Will Complex or Will Simple

 

I love rereading my favorite books, and right now, I am rereading the Ranger’s Apprentice series. Currently, I am on the ninth book, Halt’s Peril. I shall tell you a little about the book’s content. Halt, Will, and Horace are hot on the trail of a group of cults called the Outsiders. They plan to stop this party before the Outsiders can invade their homeland, Araluen. The leader of this cult, Tennyson, has hired professional assassins to get rid of the small party behind them. Halt and Will have to kill these assassins to stop Tennyson. They succeed, but Halt is poisoned by an arrow shot from the assassin’s crossbow.

    The Ranger’s Apprentice can be every bit as popular as a potboiler, and it is a New York Times Best Seller. But even though the series is really action packed, I still think that this book qualifies as literary fiction. I think the characters are very developed and precise. The description of Will, for example, is so detailed that I can almost see his slim build standing in front of me, smiling positively, or Horace, dancing athletically, preparing for the upcoming battles against the giant bodyguards of Tennyson.

    Not only are the characters’ appearances described in intricate detail, their personality is also very complex. The article For Better Social Skills, Scientist Recommend a Little Chekhov states that reading literary fiction can help you understand body language. The author of the Ranger’s Apprentice does a lot of description of body composition, so this series must be literary fiction. He describes little movements like the slump of shoulders, or an intake of breath to ask a question.

    There are so many examples of body position in this book, it would be hard to fit them all in this essay. But I will give a few cases. In the first book, when Halt is telling Will about his father, the author described that the light began to shine from Will’s eyes. Also, when Will and Evanlyn are burning the bridge, Will has a light of grim determination in his eyes as he stops the charging Wargals. More than once in the ninth book, the author describes the characters with slumped shoulders. Knowing these body cues can help you in a blind date to see what feeling is going through your girlfriend at any moment.

    I don’t think I will be changing my habit of mainly reading literary fiction. These types of books are just as fun to read as potboilers, if not more. Even though it is too early for me to go on a blind date or job interview, it never hurts to be prepared for the future. But if one day, there is a really good potboiler, then I probably will read that.

    I really hope that reading literary fiction will help in a blind date or job interview. When I go to the date, I certainly would not want to kiss a girl who doesn’t like me!