Fire and ice

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies," said Jojen. "The man who never reads lives only one."

This series of books alone, with its vast array of characters, offers a reader hundreds of lives: lords, princes, queens, whores, fools, pawns, swordsmen, witches, holymen.

I've finished A Dance with Dragons, book five of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice. This series has been quite the unexpected 5000-page diversion for me these last few months. I'd planned on reading all sorts of things this summer. Instead I found myself embroiled in the politics of Westeros.

I've been reading it sunny days on the boat, rainy days curled up on the sofa, late into the night, with my morning coffee. Sure, I read a few smaller novels alongside these, but the world of A Song of Fire and Ice has sprawled across my summer.

The standout book for me is book three (A Storm of Swords), but each of them has its key events and players and shifting tides.

A Dance with Dragons had a lot of hype to live up to. I'm disappointed that this book had almost nothing about Arya, whose storyline and current circumstances I find most intriguing. There's little about Cersei and Jaime, nothing of Sansa or Sam. But instead Martin returns us to Tyrion and Jon, whose respective stories had been ignored in book four. One thing I dislike about this book is the new trick of naming chapters coyly (for example, The King's Prize, or The Blind Girl) instead of owning up immediately to the character perpective being taken as has been the tradition so far. But I guess the suspense ultimately pays off.

I'm devastated that certain people die.

The moon was a crescent, thin and sharp as the blade of a knife. Summer dug up a severed arm, black and covered with hoarfrost, its fingers opening and closing as it pulled itself across the frozen snow. There was still enough meat on it to fill his empty belly, and after that was done he cracked the arm bones for the marrow. Only then did the arm remember it was dead.

This series is addictive. The world is detailed, the characters (most of them) are fully three-dimensional. Life here is ethically complicated. There are bits that drag, but Martin always kept me wanting to know what happened next. I'm already looking forward to The Winds of Winter.

They sit moony, staring up at the bloody blue

I'm very excited to be finally starting A Dance with Dragons! I was pretty ambivalent about book 4 (A Feast for Crows) for the first few hundred pages, but some of the newer characters did manage to draw me in and pull me along.

I must say I found the violence in that book somewhat more difficult to stomach (Asha Greyjoy. Brienne.). It didn't feel gratuitous exactly, but since the nature of it has changed (has it? or am I just now noticing it?) it's natural that my relationship with it has changed too. In addition to genuine concern for character outcomes, I'm driven along now also by sick curiosity.

Anyway, the final couple hundred pages of book 4 made it all worthwhile (Arya — I love that kid! Cersei — I hate that bitch!). Every now and again I bemoan that these books are ssooo llooonng, but it's been great to have something so escapist to turn to over the last week as I've spent time in several waiting rooms and was otherwise housebound (torn meniscus), and for the coming week as well, since all childcare plans for the final days of summer have gone to pot.

I'm still a bit puzzled by the labels this series of books is associated with: epic fantasy, high fantasy, magic. To my mind, the books read like historical romance, with a bit of other stuff thrown in.

The fantastic creatures that "people" the books are not the kind humans rub shoulders with at the village fair. The creatures are outsiders to the established social world. That nudges the books toward horror. The elements of magic — isolated incidents — are looked upon with great scepticism. The creatures, the magic, the shamanism, the supernaturalism, they are not viewed as the normal state of the world. This is nothing like the Piers Anthony or Michael Moorcock I read in my youth. In many ways, this world feels more real, more like our own.

I'm betting that the page count covering all those traditionally fantastic elements is paltry relative to the thousands of pages of "history" being related.

So it comes as a surprise (even a treat) that the prologue to book 5 should look more closely at one of those fantastic/horrific aspects.

Dogs were the easiest beasts to bond with; they lived so close to men that they were almost human. Slipping into a dog's skin was like putting on an old boot, its leather softened by wear. As a boot was shaped to accept a foot, a dog was shaped to accept a collar, even a collar no human could see. Wolves were harder. A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf, but no man could truly tame a wolf. "Wolves and women wed for life," Haggon often said. "You take one, that's a marriage. The wolf is part of you from that day on, and you're part of him. Both of you will change."

Other beasts were best left alone, the hunter had declared. Cats were vain and cruel, always ready to turn on you. Elk and deer were prey; wear their skins too long, and even the bravest man became a coward. Bears, boars, badgers,. weasels . . . Haggon  did not hold with such. "Some skins you never want to wear, boy. You won't like what you'd become. "Birds were the worst, to hear him tell it. "Men were not meant to leave the earth. Spend too much time in the clouds and you never want to come back down again. I know skinchangers who've tried hawks, owls, ravens. Even in their own skins, they sit moony, staring up at the bloody blue."

