Winter is coming...

    I started reading Game of Thrones, which is the first book of The Song of Ice and Fire series, about three weeks ago.  It's quite a honker (sci-fi/fantasy novels usually are, you know) at over 800 pages.  Definitely not a quick read, and I am definitely not a quick reader, so it was even slower going for me than it might have been for most.  I finished it this past Sunday.

   I've read my fair share of fantasy in my time.  I love fantasy and sci-fi the most of all genre's, but I have a hard time finding good works, so I read various other fictions more often.  I try to stay away from the section of Barnes & Noble's that has all the Dragon Lance books and other such collections: those books are all about war and sex and power and love and tend to have the same plot and the writing is not usually all that good.

   My boyfriend read Game of Thrones and we went to Barnes & Noble's together a day or so before graduation and he was buying Clash of Kings (the second book) and he sort of talked me into buying Game of Thrones (I was in a book-buying mood, and it was only $9, so I didn't need much convincing) but I wasn't really interested in it until I got into it.  I had already set myself against it, as just another book about war and sex with uninspired characters and a boring plot.  But then I met Tyrion Lannister.

   Tyrion is not exactly a good guy--the Lannisters are easy to hate as a group, and as far as I can tell, they are the main antagonists--but what I love about him, and so The Song of Fire and Ice in general, is that he's not exactly a bad guy, either.  Almost everyone in SoF&I garners my praise one minute and my hatred the next.  Tyrion is a "dwarf" (think Warwick Davis, not Gimli) so most everyone either is repulsed by him or discounts him as being human at all.  He says at one point, "All dwarves are bastards in their fathers' eyes," which pretty much sums up his relationship with daddy Tywin Lannister.  Tyrion cares about those people he meets who are like him; spurned by the world for something they can't control, even if they're not friendly with the Lannisters (and very few of the main characters are).  He designs a saddle for the crippled son of Lord Eddard Stark, even though Eddard, his wife Catelyn, and their son Robb are all pretty anti-Tyrion for various reasons.  Because of his actions, his thoughts (he's pretty clever), and his wit ("Dwarfs don’t have to be tactful. Generations of capering fools in motley have won me the right to dress badly and say any damn thing that comes into my head") make him pretty likable, all things considered.  But then you remember his Lannister loyalties and you get a little conflicted...

   Likewise, Eddard Stark is the pro-est of the protagonists in the first book, and he's clearly the epitome of a "good man."  When he, as a Lord, orders someone to be executed, he believes it's his duty to kill them himself.  He believes he owes it to them.  And he eventually goes to work for the King and urges him to take up the same policy.  He believes there is a line to be drawn in war, and that it is suitable to die in order to preserve your own honor.  Frankly, though he's a sympathetic character, he's stupid sometimes, and of the many times that I wanted to put the book down and stop reading out of frustration, most of them had to do with Eddard Stark.  But even with his stupidities, you want him to win, because you know he's right.

   The result of all of this is that, when reading SoI&F, one does not wish for Good to triumph over Evil.  There are very few characters on either side that can be divided clearly down those lines.  Instead, I find myself cheering on specific characters, noticing the good and evil in every action, and, more often than not, forgetting the whole good/evil dichotomy entirely.  I love that.  It feels way more real that way, and far less contrived.

   And the writing does not suck like so much of the fantasy genre does.  There are those cringey moments where Martin describes in detail the clothes someone is wearing or the food that someone is eating, and most of the names are nigh unpronounceable so that, for the first half of the book, the reader is struggling to keep Tyrion, Tywin, and Tyrell apart, and trying to remmeber which Rickon, Eddard, Robert, or Brandon they're talking about.  But Tolkien's writing wasn't exactly streamlined and straight-forward, and everyone, including me, hails his works as the first generation of High Fantasy.

   That's another thing SoI&F has going for it: the fantasy isn't too hard to relate to.  Martin himself says that he took as much inspiration from historical novels as he did from fantasy novels, and the effect is obvious and positive.  The magic, ethereal, other worldly stuff in SoI&F is pretty low key: there are legends and superstitions and gods and blood oaths and stuff, but any straight up magic stuff is introduced gradually enough that it's neither too complicated nor too unbelievable.  This is a huge stumbling block for me when reading world-building fantasies: when the fantasy has to be explicitly explained to be enjoyed, the explanation had better be worth my time to read, and so often it is not.

When you play the game of thrones, either you win or you die.

I would recommend this book to anyone who...

- Enjoys high fantasy

- Likes medieval-esque historical literature

- Wants to watch the HBO TV show (read the book first!)

