"May your behavior and your conversation be such that everyone who sees or hears you say: This man reads the life of Jesus Christ."-  St. Josemaría Escrivá    

"Mary is the lily in God's garden."-  St. Bridget of Sweden  

""RELIGION is the sense of ultimate reality, of whatever meaning a man finds in his own existence or the existence of anything else."- G.K. Chesterton    

Salvete all,

Hey everyone! I know, surprising that I would make another journal entry so soon, eh? Well, as it turns out I have just finished George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones which is the first book in his series called A Song of Ice and Fire and, well, to be blunt, I disliked almost everything about it. As some of you may recall, I made a book trade with two friends of mine (and later a third) that they would read With Fire and Swordby Henryk Sienkiewicz and I would read a book of their choice in return.  Now I have yet to read Kristin Lavransdatter and then I shall all be done with my trade. And for all of you, if you need some good book recommends for this summer, and you're a fan of adventure, fun characters, learning a whole lot of history you may have never even heard of before with the effortlessness of historical fiction and whole lot of other good things besides, I would *highly* recommended With Fire and Sword. It's certainly no fluffy read, but it's also not an incomprehensible labyrinthine maze; it's a solid, fun good read.

Anyway, back to George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones. ~ThatOneGuy92 has already asked me what I thought about the book, and I know some of my other friends shall ask as well, so instead of individually rant—*cough* I mean, explaining to them why it was that I disliked the book, I shall simply direct them to this journal entry. However, as I was thinking about how to put my thoughts in order, I realized that what I wanted to write wasn't so much of a rant than an explanation for what I think makes a good book—and consequently, why I think  A Game of Thrones is not one of them. So this is not so much a review of the book, as much as it is an overview of why I think it is a bad book. The only story details I'll be giving will serve merely as examples. So, no spoilers.

But first question. Why am I doing this in the first place? Excellent question. I have three answers: 1.) I'm not quite sure why I'm writing this either, except for the fact that apparently I am motivated enough by my great dislike for the thing, and also because for the fourteen-and-a-half-hours-or-so that I spent slugging through it over the course of the last three days was…painful, to say the least. 2.) Also, I felt it might just be to get all of my thoughts out, because they keep crowding into my head whenever I am trying to distract myself, and I just don't want to think about A Game of Thrones anymore. 3.) And while I was reading it (besides ranting about it to all and sundry while I timed myself on how many pages I could read in an hour—I got it down to reading a page a minute, and with roughly 800 pages of book, and reading it between three days…you can do the math. ) I thought there might perhaps be some merit in sharing my thoughts with you guys and see what you think. Especially if you're a writer, perhaps something I say may be of some help to you, or illustrate a good point, or even just provoke a good discussion. I'm more than open for that. So continue reading if you so desire, and let me introduce… A Game of Thrones.



:+: LORD SHADOWBLADE DISCUSSES: A GAME OF THRONES:+:

Alrighty, before I begin discussing why I disliked the book, perhaps I should probably start with what my expectations of the book were from what I had heard, seen and read previously from friends, acquaintances, or from articles, reviews, and even fanart (I believe my first introduction to the book was one of =Gold-Seven's illustrations many, many years ago). Here's what my preconceptions about it were:

1.) It was going to be dark and gritty—so lots of blood, battles, treacheries, etc.
2.) It would have lots of court intrigues, twists and turns, etc. In a word, it would be clever, that is to say, it would be a clever mystery that the main protagonist would have to sort through along with the reader.
3.) I was told it had a sex scenes—so I had to be wary about those.
4.) It was going to be a really well-written, engaging story, with a whole host of multi-faceted characters that you really cared about.
5.) Lastly, it had a fantastic, meticulously crafted, realistic world with lots of details. In a word, George R.R. Martin was a superb world-building architect, and other authors should aspire to be like him.

That's what all my "sources" led me to expect.

I was severely disappointed on every, single, count. The only one that surpassed my expectations was number three, and I was not at all happy with that. But I will get to that later. So! Where to begin? How about I start with the main things that really killed the book for me.

