I posted my final top 100 ranking for this year’s draft, and had draft expert Jim Callis on today’s edition of Behind the Dish.
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I received George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones
The plot appears complex, but at heart is quite simple: two main factions are competing for control of the Seven Kingdoms, jockeying for position under the current King, the slightly naïve Robert, and preparing for an eventual succession. There are two separate plots only loosely integrated in this novel with that main strand – one leading to the possible birth of an heir to the previous king, the “mad king” Aerys II, the other set on the ice Wall that separates the Seven Kingdoms from the unknown denizens of the North. Martin based some of the plot on the English Wars of the Roses, which pitted the Houses of Lancaster and York against each other over a thirty-year period that ended with the rise of the House of Tudor.
The false complexity of the plot was not my main objection to A Game of Thrones, but it is one of the book’s three major flaws. Martin populates the book with far too many people, even requiring an appendix to list most of them by the houses to which they belong or have sworn fealty, and as a result almost no characters receive any kind of depth or development, and most of those outside of the central core are utterly disposable. Martin separates the book into numberless chapters, each of which revolves around one of the main characters, of which there are at least eight: Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell; his wife, Catelyn; four of their five children; Tyrion Lannister, a dwarf who belongs to the rival house of Lannister; and Daenaerys, the daughter of the mad king. King Robert, Tyrion’s sister Cersei, his brother Jaime (“the Kingslayer”), Daenaerys’ brother Viserys, her eventual husband Khal Drogo, Catelyn’s sister Lysa, and Robert and Cersei’s son Joffrey are all significant characters in terms of ink received, yet all are one-dimentionsal and their presence quickly becomes tiresome. The result is that Martin can weave lengthy plot strands, yet never has to do much more than set the swords in motion to advance any of the storylines, because he’s got so many people running around and never chooses to (or needs to) develop any of the characters.
The quality of the writing is also extremely poor, which I was warned about ahead of time; Martin spends much of the book forcing awkward middle-English phrasing on the reader, or altering spellings the way that bad bars and stores like to include “Olde” in their names to make them seem authentically crappy. His syntax is clumsy, and he spells far too much out for the reader in little details, both scene-setting – his descriptions of food are embarrassing if you’ve read any Murakami, and the made-up foods thing is just annoying – and emotions, where he explains far too much of what characters are thinking or feeling, which ends up leading the reader around by the nose. And I have no explanation for the line where he said a character was behaving like he had a “dagger up his butt.”
But nothing in the book was as awful as Martin’s obsessions with sex, violence, and especially sexual violence; it is the most rape-y book I have ever read, treating its women as objects and reveling in degrading them, especially female side characters, Martin’s equivalent of the red shirts of Star Trek. Women are raped, often, quite violently (not that rape is ever nonviolent, but Martin chooses to make it more violent), both in the present of the novel and in descriptions of the past. Victors in war in Martin’s universe engage in gang-rape, and it is accepted. Forced prostitution is rampant, and it is accepted. And when he describes rape, or even semi-consensual sex, Martin chooses to describe it in detail to further the degradation of the woman. (The idea that a woman might enjoy sex, or even assume an equal or dominant role in it, is completely foreign to him.) Martin’s women are props, and the only woman of clear strength in the book is a sociopath. That doesn’t even get at the incest in the book, made explicit in one scene but hinted at many other times.
On top of his loathing of women, Martin absolutely loves to devote ink to the carving up of the human body by knives, swords, and even weapons found along the way. Characters are cleaved, dismembered, burst open, disembowed, and eviscerated, and one can almost hear Martin panting at the keyboard as he describes these acts of violence. Given that he takes the rascal’s escape from a plot he can’t untangle – he sends everyone to war and kills a bunch of people off – there’s a lot of cleaving and disemboweling going on, and copious quantities of blood spilled, enough that you’ll need to wash your hands to get the damned spots out before you’re through.
When I commented on Twitter the other day that A Game of Thrones was one of the most misogynistic books I’d ever read, a few of you said that I needed to stick with the series to see some of the female characters develop. That may be true – the situation might improve in later books – but I should not have to read beyond the first 670 pages to see a female character with any kind of depth. That’s not to say that his male characters are much better developed, but they might reach two dimensions while his women are limited to one.
I’ve never seen the HBO series, so I have no idea how that compares or if it addresses any of the book’s flaws. A thin plot in a novel can often seem rich on screen with the right adaptation. All I can say is that I won’t be moving on to book two of the series.
Next up: Jim Thompson’s grim, darkly funny novel Pop. 1280
It’s hard to take you seriously if you’re not going to consider the argument.
I’ll consider any argument, but I’d like to see some support for it. I don’t see how a book this full of sexual violence represents any sort of “progressive” approach.
Keith, I’ll give the argument a shot, but minor spoilers ahead.