How fiction works

It turns out that How Fiction Works, by James Wood, is not at all what I expected it to be. 1. It's very readable. 2. There's a lot in it that I find problematic.

I thought there would be more yes, you're so right, so bright, I'm such an idiot for not seeing it that way before, but instead I'm finding i) things I already know, and ii) things I don't necessarily agree with.

Really, he's such a well-respected critic, I'm surprised I have the guts to stand up to him (in my head, anyway). It turns out I don't see fiction quite the same way Mr Wood does, and rather than feeling stupid about it, I'm giving myself a pat on the back for having, over the last few years, learned, all by myself, and with the help of the likes of you, how to read fiction, and reasonably well.

The first bit is about narration and perspective, and the tension between the author's point of view and a given character's (and he calls this irony), and how you can tell a word belongs to one or the other, and what it tells us about one or the other. So far, so sensible.

It becomes clear, though, that's he's cherry-picking his examples to serve his point.

I'm not here to stage a defense of David Foster Wallace (I'm not qualified) — plenty of others have done that before me. But.

Wood excerpts a passage from "The Surfing Channel" (found in Oblivion). Wood has no problem with Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis (neither of whom I've read) making use of ads and business letters, the "media-speak" of their day, in their work. But "In Wallace's case, the language of his unidentified narration is hideously ugly, and rather painful for more than a page or two" [24]. Ugly. The same tension he's trying to demonstrate, the blurring between author and character, exists beautifully here, but to Wood the words are ugly. To be fair, it seems he's not blaming DFW, it's the language of the times he lives in that's at fault. But c'mon. Ugly. That's a fat 4-letter load of judgement.

Wood talks about verb tenses and time signatures — how things happen at different speeds, now or continuously — detail and randomness, and gives a lovely example of how memory works. Then he seems to contradict himself:

The artifice lies in the selection of detail. In life, we can swivel our heads and eyes, but in fact we are like helpless cameras. We have a wide lends, and must take in whatever comes before us. Our memory selects for us, but not much like the way literary narrative selects. Our memories are aesthetically untalented. [39]

I think my memory's pretty talented actually. All it wants to do is force a narrative on itself. I'd say my sense of aesthetics evolves from how I process my reality (I have no sense of aesthetics before I'm there to experience it), not the other way round. Increasingly it seems Wood aspires to some 19th-century ideal; Madame Bovary, c'est lui.

So I reached for my copy of Oblivion. And guided by the thoughts I'd jotted down when I first read it, I found:

I am still far from being certain of what the rapid flash of the Father's transfigured face was meant to mean, not why it remains so vivid in my memory of our courtship. I think it can only be the incongruous, near instantaneous quality of its appearance, the utter peripheralness of it. For it is true that the most vivid and enduring occurrences in our lives are often those that occur at the periphery of our awareness.

So while Wood is going on about seemingly random writerly detail intending to denote the real but in fact signifying it, I'm seeing that I favour DFW telling me the actual real, in all its excruciating, unadulterated glory.

I suspect it would take less time for me to actually do my taxes than to read DFW writing about the process of completing one's taxes. But Wood, I think, is looking to fiction for a kind of abridgement of life. Perhaps Wood has trouble sifting through his memory of real-life experience to cobble together a narrative (perhaps most people do?); he's not a writer, after all. Perhaps this is why we read, so others can string together stories for us.

Wood goes on to address character, whether "flat" or "rounded."

Is it contradictory to have defended the flatness of characters while simultaneously arguing that the novel has become a more sophisticated analyst of deep, self-divided characters? No, if one resists both Forster's idea of flatness (flatness is more interesting than he makes it out to be) and his idea of roundness (roundness is more complicated then he makes it out to be). In both cases, subtlety of analysis is what is important. [94]

I think I agree, though I suspect each reader will gauge "subtlety" differently.

Once character is firmly in place, chronology is no longer so important. Character seems also to be the basis of morality, or at least the framework across which to stretch the moral fabric of life in all its complexity.

The book gets a bit weaker as it goes along. Or maybe I'm just losing interest.

"One way to tell slick genre prose from really interesting writing is to look, in the former case, for the absence of different registers. [106]."
I'm glad to read this; it sounds like good advice. With this criteria I can confirm that George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series has some "literary" merit; it's not just fantasy.

Wood talks about language, word choice, but this is tricky stuff to pin down. Good writing at the word level means something like free of cliché, original, choosing very specific words for effect. Wood has a sense of perfect sentences and gives a few examples, but it seems no rules can be set down. We slide from here into style and metaphor. Wood continues to cite passages, from Woolf, from Roth, and he picks them apart to show how they create the effect they do. Somehow all these things must magically fit together, they must be appropriate and relate to each other (choice of words, metaphor, character, fictional world); there are no specific rules for this (and we should all be glad for that), and somehow we just know when it doesn't work.

