Monday, April 11, 2011

THE NERDIEST THING I'VE EVER DONE: That would be "read all four extant volumes of the Game of Thrones series," which I refuse to call the Song of Fire and Ice series, because that title is dumb. Anyway, Game of Thrones premieres on HBO this Sunday, and I thought I'd give my two cents. Thank god for the Kindle, because (a) at 3500 pages (and counting, four books into an alleged seven-book series) and a dry weight of 4.3 pounds, that's a lot of book to lug around; and (b) nobody wants to be the guy on the train reading the book with a picture of a glowing chalice on the cover or the word "sword" in the title. Look, these are books whose enjoyability is commensurate with their heft, and I know I shouldn't care what anybody thinks of what I'm reading, but I'm just stating the facts here: it is embarrassing to be a grown man reading a book that people will assume is about dragons.

Which, of course, is not what the series is about. There is less magic in the 720 pages of the first book, Game of Thrones, than there was in the first ten pages of Harry Potter, in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, in Lost or Inception, in Shoeless Joe or its pale, inferior adaptation, Field of Dreams. There is about as much magic in Game of Thrones as there was in Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude. In the first book, with one exception, magic appears really as the memory of past magic -- the book is 95% alternative history, and only 5% or so fantasy.

Which isn't to say that the series is un-nerdy. What it lacks in dragons, it makes up in swords and armor. This is a series that knows and cares about the difference between boiled leather and chain mail, between destriers and coursers, between swords and longswords and broadswords. It goes into exhaustive detail about the minutae of clannish squabbles -- not where-did-Lisbeth-Salander-shop detail, but still. And it does that annoying thing where all the names are familiar but slightly changed just to emphasize that they are in a world that is only slightly different from ours, so that Edward becomes Eddard, Jeffrey becomes Joffrey, James becomes Jaime, Benjamin becomes Benjen, etc. Irritating.

But it also does some decidedly un-nerdy things. For one thing, it creates fully three-dimensional characters who, with very few exceptions, are neither all good nor all bad. That's probably too trite a way to say it -- one thing that these books does very well is set up people's obligations and motivations so that you can see how actions that seem monstrous from one viewpoint seem rational and inevitable from another. It's rare to read a book where two characters you like despise each other for very good and unavoidable reasons. If you have found yourself rooting for murderous mobsters, violent drug lords and corrupt cops, sociopathic saloon owners, self-deluding meth cookers, and serial philanderers, you'll probably be okay with most of these characters.

The second thing that the series does exceedingly well is paint a captivating picture of the political intrigue surrounding a war for succession. Here it draws impressively on historical source material. George R.R. Martin basically took a timeline of the Wars of the Roses, cut it into pieces, kept the choicest bits, and rearranged them into a different chronology. Instead of Lancasters vs. Yorks, you now have Lannisters vs. Starks (though the Starks come off quite a bit more heroic, if not more competent, than the Yorks). You don't need to know anything about the Wars of the Roses to get through the series (I didn't; instead, I read up on the history after reading the fiction, and was duly rewarded with endless chuckles of recognition). It's possible you might get an extra thrill if you already know your English and Scottish history ("Ha, ha! That is just like the Black Dinner in which Sir William Crichton invited the ten-year-old Earl of Douglas and his younger brother to Edinburgh Castle, served them the head of a black bull, and then beheaded them at the table! Hilarious!"), but it's not necessary. What is important is that the series usually feels more like a political drama than like a swords-and-magicians epic.

The third thing I wanted to mention was that the series passes the Bechdel Test in spades. Many of the key characters in the novels are women, and they rarely (not never, but rarely) fit either the damsel-in-distress archetype or the male-character-made-female-to-fill-a-quota slot. The key women in the novel are plotters, schemers, and participants in the action whose roles and motivations come in part from their positions within the patriarchal feudal order. To make a comparison, it was never really necessary that President Roslyn on BSG be a woman, but it is critical in GoT that Cersei and Catelyn are women -- their characters otherwise would not make any sense.