:+: Writing :+:

The writing was what surprised me about the book the most. I had expected it to be good, solid writing, despite whatever the subject matter was that the author was writing about. Well, I was wrong. It actually shocked me; here I was, reading this book (the prologue, to start with) and I was wincing. It's not that his writing is terrible; it's worse—it is bad to (at best) squarely mediocre. Why is that worse? Well, for one thing if it was just laughably awful no one would read it except to make fun of it (This book is written badly, but—I suppose I could say—"tolerably" bad—which is to say that if you just kept pressing on through wracking, thorny underbrush of stilted, awkward phrasing, eventually you might become numb to the pain and ignore it or get used to it), or at least no one would read it for the literary quality (*coughTwilightcough*) but would read it instead simply for the sake of the plot or characters, etc (even if the writing style itself sucks, or is mediocre, other aspects of the book can still be salvaged. Some writers have greater strengths in characterization or mood, or descriptions, or dialogue, etc, and can therefore compensate for those areas they are not as good at writing).

His writing style, UGH—here was this book using trite phrases and overused descriptions (maybe I should have had drinking game based on the amount of times I read "supple as sin" or "sweet as honey" or "black as ink" and other such things). The sentences were awkward and didn't flow at all. He used clumsy, stilted language (I would have sworn it was on purpose, except that I don't know why anyone would purposely try to make their book awful, I dunno, maybe he thought it made him sound olde and medievael and all that) in a way that made me grind my teeth together. Of course, we all use trite phrases from time-to-time and if we're being lazy editors, our sentence structure can suffer, so if it was just that, I would have just shrugged and plodded on. Yes, crappy descriptions and exposition makes for rough travel (rather like trying to ride on a loud, squeaky horse cart that seems to break an axle every half-mile or so) but it is…bearable at least. And you'll get to the end of your journey in it. Eventually.

However, the style is not the only thing that suffers in this book. His awful writing transcends every other aspect of the book (word to all writers: no matter how awesome your plot and world building skills are, if you can't write, your book will still suck. Conversely, if you're an excellent writer, you can write about the most common-place, ordinary hum-drum thing in the world and churn out pure gold. And perhaps that is what the best stories are made from). Besides exposition, the other three primary parts of the book to discuss are: Plot, Characters (dialogue) and World-building. I put them altogether because, alas, they are tied so closely as to be inseparable. Why is that an "alas"?
Because the "World" exists for the book, the Plot exists for the World, the Characters exist solely for the Plot, and the Dialogue exists merely because that-is-something-characters-do. In essence, my complaint here is one that I confronted throughout the whole book: Everything feels flat, fake, bland and wooden. The characters don't feel like real people you could have a conversation with, they aren't vibrant, interesting and intriguing. They just…act. They fill their role in the story and that is it. They have a certain number of characteristics and they stick with them. It's just so…predictable. His plot acts in the same way. I wasn't surprised by any of the plots twists at all, and even if I had been, I didn't care at all. I blame his bland writing style on this and his seeming inability to have any kind of poignant…well…anything. They exist merely for the sake of the book. I think a lot of his characters have a lot of potential, but he fails to really bring them to life.

The Plot. Ah. What should I say about this? Like I said, this is not a review of the book per se, so I'm not going over details of what exactly happens; go to Wikipedia for that. Speaking of Wikipedia though—*sigh*—I'm not sure if I'd be able to say this about anything else I've ever encountered before, but honestly, the Wikipedia description sounds so much better than the actual book is. I don't know how it is that I can say that, but I can. Seriously. Even having read the book I can go to the Wikipedia entry of "Game of Thrones", read it and be like; "Hmm. Sounds like an interesting book. But wait, I'm pretty sure I read this book. Oh yeah. And it fell flat on its face." Same for the characters. And same for the world building. It sounds excellent when it's laid out, but then you see how it's written. I think if I picked the book up again I'd be just as shocked at how poorly written it is. One would think…but no. Chuck Testa. *sigh*
The plot: this is one thing I was particularly disappointed about. One of the only reasons I kept pressing on was that I hoped (despite everything else) that the plot would be filled with mystery and twists and turns and lots of political backstabbing and maneuvering and fascinating court struggles and all that (and, I'll admit it, give me some inspiration for my own story, where I'd like to have a lot of political intrigues going on). NOPE. Chuck Testa.



