A Song of Ice and Fire

I'm currently reading A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin -- I've just started the first volume of A Dance with Dragons -- and I must say that I'm enjoying it immensely. There is a wealth of descriptive detail in the prose that paints vivid pictures of the vast setting of the series. The most obvious point of comparison would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the semblance is only superficial.

Where Tolkien is concerned with the fight of good against evil and maintains a strong focus on his small band of heroic protagonists, Martin weaves a dance through shifting sands of uncertainty in which his extensive cast of characters behave in all too human ways, driven by self-interest, belief, revenge, lust and even, occasionally, honor. Lord of the Rings is a fairy tale where right triumphs over wrong, battles are glorious and deaths are either heroic sacrifices or the well-deserved reward for treachery. By contrast in Ice and Fire the characters are individuals, each with their own motivations, capable of anything within their own personal bounds. There is a moral ambiguity to many of the acts and the reader must decide for themselves where the characters stand. Battles are not big set pieces, regardless of their importance to the progression of the story; instead they are confused, claustrophobic, noisy, bloody melees where no single character has anything but a limited view of his immediate surroundings and plans are but chaff in the winds of chaos.

I'm in danger of making it sound impenetrably tangled and directionless but that is not the case. Martin handles the multiple threads of the story with assurance on several levels, from the interplay between individuals up to the scale of nations and dynasties. As in life, one can never know what goes on in somebody's head, and while ofttimes his characters will behave predictably they are quite capable of springing surprises. It is said that art reflects life, and if that is true then Martin has ground and polished his mirror to perfection. As many reviewers have commented you can find parallels with many periods of history in these books. The most obvious because of similarities in the society -- absolute monarchs, feudal lords, armored mounted knights -- are to the European dynastic wars of the Middle Ages, not least the English Wars of the Roses. However his world is as diverse as our own and other cultures echo the likes of the Norse, the nomadic Scythians, or even the traders of the ancient east who traveled the Silk Road.

I find it staggering that one person could conceive a work of such magnitude and maintain such consistency across so many points of view. For me the only disappointing aspect is that the series is still unfinished: a work in progress. I ought to say before I finish that I've not watched the HBO adaptation so I cannot comment myself on its fidelity (although I've heard positive reports). I'm not in any rush to see it although I expect I would enjoy it well enough: I'm too enthralled by the books for now, and no matter how good an adaptation may be (I greatly enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies) I always value the written word.

The Pictures Are Better

There's a well-known saying: "I prefer radio to television. The pictures are better." I would say the same goes for reading, perhaps even more so. When I'm reading a book I am seeing the events unfold in front of my eyes, hearing them too - immersed in the world of the story. It's so engrossing because it's an active involvement - I'm creating the scenes, directing the action according to the script of the book. In contrast watching television is a very passive activity - just sit back and absorb somebody else's vision. That is one reason I often find television to be far less engaging.

Don't get me wrong - I watch some television, probably more sports and news than anything else. I watch movies and enjoy some of them, even those like Master and Commander where there is plenty of scope for disappointment because I'm familiar with the books on which they were based. I don't much like going to the cinema - it's because being in a strange environment among a crowd of unfamiliar people makes me uncomfortable, but I occasionally watch movies at home. Occasionally as in once or twice a month, if that. Reading, on the other hand, is something I do every day.

Opening a book is like opening a door to a different world, one where anything might be possible. Yes, it is blatant escapism - that's rather the point of it for me. The real world is often badly-adjusted for my sensory and cognitive needs. But when I'm in one of the worlds that I enter through the pages of a book I am in full control of my experiences: I create - imagine - all the sensations I experience in there. I know it's not real and that's part of its attraction - I know there's nothing in that world that can hurt me. Provoke various emotions, yes - excitement, pleasure, sadness, apprehension - but not actually hurt me. It's a safe environment in which to feel those emotions.

As I read the story I progressively refine my mental image of the setting, starting with a fairly generic off-the-peg one and adding new details, altering existing ones, until what I have in mind meshes with my interpretation of the descriptions in the book. I borrow elements from the props cupboard of my existing memories, tweak them a little and introduce them to the building scene. As I'm sure I've mentioned once or twice in previous posts I have trouble when it comes to picturing faces. So the characters in my mental worlds are almost faceless - there's no detail to their features. I don't find this remarkable or unusual because I am exactly the same with my memories of people in real life.

If I make a conscious effort I can imagine facial details in isolation - like elements of a photo-fit that has been taken apart. A scar on a cheek, green eyes, aquiline nose, swarthy complexion - I can see each of them in turn but can't fit them together to produce a single image of a face. I recall details of the faces of people I know in the same way - as collections of isolated features. But I can't generally picture a complete visage. It's as if the whole face is out of focus and the only way I can discern detail is to concentrate on just a part of it.

I find it ironic in a way - here I am with my wonderful visual mode of thinking and my almost-photographic memory of places I've been... and I can't even clearly recall the faces of most of my work colleagues whom I see almost every day, let alone invent faces to populate the worlds of my books.