I have freely admitted that before the HBO series "Game of Thrones," I was not familiar with George R. R. Martin's work. Truly, sometimes my ignorance is just breathtaking.
Once the television series began, I was quickly hooked. It was a rich and fascinating story of families, betrayal, loyalty, human perfidy and cruelty, heroic deeds, all laid over with a mysterious threat to the civilization of the seven kingdoms of Martin's world. The acting was good and the production values outstanding. It was, in short, a very good series. What of the books from which the tale came? I had to find out for myself.
What I have found in reading the first book of the Song of Ice and Fire series is that the television series was very true to the book. All the characters and all the action that were part of the series are there in the book. It is an amazing read.
Martin has created a mythical land that seems as though it might have been real in some dim and distant past, perhaps the time we call the Middle Ages. In this world, summers can last for decades and winters for a lifetime or more. We enter the world at a time of summer. It has been summer for many years but now winter is creeping back. Strange things are happening in the haunted forests of the North, beyond "The Wall."
The great family which rules in the North, closest to the lands beyond the Wall, is the Starks, led by Eddard (Ned) Stark, a man to whom honor, family, and loyalty to friends are everything. While sinister and supernatural forces are gathering in the frozen lands beyond the Wall, news of equally sinister events in the South reaches Ned Stark at his home in Winterfell. The Hand of the King, the man charged with seeing that the commands of the king are carried out, has died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Now the king needs a new Hand and he calls on his old friend Ned to fill the office.
Ned is well and truly in the middle. Danger from the North and from the South leaves him filled with foreboding. He has no desire to leave Winterfell and his family, but one cannot say "no" to the king. In the end, he heads South with the king and his entourage, taking his two young daughters with him, so that they will have the advantage of acquaintanceship at the king's court. The reader has a premonition here (even if she hadn't seen the series) that this will not end well for Ned, an honorable man thrown into a pit of poisonous vipers and (Spoiler alert!) it doesn't.
Martin makes his fantasy world come alive with his wonderfully intricate descriptions of pageants and plots, the contrast between the harsh and unyielding lives of the North, where "Winter is coming" is more than just the Stark family's catchphrase, and the epicurean kingdom of the South, where food and wine are plentiful and where the great houses play the game of thrones for keeps.
Martin has created some wonderfully interesting characters that the reader comes to care about and is invested in. Chief among these, of course, is Ned Stark, but there is also his bastard son, Jon Snow and his younger daughter, Arya, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, his other four children. There is Daenerys (Dany), the last of the Targaryens, the old dynasty that had been overthrown by the great families when the outrages of the mad king Aerys II had become too much to bear. Dany and her knight, Ser Jorah Mormont, are fascinating creations and I'm sure we will hear more from them. And then there is Tyrion Lannister, the second son of the great house of Lannister, a dwarf and a cynic who seems a near match for Ned Stark when it comes to honor.
Characters that one cares about, great action, lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror - it's all here. And more! I can't wait to see what happens next, so I'm heading right into the next book in the series, A Clash of Kings.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
A Russian spring?
It seems that the spirit of discontent with the status quo that fueled the Arab Spring and, later, the Occupy movement in this country and around the world is beginning to creep into Russia as well. Protests have sprung up in Moscow and people have taken to the streets over voting irregularities and, indeed, over many long-standing complaints. As one of the activists stated, "People's mentalities have changed. I can't stand being lied to anymore."
That seems to be a succinct statement of what is bothering people in Moscow and in many places in the world. We just can't stand being lied to any more. People in government and in public life make up their own "convenient truths," to support whatever political doctrine they espouse. They relentlessly repeat these lies, never blinking any eye, until they enter the accepted dogma and people forget, if they ever knew, that the whole thing started out as a convenient lie told to make someone look good.
The technique is the same whether it is in Washington or Moscow, London or Peking, or any other place in the world that you care to name. But right around the world, people are getting wise to that technique. The Internet, cell phones, and other accouterments of modern communications technology are powerful weapons against such lies. It is getting harder for the liars to make their lies stick. There are too many eyes watching and ears listening.
This is the energy that spawned the Arab Spring that changed the face of the Middle East. It has engendered the Occupy movement here, the end of which we cannot yet see, but I don't think we'll be returning to the complacent and apathetic population that we seemed to be not so many months ago anytime soon. And now that restless energy has reached all the way to Moscow and has spilled into the streets there. Moscow! Stalin must be spinning wildly in his tomb.
That seems to be a succinct statement of what is bothering people in Moscow and in many places in the world. We just can't stand being lied to any more. People in government and in public life make up their own "convenient truths," to support whatever political doctrine they espouse. They relentlessly repeat these lies, never blinking any eye, until they enter the accepted dogma and people forget, if they ever knew, that the whole thing started out as a convenient lie told to make someone look good.
The technique is the same whether it is in Washington or Moscow, London or Peking, or any other place in the world that you care to name. But right around the world, people are getting wise to that technique. The Internet, cell phones, and other accouterments of modern communications technology are powerful weapons against such lies. It is getting harder for the liars to make their lies stick. There are too many eyes watching and ears listening.
