Book Review: George R. R. Martin's "A Clash of Kings"

          A Clash of Kings begins where A Game of Thrones ended. Winter truly is coming, and, instead of using autumn to prepare for its onset, the people of Westeros watch their crops burn and their fields turn to ash. The Seven Kingdoms are at war. Across the continent, battles rage and lords fall, or are captured and held for ransom. Peace seems unlikely, as each faction believes its cause will lead to victory and, for many, peace entails certain death. In the towns and castles, peasants starve, while noble lords and ladies continue to feast.

          While unrest rules in the Seven Kingdoms, asserting a power that not even noble pedigrees cannot assuage, Wildlings and other forces continue to gather in the North, and the Night’s Watch prepares to defend the realm. In Essos, Daenerys Targaryen seeks a means to return to her kingdom and mount the throne that she believes is hers by right. To do so, she must navigate the overt threats to her safety, and the subtle dance of plots to weaken her power.

          A Clash of Kings is notably darker than its prequel. War, it seems, has bred crueler men and women. Swords are quickly raised and blood shed, where before it was wits that clashed and pride that was wounded. Commanders condone cruelty and wantonness in the men who serve them, as long as that cruelty demoralizes their enemies.

          Magic seems to be returning to the world, and not all of it is used for good purpose. Characters have prophetic dreams, sorcerers perform feats that could either be magical expression or well-executed ruse, and the gods or demonic forces have begun to speak to and through individuals who care to listen.

          The cast of characters has expanded, in the second installment of A Song of Ice and Fire. The size and scope of Martin’s imagined realm begins to show its girth to the reader. New perspectives have been added to account for more aspects of the story and to replace characters that no longer dwell in the land of the living. Characters’ personalities have become more defined; it is easier to identify which characters are crueler and eviler, kinder and more innocent, dutiful and untrustworthy, than it was in A Game of Thrones. Still, certain characters are harder to figure out, especially those who are only seen through the perspectives of focal characters.

          Perhaps, this continually expanding cast of characters is one of the novels greatest flaws. Sometimes, remembering the actions and personalities of fringe characters becomes difficult, particularly when sons and brothers bear similar names and titles, but owe their allegiances to different lords.

           The increasing divergence of storylines also proves problematic to the novel’s ending. A reader can feel that the tale has come to a conclusion, as one character’s story comes to a close, but, there are still other stories that have to be finished. The effect is that the novel’s denouement feels a bit too drawn out. However, the various storylines also give Martin an effective way to build suspense. He can conclude a chapter with a cliffhanger, and then leave that tale to visit another perspective and facet of his story. The effect sucks readers in, and makes them want to keep reading. The divergent storylines also allow readers to escape one tale for a little while, and enjoy the beauty of another.

          A Clash of Kings is equal in size to A Game of Thrones, and it is equally enchanting. The tale draws you in, despite some slow moments. It is certainly worth the investment reading it, and the ending (to all its storylines) will leave you wanting more, and force you to turn to the third book in the series.

JCM

28 March 2013

Book Review: George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones

         Perhaps, comparing Martin’s A Game of Thrones to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings epic is inappropriate, but nostalgia (as well as good reviews and curiosity) encouraged me to pick up the first installment of Martin’s epic A Song of Ice and Fire. There are many differences between the two series. For one, the Lord of the Rings follows the noble quest of a band of hobbits, men, a wizard, a dwarf, and an elf: a fellowship sent to eradicate evil from its world. A Game of Thrones features no such fellowship. In A Game of Thrones, fractured perspectives dictate the way the story is told; readers are privy to the perspectives of sworn enemies, men and women who have taken up the sword against each other, and their families. Identifying purely evil or purely good characters is nearly impossible in Martin’s work. Readers can readily identify some factions whose cause can be said to be nobler than others, and they can loosely define protagonists within the book’s pages, as well as identify some pure villains, but many of the characters straddle moral virtue and vice.

