting thing that happened was when I got lost in a shopping centre. Hence, I feel that Eragon is very lucky to be able to embark on such an adventure where so many exciting things await him, though some may be life threatening.

Comparison of Eragon and Galbatorix

Eragon and Galbatorix have many similarities and differences.

Needless to say, both of them are one of the few reminding dragon riders and are also very powerful and talented magicians.

However, they have a lot of differences.

Eragon is a humble person who started off as a farm boy before he found the dragon egg. However, he was not power-hungry and was very compassionate and kind. For instance, he was repulsed by killing the enemy although he had no choice. Another example is also when he did not kill Katrina’s father although he betrayed them. Eragon, being kind-hearted, only strives to help the people by eliminating Galbatorix.

On the other hand, Galbatorix is an evil and cruel king. He does not care about his soldiers’ life or death and only wants his job done no matter what. This can be shown when he made 300 of his soldiers lose the feeling of pain just to kill more of the Varden’s soldiers. He does not even find killing repulsive. Moreover, he is so power-hungry to the extent that he would go and steal the dragon’s hearts of hearts to become more powerful.

As shown above, we can see how different Eragon and Galbatorix are, although both of them are dragon riders.


Excerpt from Roran’s point of view

“Choose something- be it an emotion, image or sound and let it swell within your mind until it blocks out anything other thing”.

“That’s all?” I was taken aback by the simplicity of the task.

“It’s not as easy as you think. Go on and take a step at it. When you are ready let me know and I will see how well you have done”.

I was determined to impress my cousin, to show him that I could do this. I focused all my thoughts on my memories of Katrina and thought of nothing else. When I was ready, I flicked my fingers.

A powerful mental ray rammed into the thick wall that I had built in my mind but I stayed firm. I knew that Eragon could not break into my mind if I concentrated hard. Indeed, Eragon could not find any entrance in.

However, I accidentally shifted my left foot and the wood beneath released a harsh squeal. Momentarily distracted by the sudden noise, my concentration fell apart and the wall was immediately shattered into pieces.


Is this a good title or a bad one?

Generally, I feel that Christopher Paolini is very creative, being able to come up with such an idea. After reading this book, I feel that the title of this book is very unique and special. I say this because no one would have guessed that the title of the book would be “fire” in the ancient language. Some people even thought that the book would be named “Empire”. This is also a good title, as it has something to do with the book. Brisingr is the name of Eragon’s newly made sword which he had dreamt of getting. This sword is important as it is a dragon’s rider sword. Furthermore, Brisingr could also be the true name of that sword. Hence, Christopher Paolini decided to use this title to highlight the significance of the sword.