The series as a whole is a rejection of the fantasy ideal. Of a noble alternate world where honor is rewarded, where good triumphs over evil. Martin is trying to create a universe where those who are self-interested and callous get what they want, and those ht try to achieve a noble ideal are marginalized.
The best example in the first book, of course, is Ned’s execution. Ned is a textbook fantasy hero: he has a strong hand, he lives according to a code, he is determined, etc. And he’s utterly outmatched in this world and his ideals cost him his life. You’ll just have to trust us, but this style of progressive realism within a fantasy world permeates the series.
An outcropping of this is that Martin aims to depict the utter brutality of such a world. This is a world where sisters are sold by their brothers for a shot at a crown and the bad guys seem to win all the time because they’re willing to do what it takes where the good guys won’t. Sexual violence is part of that. It’s in some ways the purest expression of evil taking what it wants, honor be damned,
He’s not a great writer, but I find the story that he’s trying to tell extremely interesting. A Song of Fire and Ice takes place in the midst of a grand epic full of magic and larger than life quests like most fantasy series, but in this one, the ugliness of human nature gets in the way over and over and over.
I think it’s also worth noting that several strong female characters are developed throughout the series if you continue.
The poor writing style was maddening to read though, I agree with that.
“Game of Thrones Offers A Complex, Nuanced Critique of Patriarchy” from yesterday: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/05/game-of-thrones-offers-an-complex-nuanced-critique-of-patriarchy/
Excerpt: “I’ve found “Game of Thrones” to be a fascinating deconstruction of the romanticization of medieval patriarchy, a romanticization that is used as a rhetorical weapon to this day in order to prop up modern patriarchy. ”
Now perhaps you think Martin isn’t successful in this. If so, I’d be interested to hear why (and perhaps persuaded – in a lot of ways he certainly has failed when he’s tried to subvert the genre). But that’s really not what your review says.
And for the record, I honestly find your input valuable, otherwise I wouldn’t be wasting both our time commenting. My previous post was unduly harsh, i think.
Further reading along these lines:
George RR Martin: I’m a feminist: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/9959063/Game-of-Throness-George-RR-Martin-Im-a-feminist.html
Yes, Women Really Do Like Game of Thrones (We Have Proof) http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/06/women-game-of-thrones/
Only 3 of the purported 54 comments are showing for me, but I’ll just say that over the course of the five books a lot changes, characters develop etc etc. It’s fine if you don’t like the one book and don’t feel like signing on for another 4000+ pages, but do watch the show, it’s remarkably true to the books (and if you haven read Benioff’s ‘City of Theives’ I’d recommend that) and is highly entertaining.
You’re totally missing the point of the misogyny, as the patriarchal culture ends up hurting most characters, including the men. And applying it to Martin himself is laughable. That’s a strong claim when you know nothing of his other work.
There something clickable called “older comments” right below that last comment FWIW @John . . .
Well, the loyalists are certainly defending the work in the comments. I commend you, Keith, for managing to get through the book – a feat I could not accomplish. The writing was intolerably bad and the story was unbearably uninteresting.
I enjoy the show on HBO and haven’t read any of the books, so I can’t comment on much of the substance of your review. However, this review reminds me of your Moneyball (the movie) review. Entirely predictable, losing sight of the forest for the trees, and personal. Engaging in hindpsychology to justify a negative review is a bad look — conjuring up images of the author panting at his keyboard? Calling him a misogynist? Come on, Keith — that’s ad hominem and silly. Quibbling with the guy’s syntax? This isn’t Pullitzer prize stuff, it’s fantasy. I’m a huge fan of your writing — love the chats, the blog, the columns, etc — but, come on, bud.
I think the issue many have with this review (and others like) stems from an innate problem with the genre. A Game of Thrones is just the first installment in a greater series. Judging it doesn’t allow the review (such as Keith) to speak towards the greater theme found in the series.
As Keith notes, A Game of Thrones is a fairly simple story. A lot of the seemingly unnecessary bloat to the novel serves to set the reader up for what follows. What is “too many characters” in the book is really setting the stage for all the players that will take part in the story later on. In other words, some of the qualms you’ve expressed, Keith, are justified in hindsight.
You don’t like the genre, and that’s fair. Fantasy isn’t for everyone. Asking a non-fantasist to read the book is an understandable request. Expecting him to love it, on the hand, isn’t. Much of the love this series has garnered – apart from the merits of the story itself, which you may or may not find – stem from subversion that many have written about already. When I first came across this series 15 years ago, it turned everything upside down. Everyone was trying to be Tolkein, or to write another Arthurian legend. Martin changed that in many ways. He showed that characters don’t need to be black and white, and in fact that the best characters never are.