That last point is not to suggest that this is an equal-opportunity work. One need not look any further than George R.R. Martin's patchwork beard and sea captain's hat to understand that this is hardcore nerd fiction, a territory overwhelmingly populated by men. Saying "it's not about dragons; it's really about fifteenth-century English politics" is not likely to change those numbers dramatically. But the Game of Thrones series is a nuanced, rich yarn, only partially compromised by its permanent state of being half-finished, and I have high hopes for the HBO series.

Still, I predict that Spacewoman will not make it through the first episode. Too many swords.

28 comments:

  1. Do you know I didn't realize until reading The New Yorker article on Martin (and the books, and the TV series, and the fans) that the name of the saga is A Song of Ice and Fire and not the other way around?  It really bugged me as I read the article, because I figured The New Yorker didn't get it wrong, but surely it wasn't really flipped around like that?

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  2. Tosy and Cosh5:02 PM

    The nerdiest thing I've ever done? Read the first three books more or less sequentially, take a year or so off, and then, before reading the fourth, re-read the first three.

    Yes, I very much like these books. Why do you ask?

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  3. Watts5:09 PM

    I'd never thought about these books and the Bechdel test until you mentioned it.  I hope that carries through to the tv series.

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  4. Andrew5:25 PM

    Seriously, I can't imagine reading this series any way but on Kindle. Also useful, the full text index of the series that you can then access while waiting in line for a food truck inspired by the books to promote the TV series. Which may be the single nerdiest thing ever in the history of the world. Not that I've done that, this week, at least. 

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  5. Matt B5:30 PM

    I think you may have just alienated all of the readers of this blog named Jaime...

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  6. Joseph J. Finn5:59 PM

    "<span> (b) nobody wants to be the guy on the train reading the book with a picture of a glowing chalice on the cover or the word "sword" in the title. "</span>

    *checking bag*

    Well, my copy of book 3 has a blue sword on it.  Is that better?

    (Extra nerd quotient?  I'm starting it tonight after I finish Helene Hanff's "Q's Legacy".)

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  7. slowlylu6:11 PM

    Can I just say that I love Isaac Spaceman's writing as much as I like ASoFaI. Wonderful wonderful write up.
    I am looking forward to seeing weekly/or maybe just end of series of reviews.

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  8. spacewoman7:03 PM

    I'm going to give it the old college try so that we don't end up with another endless series that we don't watch together (hi, Battlestar Galactica!), but I'm not sure I'm quite nerdy enough for this.  You kind of lost me at Eddard.

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  9. Jordan7:17 PM

    read the silmarillion?

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  10. isaac_spaceman7:45 PM

    Ten-year-old me couldn't get through that, but to this day I remember it as the book that had the best-smelling glue binding. 

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  11. Jordan8:39 PM

    it took me probably three tries over five years

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  12. Girl Detective8:43 PM

    I only made it halfway through 3 then gave up because I was fed up with the endless descriptions of people's clothing (the annoying guy had a sigil of a mockingbird on purple velvet, right?) and the food. How those people ate all that meat and no veg and avoided rickets, I just don't know.

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  13. Philomena8:50 PM

    I really love the fact that, in addition to impressively three-dimensional characters, GRRM has absoutely no qualms about writing long arcs that turn out to be red herrings or literal dead ends for the characters.  I'm still not sure that we'll watch this, since it would involve subscribing to HBO for the occasion, but on the other hand, it's likely to be better than many of the shows Phil finds on SyFy and which I end up watching anyway because I'm already on the couch and don't feel like moving.

    And yeah on the need for a Kindle to read fantasy in public.  I don't have one, which means my books with pictures of dragons on the cover stay home or in my purse when I'm out.  There's a guy in my subway car in the mornings who is always reading a Star Trek or Star Wars novel.  He is also a dead ringer for Comic Book Guy.  I don't wanna be that guy.  It might be time for a Kindle though. (Or an iPad).