The whole turning "mystery" of the story is told you, right at the beginning. Seriously. Within the first 100 pages (out of 800). Plainly. TO YOUR FACE. And then you watch the characters struggle to figure out the whole thing for the next 500 pages…but no…not in a suspenseful way…not even in a way that makes you gasp and cry out "Oh, it's right there in front of your faces!" Nope. There's no literary suspense or anything. It just…plods on. As hum-drum as you please. Now, if it were me, (and this would be easy to do) I would let the reader agonize with the character over what the mystery is. DON'T BLOODY GIVE IT AWAY. But even if one did give it away, USE that little dagger of dramatic irony and twist it ever so slowly so that your reader will freaking care. But of course, Martin does none of these things. And later on, after the climax…well…I suppose I'll get to that with the characters. In any case, the reactions of all the characters were all so stiff and wooden and, frankly, for lack of a better word: pre-programmed. They were fake, stiff puppets, but not characters. They don't seem real. In any case, it was literally boring to read. The plot had potential (not a lot, but some at least), and it was squandered. By bad writing.

A quote (via Wikipedia) from the author has this to say: "Martin has described his penchant for killing off important characters as being necessary for the story's depth: "...when my characters are in danger, I want you to be afraid to turn the page, (so) you need to show right from the beginning that you're playing for keeps."' Except…what if I don't give one whit about your characters? I'll root for one or the other because to keep sane while reading a book that long you have to pick someone to root for, even if you switch around every chapter. But that's not because I like the book or the characters, it's because I'm trying to get through this blasted thing without gouging my eyes out.

But this quote also makes me think of something that was in my mind while I read the book. The fact that the author does have a tendency to kill off characters left and right. Well, now that we know that, why bother to invest our time and affection in any of them in the first place? (Even if you could, which…I would be hard pressed to do, since his entire cast of characters is so dull). But you know, part of it could also be that he has such a large cast of characters (that he is, no doubt, fattening for slaughter later) that he doesn't bother to spend a good deal of time with anyone. Because the book is a POV with about…hmmm…eight different characters or so? He skips around a lot. Even if we wanted to we couldn't invest much time and energy with them.

Which leads me to the dialogue. Dialogue is how you really make your characters come alive. One of the reasons why I felt like his characters were so wooden was the fact that their dialogue was wooden. It was like they were reciting lines out of script, like it was forced, merely because the plot required THAT THEY SPEAK JUST SO, without enthusiasm and as predictable as the sun rising in the east. The "witty" ones were "witty" (and the author made the awful mistake of praising his own wit in the mouth of another character. *facepalm*) the gruff ones were gruff, the devious ones were "devious" etc, etc. I'll give you an example: one of the characters, a man named Petyr Baelish "Littlefinger" (which I think was one of the characters who had the most potential, along with Tyrion Lannister) would often have little quips that, just…ugh…fell flat. The jibes failed to amuse me. They weren't funny, or particularly witty, and then other characters would praise him for his wit. But it was without any feeling! It was like all the materials were there AND HE JUST FAILED TO DO ANYTHING WITH THEM. I thought that was really quite a pity. Again, lots of wasted potential.

For the world-building, I'll only say a couple of things because I will address my major complaints later when I get to the Map. My problem with his world is the same problem I have with the rest of his book: it has a lot of potential that is squandered with mediocre writing and mediocre characters. The world itself is, however, meh. It is what it is, which is to say, not much.

Essentially, the writing makes this book as boring as hell. If your writing sucks, nothing can save your book. If I had to describe the problems that this book has in a single sentence, I would say that it was like someone took a potentially interesting world, a potentially interesting plot, and potentially interesting characters and then wrote an awful piece of fanfiction with it.