This is the energy that spawned the Arab Spring that changed the face of the Middle East. It has engendered the Occupy movement here, the end of which we cannot yet see, but I don't think we'll be returning to the complacent and apathetic population that we seemed to be not so many months ago anytime soon. And now that restless energy has reached all the way to Moscow and has spilled into the streets there. Moscow! Stalin must be spinning wildly in his tomb.
Monday, December 5, 2011
A dry and stormy future
The southwestern part of the country, from Texas right west to California, has had one of its driest years on record. Moreover, it has also been one of the hottest on record. It has been the all-time worst fire year in Texas and has seen the biggest and most damaging wildfires ever in Arizona and New Mexico. The summer just past was the hottest ever recorded in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico. In my part of Texas, we endured an August where every single day except one had high temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit - often well above 100. If you've enjoyed this year's weather, you are going to love the future here, because there is every indication that this year has been a harbinger of things to come. Drought, heat, wildfires and extreme storms may well be the norm for this region in the foreseeable future.
We should no longer talk of climate change in futuristic terms. Climate change is not happening only in some distant future. Climate change HAS happened and we have contributed to it, making the change more severe and more rapid than it should have been. The really bad news is that we have no inclination or will to change our ways and try to stop or slow the arc of change and so it is likely to continue at an ever faster pace until it is finally too late to do anything to ameliorate it. If it isn't already. According to the scientists at the Global Carbon Project, global emissions of carbon dioxide set a post-Industrial Revolution record in 2010. Want to bet they won't break that record this year?
Meantime, on the political front, every viable Republican candidate for president denies there is any relationship between human-caused carbon dioxide emissions and the heating up of the planet. There are not enough votes in Congress to pass even the weakest legislation to try to reduce our contribution to the problem. And the president utterly refuses to lead on this issue. The words "global warming" and "global climate change" have been expunged from his vocabulary.
What is a concerned citizen to do? This is not a problem that will yield to individual actions, no matter how sincere. There are some things that only a government can do and cleaning up the atmosphere, removing the pollutants that contribute to global warming is one of those things. And the only way government WILL do that is if enough angry voters demand that it be done. It's not something that can be completed in one election cycle perhaps but, in the long run, if we keep the pressure on and refuse to vote for anti-science extremists who would sell the earth to the polluters, then perhaps we can change this government and make it once again a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." For the sake of my sanity, I have to believe that that is possible.
We should no longer talk of climate change in futuristic terms. Climate change is not happening only in some distant future. Climate change HAS happened and we have contributed to it, making the change more severe and more rapid than it should have been. The really bad news is that we have no inclination or will to change our ways and try to stop or slow the arc of change and so it is likely to continue at an ever faster pace until it is finally too late to do anything to ameliorate it. If it isn't already. According to the scientists at the Global Carbon Project, global emissions of carbon dioxide set a post-Industrial Revolution record in 2010. Want to bet they won't break that record this year?
Meantime, on the political front, every viable Republican candidate for president denies there is any relationship between human-caused carbon dioxide emissions and the heating up of the planet. There are not enough votes in Congress to pass even the weakest legislation to try to reduce our contribution to the problem. And the president utterly refuses to lead on this issue. The words "global warming" and "global climate change" have been expunged from his vocabulary.
What is a concerned citizen to do? This is not a problem that will yield to individual actions, no matter how sincere. There are some things that only a government can do and cleaning up the atmosphere, removing the pollutants that contribute to global warming is one of those things. And the only way government WILL do that is if enough angry voters demand that it be done. It's not something that can be completed in one election cycle perhaps but, in the long run, if we keep the pressure on and refuse to vote for anti-science extremists who would sell the earth to the polluters, then perhaps we can change this government and make it once again a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." For the sake of my sanity, I have to believe that that is possible.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
Faulkner on HBO?
I saw an interesting article in the online magazine Slate today. It seems that David Milch of "NYPD Blue" and "Deadwood" fame has signed a deal with HBO to develop several of William Faulkner's works for television. Since Milch does have a known - and successful - track record in television, Faulkner's works would appear to be in good hands. Moreover, HBO has a long lineage of doing quality series, so the addition of Faulkner to that lineage is something to look forward to.
The story didn't specify which of Faulkner's many novels or short stories might be showing up on our home screens at some point in the future. Of course, several of his works have been adapted for the big screen in the past. Some have been successful adaptations, some not so successful, but Milch certainly should not be bound or influenced by any of that history.
One hopes that instead he will look at the works with fresh eyes and with the thought of translating them for an audience who may not be that familiar with them. After all, Faulkner has been dead now for almost fifty years. His earliest work was published around 1919 and his most prolific and best period of writing was in the 1930s and 1940s, making his writing now a part of historical rather than contemporary American literature. The Snopes family and Yoknapatawpha County belong now to our dim past, but they represent eternal truths that are as relevant today as when Faulkner first wrote about them and they are certainly as interesting as the members of the Soprano family or the residents of Deadwood.