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  14. isaac_spaceman9:22 PM

    Philomena -- if it's embarrassing for guys to read sci fi/fantasy in public, it has to be hazardous for you.  I suspect that the odds that Subway Car Comic Book Guy tries to strike up a conversation with you increase exponentially if you whip out a copy of Old Man's War, wedding band or not. 

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  15. Anonymous9:45 PM

    Just picked this up this weekend whilst in VT.... it's on my nightstand, and I'm pretty excited to give it a go.

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  16. calliekl9:46 PM

    Guest is me, stupid new firefox. Also forgot to mention that it's one of close to a dozen new books I got this weekend, so the trouble will be fitting it in.

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  17. sloschenkohl9:50 PM

    I so want to read this series, now even moreso. Its "permanent state of being half-finished," though, has stopped me in my tracks. I have been bitten by the series that never ends before. I can't be the only one who dug in her heels after Wheel of Time's 9th book or so and vowed to read not one word more before the dang thing was finished, can I? (insert obligatory disclaimer that my issue isn't with the series having to be handed off so much as with the fact that the pacing slowed so much they became a chore to slog through.) Is this one really so good that it's worth diving into for the experience (without regard for whether or not it ever, you know, ends?)?

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  18. Devin McCullen10:11 PM

    I would submit that being the guy reading a romance novel on the train is more embarassing than being the guy reading a sci-fi/fantasy novel. 

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  19. isaac_spaceman10:28 PM

    I don't self-identify as sci fi/fantasy (though maybe I'm not being honest with myself -- I just read and enjoyed, in short order, Perdido Street Station and The Book of Lost Things), but I thought the first three GoT books were well worth it, even if the story never gets resolved.  The fourth was still worth my time, but it felt like it spun its wheels a bit.  My feeling about the never-ending series is that you can always just decide what you think happened. 

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  20. Joseph J. Finn9:26 AM

    Trumped by the guy reading manga.

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  21. Boy, his publisher must have pushed him to use those middle initials.  Lannister is to Lancaster as GRR Martin is to JRR Tolkein.  I was oblivious to this entire GRR Martin phenomenon until I read about it in the New Yorker.  Count me among those who are highly unlikely to start in on an unfinished series.

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  22. The Pathetic Earthling10:36 AM

    One of my very best friends is the chief manga editor at Dark Horse Comics.

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  23. Joseph J. Finn10:48 AM

    Believe me, my comment was not about the quality but about the stigma. (Pathetic as the stigma is.)

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  24. Heather K11:07 AM

    I can totally concur that what Isaac said will happen, and I don't read hardly any fantasy.  My Kindle is a godsend for romance novels which are the heath bar of my reading, and now I can read them in public instead of only in my house when my roommates are not home.

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  25. Anonymous11:09 AM

    it's soo good though. this is the first fantasy series that i ever read (last spring, at the urging of a friend) and i was like "what makes this fantasy? this is just about people, some of whom might kinda sorta have some magical things going on, but really, it's just about people." it's really good. lots of killing, though. i had to take a break after book 3 because i was tired of the killing.

    i particularly like how a good number of the chapters are narrated by children and young adults who were previously children in earlier books. i like seeing their perspectives change as they grow up and/or as they face extreme craziness in their circumstances.

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  26. Alyssa1:09 PM

    Yes, totally worth it.  GoT is not WoT, and that is coming from someone who read Jordan's books obsessively in the 90s, and now I don't think I ever care to finish the series (I have a signed copy of one of the books, even - to Alyssa Sedai).  I stopped around book 9 as well.  I remember an entire book essentially rehashing the end of the previous book from the perspective of EVERY character.  Ridiculous.

    To further add to my geek cred, all my GRRM books are signed by the author.  And I even did a book report on GoT in 1997 (junior in HS).

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  27. I wilsh I could go back to six months ago and start reading these books.  I feel like I shouldn't read and watch at the same time. 

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  28. Nigel from Cameroon12:16 PM

    I'm giving it a enthusiastic try, even though I'm not a fantasy fan. High hopes, although perhaps I should be a bit more cautious. But...Bechdel test!?...who really gives a crap?

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