Which, all in all, is a very sensible approach to reading. Even though it confirms to me my own abilities as a reader, I'm a little disappointed that Wood didn't reveal the grand secret of good fiction (though, of course, I'd be outraged if he had).

I should note also that this book is not about how to write. I don't think you could derive a system of mechanics from what Wood has set down here. I expect most authors are aware of all these elements, but I wonder to what degree they actively consider them while writing.

Somewhere in this book it was also considered how little control an author ultimately has over the reader, and how much the reader must also act as author in ascribing meaning to the words on the page.

The last chapter is a bit ridiculous. Amid a bunch of nonsense, it's mostly a paean to realism. It becomes clear to me that this book should've been called How (Fictional) Realism Works.

The very best part about having read this book is that I learned something about Saramago's Ricardo Reis, one of the few novels of his that I haven't read yet, about its relation to Fernando Pessoa, whose Book of Disquiet I have queued up. I have a feeling I'll be reaching for Ricardo Reis sooner than I'd expected to.

The game continues

Book 3 of the Game of Thrones books (more properly the series is known as A Song of Fire and Ice, but I don't know anyone who calls it that), A Storm of Swords, is the best yet.

There are scenes of oh my gawd, yes!, and scenes where people die, no!, why did you have to kill them Mr Martin?, and it's one after the other, and then there's more.

It's sssoooo gripping that I had to read in the car. That may not seem like a big deal, given that I'm a known bibliophile, but there are some places, like in the car, where you just don't read, much as I would like to, because it's not polite, you have to stay engaged, or navigate, or simply stare off into space as a show of solidarity, if everybody else has to sit in the car and drive, or, at any rate, not read, then you have to not read too. So it's one of those self-imposed rules, I don't read in the car, because if I did someone might tell me not to, and then there would be hours of discord. Anyway, we had this family event to go to and we're carpooling with in-laws, and it's time to go but I'm right at the part where Dany is going to be fucking amazing, but I climb in dutifully, pull out my book, apologize, I'll be with you in about 5 minutes, at the end of the chapter, and I read in the car. And Dany was fucking amazing.

Then there's this beautiful horrific bit where the Imp gives as a wedding present to the king, his 13-year-old spoiled brat of a nephew, a book, a rare illuminated tome, and Joffrey uses his cool new sword to hack it up into little pieces, and you've known it all along, but the scene serves to drive home just what a despicable little shit he is.

I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish book 3 last night. So book 4. Onward!

Sleep is good, and books are better

In the turret room, as he opened the door of the wardrobe, he looked at Alayaya curiously. "What do you do while I'm gone?"

She raised her arms and stretched like some sleek black cat. "Sleep. I am much better rested since you began to visit us, my lord. And Marei is teaching us to read, perhaps soon I will be able to pass the time with a book."

"Sleep is good," he said. "And books are better." He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. Then it was down the shaft and through the tunnel.

— from A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin.

I finished this book a while ago and am now into the third in the series, racing to catch up in time for the publication next week of book five, A Dance with Dragons.

Say what you will about genre fiction, it's clearly written by people who love books, and that thrill of reading is often more palpable than in fiction that's considered more literary.

Lumpy and runneled and cracked

They say a picture's worth a thousand words. I supposed it depends on the words, depends on the picture.

The stink of the Lannister host reached Arya well before she could make out the devices on the banners that sprouted along the lakeshore, atop the pavilions of the westermen. From the smell, Arya could tell that Lord Tywin had been here some time. The latrines that ringed the encampment were overflowing and swarming with flies, and she saw faint greenish fuzz on many of the sharpened stakes that protected the perimeters.

Harrenhal's gatehouse, itself as large as Winterfell's Great Keep, was as scarred as it was massive, its stones fissured and discolored. From outside, only the tops of five immense towers could be seen beyond the walls. The shortest of them was half again as tall as the highest tower in Winterfell, but they did not soar the way a proper tower did. Arya thought they looked like some old man's gnarled, knuckly fingers groping after a passing cloud. She remembered Nan telling how the stone had melted and flowed like candlewax down the steps and in the windows, glowing a sullen searing red as it sought out Harren where he hid. Arya could believe every word, each tower was more grotesque and misshapen than the last, lumpy and runneled and cracked.

"I don't want to go there," Hot Pie squeaked as Harrenhal opened its gates to them. "There's ghosts in there."

Chiswyck heard him, but for once he only smiled. "Baker boy, here's your choice. Come join the ghosts, or be one."