But Keith is only operating with the understanding of the first book. His review isn’t invalid, but it’s limited. Much of the subversive themes and character complexity is only really hinted at in A Game of Thrones.
As to the violence, as many have already stated, this whole series is about shifting the paradigm of fantasy writing. He uses violence to shock the reader into rejecting war as a noble and honorable thing. This is represented best, perhaps, by Sandor Clegane (The Hound). He rides down a boy in this book, and nearly cuts him in half with a sword. He’s crass, and violent, and monstrous….and he also exhibits a tenderness and source of comfort for Sansa Stark – perhaps the only one who does so. Martin could have done follow traditional tropes and just hinted at the violence, or made him a flat character that was simply monstrous. But his point is that we are all multifaceted creatures, and that we are all capable of kindness and evil, given the right circumstance. He isn’t depicting violence to revel in it, any more than Steven Spielberg was in Saving Private Ryan. The depiction of violence isn’t necessarily a celebration of it. Martin shows us what violence does, the real effects it has on people and communities, so that we can see the horror of it. He wants us to be aghast, he wants us to turn away – because that’s what violence should make us do.
He’s writing of a time where violence was a way of life, and rape was a form of punishment meted out by armies on subservient populations. These things did happen in the world. The fantasy genre glorifies this period in history. All Martin is doing is showing another side to it. If you want a Medieval world that’s honorable and pure with a PG-13, it’s best to stick to The Lord of the Rings. If you want a more honest portrayal of how dirty and horrible that life could be…well, that’s what Martin is trying to give us.
Overall, this book didn’t give Keith something he didn’t expect. And, being someone who doesn’t typically like reading books with maps, this review didn’t really give his fans something they didn’t expect, either.
I read the review as well as all of the comments and it’s clear most of you agree with Keith on the broader points. This book is for people who can tolerate poor writing (for 5 books?), enjoy gratuitous violence and rape, and are partial to medieval fantasy. Sorry if you don’t like what you see in the mirror.
It also worth to note that a fair portion of his inspiration for this series is based off of what actually happened in Middle Ages of our own world. Actually most of what happened in reality was worst than what he is basing it on. The Red Wedding for example based of the Black Wedding which happened in Scotland was far, far worst. But you didn’t read past the first book so you don’t know what I’m talking about. Patience is a virtue with a series of books of this scope.
“and emotions, where he explains far too much of what characters are thinking or feeling, which ends up leading the reader around by the nose”
AND THIS.
Isn’t this the point of story telling? To create characters and explore their thoughts and feelings?
Stick to baseball.
I enjoy the “Game of Thrones” series of books, but completely understand most of the criticisms the author of this article finds in this book. I would like to ask this article’s author, however, for a recommendation on a book he enjoyed within the fantasy genre.
A writer from ESPN complaining about bad prose? Curious.
Martin’s writing has always struck me as above-average for commercial fiction, somewhere in the Stephen King tier. The veneer of the fifteenth-century chronicle in his style is an intentional effect, and it doesn’t bother readers who are not predisposed to hate it. Of course, as the Burger King says, “Taste Is King!” So I can’t really object to your disgust.
What I do object to in your review—and this is speaking as an editor—is that you give no textual evidence to support your claims about Martin’s prose, except for the one cherry-picked howler (and it is a howler indeed). No do you provide any support for your statements about the characters’ one-dimensionality. I am not asking here for an exhaustive catalogue touching on each character, but for just an example or two. Because, as the piece stands right now, you’re just telling us what you think: “the characters are flat, the writing is bad, and the plot is deceptively simple.” The most successful hatchet jobs are committed with scalpels.
As to finding the violence repellent, fair game. I would ask, though, if you have no stomach for similar scenes of butchery and rapine in texts such as The Iliad, The Bacchae, The Song of Roland, The Divine Comedy, and Titus Andronicus. If the answer is that their superior literary merits absolve them of their sins, that’s ok by me. And, I think, an interesting topic for discussion. I rather like revenge tragedies.
@Jason: I wouldn’t have phrased it that way, but it rings true for me.
@Rob: LoTR, The Magicians, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell all come to mind.
@Jeff: Under ordinary circumstances, I would have included examples, but I wrote this on a plane while flying to Hartford two days before the draft, making for extraordinary circumstances. I didn’t even have the book with me. As for the presence of violence (including sexual violence) in ‘classical’ texts, I have never read any of those where the author appeared to me to be exulting in the violence, or presenting it specifically to titillate some portion of the audience. The violence always has a point, and I can’t think of an example offhand where it’s drawn out for the purposes of pandering.
Also, Jeff, I’m not sure what your purpose is with the ESPN crack, but it seems to me to be out of line here. My employer isn’t relevant to my opinion of the quality of an author’s prose.
I agree that great literature it is not, but I found the story compelling enough to bang through the whole series last month. Good luck with the move Keith!