- Reads fast or has a lot of empty time coming up (i.e. plane flights from California to Australia and the like)

On a related note, I listened to the audio book a bit and, as a self-proclaimed audio-book connoisseur, I grade it a solid "Not-Annoying."  The reader does the voices well enough so that you can tell people apart without hating everyone, and he catches the tone of the narrative pretty well too.

Until next time,

--Mary

Other Reviewers' Opinions on Game of Thrones

Fantasy Book Review

Maroon Weekly

Olaguma

There are no separations

   On Monday I managed to pull myself together enough to run a bunch of errands, including a trip to the library, where I had a couple of books on hold ready to pick up.  One was Do Not Ask What Good We Do (which I found via John Stewart and have yet to finish reading, so that book review will have to wait) and the other was Habibi by Craig Thompson.  While it looks like a chunky book that would take a while to read, it's a graphic novel, so its size is deceptive.

   Craig Thompson wrote Blankets, which was a graphic memoir that focused on his teenaged years and his struggles with the Christian church, his family, and love.  I read that back in 2009; it was really my introduction to the genre of graphic novels or comics*.

   Craig Thompson also came to Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writing, and a friend of mine was his point person, so I heard a little bit about Habibi from her and from the other volunteers at the Festival.  And I mean a little bit; I learned that it existed, that it had a handsome cover, and that people whose literary taste I trusted had liked it.

But when I'm near a well-stocked library and I have a whole summer full of nothing but time (or so I'm going to keep telling myself) that's all I need to know about a book before I read it.

As far as Habibi's merit as a work of visual art, there's almost no question that it is as astounding as it is mesmerizing.  There are pages, like those pictured to the right, covered almost entirely by ink, and all of it is stylized and beautiful and, beyond that, intentional.  I mean, it's one thing if a someone who knows art really well, studies it for a living or for an engrossing hobby notices the symbols and purpose in the composition of a graphic novel.  But when someone who only understands visual symbolism with passing amateurism notices and appreciates them, you know you've done your job well.  The art in Habibi is both accessible and, according to my more visually-inclined friends, sophisticated.  That's a hard balance to maintain.
 
   The narrative itself is engaging in the way it navigates the realms of the real, the abstract, and the myth.  In a way, the story felt almost like an extended stream-of-consciousness in the way it related the past and the present and the stories of the two main characters, Zam and Dodola

   The art helped define this, through recurring images and styles.  After only one read-through, I haven't completely unpacked all the complexities of the relationship between the visual art and the narrative.  But while reading, I did notice some.  The narrative uses Arabic script as both a visual art and written art, connecting the appearance of characters, words, and phrases to the visual world of the story, as you can see to the left.  Likewise, the history of the written language itself, the power reading and writing grant to Zam and Dodola, and the fluid and changing meanings of certain words and phrases are all important elements of the story.  Also, the art and narrative work together to pair elements from nature together with elements of human sexuality, such as a male eunuch with a tree stump whose roots are still intact and functional, or the use of hot sand as purity.

The actual story, one of Zam and Dodola who have their childhoods stolen from them by the slave trade and fight to stay together and stay isolated from the more painful aspects of their society, is both heartbreaking and heartwarming.  It's interspersed with folk and religious stores from Arab/Muslim culture, as Dodola tells stories to Zam and others.  There are questions of religion and faith, of relationships and mutual mis/understanding, of connection and lack thereof to the natural world.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who

• has read and enjoyed Blankets, Curses, or David Small.
• doesn't have a weak stomach regarding nudity and sexually explicit narratives and images
• has a cursory understanding of Islam or an interest in topics related to it
• wants a quick and wonderful introduction to the world of "comics"

Find it at your local library today.  Or, if you're that guy, go ahead and buy it.  It's cheaper than I thought it would be...

--Mary

Other Reviewers' Opinions on Habibi

Mainstream sources

• The Guardian
• The Washington Post
• GoodOKBad

Indy Blogs

• Parka Blogs
• One Literature Nut
• Life Wordsmith

*According to my research, the term "graphic" and its use as a modifier for the words novel or memoir is not 100% accepted by the authors and critics involved in the arena of works of art in hybrid forms of visual and written expression.  It's all very confusing, and evidently has a lot to do with the perception of the term "comic" as juvenile and various groups' motivation to either distance themselves from it or reclaim it.  So, for the purposes of this blog, I'm going to refer to  any book in this genre by the term the author uses, or else use the word "comic" in quotes...like I just did.  Good.  I'm glad we had this talk.