          The other major difference between the two epics is the prevalence of magic and fantastical creatures in Tolkien’s work. Tolkien introduces readers to a fantasy world, where elves, dwarves, hobbits, men, wizards, goblins, and orcs clash and interact. Tolkien’s world is one where trees walk and speak, and ghosts rise to fulfill the oaths they had broken. Martin’s world is no less fantastical than Tolkien’s, but fantasy peeks around the edges of realism. The book opens with an attack, in a snow-swept forest, where men are set upon by the Others, the blue-eyed ghost-men of beyond the great Wall, creatures said to have vanished thousands of years before the novel’s beginning, creatures of myth and legend. Dragons, too, have since been vanquished from the realm of men, but their relics dot the kingdom, leaving no doubt that they had once been as real as the dodo was in our own world.

          Westeros is a continental realm held together by a feudal monarchy. The current dynasty is young, the throne is still held by its first king, Robert Baratheon, who won his place after a brutal and bloody civil war brought about the death of most of the Targaryen dynasty, the lords who had united the continents seven kingdoms only three-hundred years earlier. Tensions still flair beneath the surface of this feudal realm. Living lords and ladies remember who killed whom in the war that still runs fresh in their minds. Family honor and pride are at stake as the great families jostle for high favor at court, and swords are never far from noble hands and noble throats.

          Winter is coming to the realm. In the north, beyond the great ice Wall, an army of Wildlings is forming, and other creatures lurk in the frozen landscape north of the Wall. To the east, across the sea in Essos, the grandson of the late Targaryen king plots revenge against the man he calls the Usurper, the king who sits the throne in Westeros. Darker forces and blacker magics threaten from the edges of the book’s pages, and run between the lines of its sentences.

          In the midst of turmoil and tension, Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, struggles to honor his family name, protect his king and friend, and preserve his family and realm, tasks that become more difficult with each passing day.

          The novel’s multiple perspectives lend to its brilliance. Slowly, the history of Westeros, both recent and distant, is revealed to readers as younger characters are told bedtimes tales, and as older characters reminisce with old friends. Events unfold in an interconnected story, as the character with the best perspective for a given event lends his eye to that portion of the tale. As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear that no one, not even that handful of men and women that Martin uses to tell his tale, is safe from death. When lords and ladies converge on the Iron Throne of Westeros, the only possible outcome is war and death.

          Martin tells a compelling tale, one that draws a reader into court intrigues and bloody confrontations. His tale turns readers who would rather dream of the future into wanting historians, desirous only of one more scrap of myth or fable that will bring the events of the past into a clearer light. Martin is careful to never give away all the details of a story, he is careful not to allow his narrators to become unhinged from the world they occupy, he is careful not to break down the fourth wall and privilege readers with the details and facets of history that they crave to learn, but have yet to earn. He requires that his readers turn the pages, and invest themselves more deeply in his work. A Song of Ice and Fire cannot be contained within the pages of a single epic novel. Those who start the song are prompted to follow it to its end, even if that requires reading seven epic novels.

JCM

21 March 2013

Book Review: Salman Rushdie's "Joseph Anton: A Memoir"

          On Valentine’s Day, 1989, Salman Rushdie woke to the news that he had been sentenced to death in a fatwa delivered by the Ayatollah Khomeini, of Iran. From his deathbed, the Ayatollah had declared Rushdie’s latest novel, The Satanic Verses, blasphemous, for depicting a religion like Islam, and a character similar to the Prophet Muhammad. The Ayatollah had never read the book.

          For the next thirteen years, Rushdie, celebrated author of the Booker of Bookers winning novel, Midnight’s Children, lived under the protection of the British government. During that time, public support often waxed against him. Rushdie was declared a trouble-maker, who did not deserve protection. The British media painted Rushdie as a villain, who had deliberately attacked one of the world’s largest religions for his own personal gain, and who now enjoyed the lavish protection of the British government, on the British taxpayer’s pound, and then became dismissive of the men who protected him.