Agree with a lot of what you said here Keith. At first I thought much of Martin’s treatment of women was him trying to be realistic to the plight of women in the medieval ages (I know this book is set in an alternate universe, GoT fanatics, but there are a lot of comparables), but the more I read the detailed rapes and assaults, the more I began to think that Martin was a bit too into the writing of these scenes.
Beyond the mediocre writing, it also drove me nuts how slowly Martin meandered through the plot. I stuck it out through the first 2 books before giving up over how little the plot had advanced despite me reading 2,000 pages of text. Another 5 books of that? No thanks.
I say all this because I have gotten into the TV show and find it to be much better, even if I wish they would divert from Martin’s insistence on including so many freaking characters. For instance, if I saw Bran, Theon, and Sam once a season that would be plenty if they could come up with more engaging plots for Daenerys and Tyrion.
http://www.pajiba.com/think_pieces/through-the-grave-the-wind-is-blowing-a-historical-theory-of-a-game-of-thrones.php
The preceding review sums up my feelings about the books perfectly. It’s not that Keith’s review is bad, or invalid, or even wrong – it’s that it misses not only the point of the story, but the many layers that begin to take shape in the first book. I can’t fault Keith for not seeing the bigger picture – he only read one book – but for those who haven’t read the books, I think there’s a lot going on in these books that is simply not addressed here.
A Song of Ice and Fire is more than just a fantasy series; it’s a reworking of history into a more fantastic setting. It has some very poignant things to say about humanity, civilization, and the lengths people will go to take control. It does all these things in ways never before seen in the genre.
And for that, it’s not only significant, but remarkable. Faults can be found in every book. And I’m sure you could pull a single sentence from anyone’s oeuvre and make them out to be a horrible writer. Martin may not be Murakami, but there are far worse writers out there.
Keith-
Who dislikes you most? Fans of GofT, fans of the Watchman or fans of Moneyball (the movie)?
I certainly agree that the writing is not exactly classic level, he absolutely gets bogged down in descriptiveness at times (the descriptions of food are a joke even among people who l ove the books), and I can see the “rape-y” criticism (and I’ll note that the show actually has even MORE nudity than the book describes) but even acknowledging that you couldn’t know what comes in the later books it’s hard to believe you saw only one female character that wasn’t some weak prop, and the “rascal’s escape” criticism is very odd to me. Who gets killed in the war in the first book that was a main character? Robert and Ned both are killed as the Lannisters seize power, but everyone else survives the book. It makes me wonder if we read the same book.
Now, if you were talking about him getting into plots he can’t seem to untangle after reading the 5 books out so far, you would probably get less disagreement. Even Martin himself admitted he had a hell of a time figuring out what the hell he’s doing with one character (he dubbed it the Meereneese Knot) and there’s some serious plot dragging in books 4 and 5 where it becomes much more difficult to accept the writing issues because quite simply, the plot is just plain moving too slowly, particularly after the frenzy of the third book.
Just reading your responses makes you come off as a pretentious deuche and seeing the actual article makes me realize you actually didn’t grasp the themes of the series. Especially after just 1 book.
Congratulations. Easily the worst book review I’ve ever read in my life. GRRM receives international literary praise for the depth of his female characters and it shows. Evrything the critic complains about is that exists in real life and yet he blames violence and rape on the author.
If you aren’t good at analyzing literature, you should have picked another profession.
Oh. Just read the comments and found out this guy is a sports writer.
Gotcha.
Also, not having the patience to get through one book? Or calling 2,000 pages too much reading. Holy crap, America, this is what we’re talking about.
Fanboys are so cute when they’re upset.
In all seriousness, if you can’t be civil, don’t comment here. I will delete comments and/or block users who don’t follow that rule. And, “Todd,” please use a valid email address to comment here, and maybe poke around a little before you cast aspersions on my reading skills. I’ve got plenty of detailed reviews of very long books on the site.
Very interesting review.
Your review sums up all my thoughts; a mediocre work, at best. There is just no excuse for the awful weak plot and the utter one dimensional quality of every single character.
People argue about the “modern approach”, about “breaking the classical view”, and whatnot. Now, I ask myself… Is there any intrinsic merit in this? I don’t think so. The resources some categorize as “impressive” are just pathetic; unnecesary violence, sex, and rape are all over the place, and the characters are so unrelevant to the plot that he can just swipe them off the board like nothing ever happened. Oh, I forgot, he’s being anti-classical! Just for the sake of it! Genius!
This brings me to the next point, the awful plot; It looks like someone layed out a (not very creative) fantasy setting and just threw a bunch of characters there and just let them do whatever they pleased. No real thread running in the background, no real deep motivations or higher powers in play, just random characters doing what they please. Some stuff is just cringe-worthy…