:+: Trust :+:

That seems to be an odd objection to have. What does trust have to do with anything? I'll tell you: Trust has everything to do with it. There's a rather subconscious bond that is formed between the reader and the author the moment the reader decides to pick up their book and commit themselves to it. This is what I call "the implicit trust between author and reader." There's a kind of communion between the author and reader: the author shares their thoughts, their characters, and—in some cases—bares their soul for their reader to see. In turn, the reader respects and honors the author by reading what they have to say and taking it into themselves. Make no mistake, everything you read, watch, see and hear becomes a part of the fabric of your being—who you are as a human being—whether you wish it or not. Now, for sure, you can certainly reject those ideas/images, etc., but they'll still be with you, offering you a different point of view, giving you something to contrast your ideas with, etc. but they are still with you, nonetheless.

It is a very vulnerable and intimate communion between persons, and, like all interactions between persons (heck, and even between a person and an animal!) there needs to be a basis of trust. The author has a duty towards the reader: provide a story and the reader will read it which, by the simple reading of it, affirms and honors the author. (Or, to even look at this in a materialistic, practical way: the author provides a service, the reader is the consumer and gives them what they want for sharing their ideas: money.) What I mean to say is that the reader needs to know that the author will take care of them. The reader has made themselves vulnerable to author and they need to know that they will not be taken advantage of.

Now, to be sure, I was wary while reading A Game of Thrones. I was not sure whether to trust the author or not. Despite people's assurances that it was a good book, I wasn't so sure myself. That being said, for me, there is one sure-fire way of abusing my trust: having explicit sex scenes. Which Martin had in aplenty. Which brings us to our next section….

:+: Sex Scenes:+: (I'm warning you know, Martin devotes a good bit of his book to this, so this section is not going to be terribly pretty)

Perhaps I should start this section off with a discussion of the purpose of having, well, anything in a book. Particularly scenes of a graphic nature, but let's stick with the first one for now. Well, why do you include any scene in a story? Well, I can think of really only two reasons: 1.) It forwards the plot and/or 2.) it helps to develop characters. And I think even developing characters to make them more interesting or whatnot is for the purpose of forwarding the plot, of making the reader more interested in the story, etc. Developing mood (things like motifs and foreshadowing) also helps to forward the plot, right? Right.

So. What do sex scenes do for the plot? Well, I can think of several things that they do in this book in particular: 1.) For mood (i.e. being creepy and disturbing), 2.) because the author felt like throwing one in and…actually wait. That's all I can think of.

Yep.

First of all, let me just say straight off the bat why I do not like sex scenes in books. For one, it offends my sense of modesty. I don't want to read about that. I do not approve of voyeurism in any forms. I think it is creepy and disgusting and the more graphic it is the more obvious desperate the author is to try and arouse lust in the readers, which I think is morally wrong. Second, it is unnecessary. If you don't think so, I'd be honestly curious as to know why. The only arguments for putting sex scenes in books that I can think of off the top of my head are: 1.) saying it's just a natural part of life so people ought to write about it and 2.) it helps to develop or define characters. Well, to the first, I would say, so is taking a dump (pardon the expression) but I don't need a blow by blow account of your characters heeding the call of nature. Throwing up is a pretty common occurrence as well, but I haven't found myself reading much graphic material concerning the color of a character's lost lunch and its intriguing carrot-like texture. Just because something is natural doesn't mean people ought to necessarily write about it. There's something called being discreet (and simply being straight up polite! No one wants to read about that). Sure, refer to these things, but do I need a graphic scene? No. And I certainly don't want one. As to the second, I can agree that it could tell us something about the characters. But I think it tells us more about the author than the characters. But really, there are much better ways of developing characters than adding sex scenes. Like I dunno, actually having dialogue and real scenes were people can actually have meaningful character development.

But, even all of that aside, my biggest problem with Martin's sex scenes is that he writes them, get this, for the single purpose of scandalizing the reader. That seems to me to be flagrant abuse of trust on the author's part. Now, I believe (though I could be wrong) that Martin had a past in writing horror novels. Since the point of that genre seems to have fallen to the low level of merely trying to be as gruesome and scandalizing as possible, I couldn't say I'd be surprised. So, Martin fills his fantasy novel with rapes galore, sex scenes, incest and lots of loitering around with prostitutes. Class.