          Rushdie tells a different story. Rushdie was forced to move from house to house, by the upper-echelon of British intelligence, because they feared that, if his location became known, he would be impossible to protect. Each move cost Rushdie personally. He rented the homes he lived in long-term, and he lost a lot of money each time he was uprooted before his lease had ended. Throughout his memoir, Rushdie declares his unwavering appreciation for the men assigned to protect them. He was not some callous villain, and he had not meant to insult the religion of Islam. Yes. He was an apostate. Yes. He was an atheist. Yes. He found it more and more difficult, as the fatwa years continued, to believe that organized religions were what they claimed to be. But, when he wrote The Satanic Verses, he had simply followed his art.  His representation of the religion-that-was-like-Islam and the man-who-was-similar-to-the-Prophet were largely positive, throughout his novel. Yes. Characters in the novel had spoken ill of the religion and its Prophet, but those characters were enemies of the religion, and had been persecuting it. Verisimilitude demanded that their criticisms be dismissive and disparaging.

          Rushdie tells a story, in which he was not abandoned by his friends, though the media had said that his novel had scared off all his friends. In fact, friends lent him their homes as safe havens when he was without a place to live. They continued to include him in their social activities, and they protected his whereabouts. His friends, and even people who had only been acquaintances before the fatwa, showed that humanity could answer injustice with solidarity and love.

          Eventually, the fatwa became a political obstacle to Iran, and slowly, Rushdie was able to emerge from hiding as the threat against him diminished. The fatwa years, however, were not peaceful. Buildings were bombed; intrepid and pedestrian translators and publishers were attacked; hit squads were deployed and foiled. The British government, in Rushdie’s estimation, was hesitant to enforce sanctions against Iran, but eventually they did negotiate on his behalf. Rushdie was told by his protection officers that his protection was being handled differently than any other protection detail they had ever been on. Rushdie became convinced that some of the officials handling his case wanted to punish him, because they believed that he had sought trouble. Bureaucracy is always in flux, and his situation did get better. In the interim, Rushdie and his supporters worldwide lobbied other European governments and the United States. They fought to raise awareness throughout the world, emphasizing that this was state-sponsored terrorism, that this was an infringement on the democratic right to free speech. In the end, they won over governments abroad, and a more receptive government came into power at home.  

          The fatwa years altered Rushdie’s literary life. He wrote little, and what he did write, though its subject-matter was innocuous, faced an almost impenetrable scrutiny from his publishers. Lobbying foreign governments, the European Union, and the United Nations became a full-time job. He wanted to raise awareness, not only for his own situation, but for writers being silenced and murdered in the Islamic world. He often found it difficult to sit down and write. When he did write, however, he wrote well, for the most part. U2 supported his cause, and Bono took the lyrics for the song “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” directly from Rushdie’s novel of the same name. Rushdie also produced the children’s story Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and his novel, The Moor’s Last Sigh, during the fatwa years.

          Overall, the memoir is interesting. There are some slow parts throughout the book, but Rushdie does a good job of keeping the large book lively. At times, I found it hard to relate to Rushdie as a person. His atheism and rather lax approach to marriage conflicted with my own beliefs, and, at times, his political views rubbed me the wrong way. Nonetheless, his story deserved to be heard. His story needed to be heard. Most appropriately, Rushdie chose himself to tell his own story. He elects to tell that story in the third person, which gives him more space to reflect on himself, his motives, and his own reaction to situation. Rushdie imposes a critical distance between his present self and his self during the fatwa years, and is able to tell his story in an effective way. The memoir is framed well, beginning with an act of terrorism against an individual, and ending (almost) with an act of terrorism against a society. Rushdie’s memoir spans the years of growing international terrorism, and shows how much the world has changed in a short span of decades. His memoir shows how important it is to live in a free society, and how easily that freedom can be infringed on by those who dislike what your freedom tells them. Rushdie’s book is about life, and free-speech; it is about the power of injustice, and that of justice.

JCM

9 March 2013