Good luck to David Milch on this new project. I look forward to viewing its result.
The story didn't specify which of Faulkner's many novels or short stories might be showing up on our home screens at some point in the future. Of course, several of his works have been adapted for the big screen in the past. Some have been successful adaptations, some not so successful, but Milch certainly should not be bound or influenced by any of that history.
One hopes that instead he will look at the works with fresh eyes and with the thought of translating them for an audience who may not be that familiar with them. After all, Faulkner has been dead now for almost fifty years. His earliest work was published around 1919 and his most prolific and best period of writing was in the 1930s and 1940s, making his writing now a part of historical rather than contemporary American literature. The Snopes family and Yoknapatawpha County belong now to our dim past, but they represent eternal truths that are as relevant today as when Faulkner first wrote about them and they are certainly as interesting as the members of the Soprano family or the residents of Deadwood.
Good luck to David Milch on this new project. I look forward to viewing its result.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
V is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton: A review
Kinsey Millhone just gets better with age. In V is for Vengeance, she turns thirty-eight. The year is 1988 and Kinsey is in her prime as a private detective. She is tough and smart, a woman of her word who lives to see justice done. Even if it is sometimes a rough kind of justice.
In this entry in the long-running series, we find Kinsey shopping the lingerie department at a department store and there she witnesses a woman shoplifting several items. She reports the woman to a clerk who calls in the loss prevention people. The shoplifter is followed out of the store and then confronted about the unpaid-for items she's carrying. Ultimately, she is arrested and taken to jail. For Kinsey, it is a satisfying outcome, but then, a few days later, she learns that the woman is dead, an apparent suicide. But was it?
Her fiance' is disbelieving and hires Kinsey to get to the bottom of what he believes is murder. Little could Kinsey have anticipated where the trail from that one death will lead her.
She uncovers a large and very professional shoplifting ring and at its center is a dapper gangster with a heart of gold. Unfortunately, right next to him is his brother, the sociopath. There is the small-time criminal who gave Kinsey her first set of lock-picks and for whom she has a soft spot in her heart. He has run afoul of the professional criminals and is in big trouble. There's the annoying journalist, the upright cop who is Kinsey's friend and one-time lover, the bent cop who is her nemesis. There is a beautiful woman who has had much sorrow in her life and now is experiencing a new kind of sorrow with an unfaithful husband and is looking for a way out. There is a long, long list of interesting characters here and, for some of the leading actors, we get to hear their stories from their own perspective. But the main focus, as always, is Kinsey Millhone and it is her tale which ties all the others together.
We always know that for every blow dealt Kinsey, she will find a way to extract, if not actually vengeance, a kind of equilibrium. Her fans will not be disappointed by the outcome of this case.
As Kinsey has improved with age, so has her creator Sue Grafton. Ms. Grafton knows her craft. She writes with a sure hand. There are no hesitations or false steps along the way. She knows where she is going with this story and she leads us expertly through the clues, into the heads of the main characters, and finally to a satisfying denouement. I would rate this as one of the better entries in the Kinsey Millhone series.
I wonder what W will stand for?
In this entry in the long-running series, we find Kinsey shopping the lingerie department at a department store and there she witnesses a woman shoplifting several items. She reports the woman to a clerk who calls in the loss prevention people. The shoplifter is followed out of the store and then confronted about the unpaid-for items she's carrying. Ultimately, she is arrested and taken to jail. For Kinsey, it is a satisfying outcome, but then, a few days later, she learns that the woman is dead, an apparent suicide. But was it?
Her fiance' is disbelieving and hires Kinsey to get to the bottom of what he believes is murder. Little could Kinsey have anticipated where the trail from that one death will lead her.
She uncovers a large and very professional shoplifting ring and at its center is a dapper gangster with a heart of gold. Unfortunately, right next to him is his brother, the sociopath. There is the small-time criminal who gave Kinsey her first set of lock-picks and for whom she has a soft spot in her heart. He has run afoul of the professional criminals and is in big trouble. There's the annoying journalist, the upright cop who is Kinsey's friend and one-time lover, the bent cop who is her nemesis. There is a beautiful woman who has had much sorrow in her life and now is experiencing a new kind of sorrow with an unfaithful husband and is looking for a way out. There is a long, long list of interesting characters here and, for some of the leading actors, we get to hear their stories from their own perspective. But the main focus, as always, is Kinsey Millhone and it is her tale which ties all the others together.
We always know that for every blow dealt Kinsey, she will find a way to extract, if not actually vengeance, a kind of equilibrium. Her fans will not be disappointed by the outcome of this case.
As Kinsey has improved with age, so has her creator Sue Grafton. Ms. Grafton knows her craft. She writes with a sure hand. There are no hesitations or false steps along the way. She knows where she is going with this story and she leads us expertly through the clues, into the heads of the main characters, and finally to a satisfying denouement. I would rate this as one of the better entries in the Kinsey Millhone series.
I wonder what W will stand for?
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