— from A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin.

I can't keep away from these books it seems, even though I tell myself I have other things to do, other books to read first, save these for later. But this series — A Song of Fire and Ice — is addictive.

Frankly, I'm hard-pressed to explain why. And I'm incapable of summarizing the story. Not much happens at all at a page-by-page level, yet so much happens. It's somehow magical, that there should be life on the page.

I'm halfway through book two (even while trying to finish Martin Chuzzlewit and keep up with a couple other reading "commitments") and there's but one mention so far of the walking dead that closed out book one.

Anyway, I'm solidly committed now to seeing how far this series will take me. I have given up on the televization for good. It strikes me as remarkably faithful, and on-screen that can be quite boring (the same fault the Harry Potter books suffered, in my view.) Filmically, so many things might be better cut, or altered, or resequenced. But in this case, with legions of fans, it seems more important to be faithful.

Then there are descriptions such as the above, sure to be shortcutted in a few-second glimpse of an extraordinary set — that's what pictures can do, what film is for — but lost is the... I dunno, the immersion, the feeling of scurrying away to read a wholly different world, a whole other world. Not sure how I can justify the assertion that worlds like this are meant to be read (and imagined), not seen. But there you have it.

"Lumpy and runneled and cracked" — those words so much richer than a picture.

The game

What is honor compared to a woman's love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms . . . or the memory of a brother's smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

Well, I'm hooked. A Game of Thrones (George R.R. Martin) was completely compelling, I'd read it while cooking, while walking, it had me cursing J-F for (unusually) taking the metro with me in the morning and cutting into my reading time.

It's a soap opera of epic proportions. The story lines are somewhat predictable, never straying far from those trusted themes, typical of fantasy novels, of love, duty, honor, and I can't say they're treated with any peculiar nuance, but the characters are interesting and complicated, and sometimes they have wise things to say.

Mostly, though, I just want to know what happens next! I'm mildly pissed off that so many threads are left unresolved at the end of this first book of a five-part trilogy — in particular, a potentially paranormal, zombie-like plot line! — as this means I'll probably be reading another 2000 pages of stuff. Which isn't a bad thing exactly; I just hadn't planned on it, and it's getting in the way of other reading plans.

I have seen an episode and a half of the television series. It's well cast and seems to be true to the book, but doesn't have the same escapist thrill as reading does. I'll watch a bit more, for J-F's sake. I'm kind of hoping it picks up and saves me from reading the rest of the series.

A mind needs books

"Why do you read so much?"

Tyrion looked up at the sound of the voice. Jon Snow was standing a few feet away, regarding him curiously. He closed the book on a finger and said, "Look at me and tell me what you see."

The boy looked at him suspiciously. "Is this some kind of trick? I see you. Tyrion Lannister."

Tyrion sighted. "You rare remarkably polite for a bastard, Snow. What you see is a dwarf. You are what, twelve?"

"Fourteen," the boy said.

"Fourteen, and you're taller than I will ever be. My legs are short and twisted, and I walk with difficulty. I require a special saddle to keep from falling off my horse. A saddle of my own design, you may be interested to know. It was either that or ride a pony. My arms are strong enough, but again, too short. I will never make a swordsman. Had I been born a peasant, they might have left me out to die, or sold me to some slaver's grotesquerie. Alas, I was born a Lannister of Casterly Rock, and the grotesqueries are all the poorer. Things are expected of me. My father was the Hand of the King for twenty years. My brother later killed that very same king, as it turns out, but life is full of these little ironies. My sister married the new king and my repulsive nephew will be king after him. I must do my part for the honor of my House, wouldn't you agree? Yet how? Well, my legs may be too small for my body, but my head is too large, although I prefer to think it is just large enough for my mind. I have a realistic grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses. My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind . . . and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge." Tyrion tapped the leather cover of the book. "That's why I read so much, Jon Snow."

— from A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin.

I'd never heard of this book till a few weeks ago, when the televisionization of the novel premiered. I never did get around to watching it, but I noticed that a coworker was reading it, and she was kind enough to lend me her copy when she was done with it, recommending it as fast and light.

I had some trouble finding my way into the novel — it felt like too many characters to keep track of and I worried over how I could manage 800 pages (but I'm chalking up this hesitation to the anxiety, the general distractedness I've been feeling all week long — I've been unable to make even simple hairstyling decisions, and I managed to get off at the wrong metro stop the other day).

But it's all intrigue, mostly political but some sexual in nature. And at this point (about a third through), I can't stop reading. It is indeed a lovely, light break from Martin Chuzzlewitt, and completely undemanding of me in the way that a couple other books I've been grappling with exactly aren't.