I skipped the sex scenes as best I could, but you could tell when they were coming up. But the whole thing falls short I think, for me at least, because I was mostly just amused at how hard he was trying to scandalize the reader (which, in this case, was me). It's really kind of pathetic, in a way; it's like a teenager trying to shock you. It's laughable. So, instead of being scandalized, I was bored, and rolled my eyes. It kind of reminds me of a quote by Dale Alquist: "Men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense…They try to stab their nerves to life, if it were with the knives of the priests of Baal. They are walking in their sleep and trying to wake themselves up with nightmares."

Also, I'm sick to death of whore jokes.

:+:Various Minor Things that Rankled:+:

I'll try to be fairly brief, because this has gotten long already, so here we go:

Map – Okay, the map itself is linear (like a "line" straight up and down), which, I KNOW. EVERY FANTASY CARTOGRAPHER WANTS LINEAR MAPS. I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT WE LOVE THEM. And we're also wrong, because we want to have our deserts and our jungles and our mountains and our arctic landscapes, etc. And to do that you need it to be linear. HOWEVER, civilizations do NOT shift linearly. Why? The short answer is this; People like their own climate. They can grow their own food, while if they shift down a couple latitudes their crops won't grow, and they'll most likely die from the new climate's diseases or from the temperature difference itself. Case in point: When the Europeans colonized Africa, where did they thrive? Not in the Sahara, not in the Congo, not in Kenya. They thrived (and thrive) in South Africa. Why? Same climate (Temperate) as Europe. Bingo.  

Battle Scenes – Sucked. They just sucked. You'd think a man would put more effort into his battle scenes.

Armor and Weapons – Just, grrr….EVERYTHING. YOU DON'T WEAR GOLDEN ARMOR FOOLS.

Grammar, Spelling, and Random Lapses into the Second Person - Oh yeah, this really caught me off guard. I was like, "Um…who sucks? The author or his editor?" And there were random lapses into the second person throughout the book that always jarred me right out of place. It would be like, "Jack and Jill walked up a hill so big that you wouldn't be able to climb it." O.o. Poor show chap.

Language - Oh yeah, and sometimes he lapsed into language that is more appropriately suited (well, to no one, but if it were suited to someone it'd be suited) to a bunch noobs playing Call of Duty. And like, the words used were just so out of place it was jarring. Completely unprofessional in any case. Come up with better insults than the f-word. Be creative people.

The Weather - Oh yeah, this was just…an odd thing. So…I know this is supposed to be a plot point in later novels or something but…umm….their summers last for 10 years? C'mon, that doesn't even make sense. Now, I could understand if they just had a long period of an unusually long warm spell, but summer for 10 years? Summer is an astronomical definition, particularly of the earth (or whatever planet it is)'s relation to the sun and its tilt. If they have years (ie. if the planet ROTATES AT ALL), they have summers, winters, falls, etc. Unless there is no tilt. In which case, I don't believe life on such a planet is possible. But I could be wrong. But perhaps "Summer" is just a creative term for a warm spell, I don't know. And maybe their "winters" are like mini Ice Ages or something. I don't know. In any case, you CANNOT have a summer that lasts ten years unless you also have other seasons that last the exact same amount of time.

Names - This just bothered me. He felt like he had to call his knights "Ser" instead of "Sir." Why? No, but really, why? To the general populace, when speaking of a knight (in English that is), the correct title is "Sir" and I think everyone knows that. But he felt like he had to change a letter. Why? Also: "Petyr." Really? Why couldn't it just be "Peter"? And why can't "Eddard"  be "Edward"? If you're going to change a name, at least put some effort into it. Sheeh.

Religion - I generally am not a fan of religion in fantasy novels, mostly because of two reasons: 1.) It just serves as some kind of filler and 2.) No one who writes religion in their novels seem to get it, or 3.) if they do, they just come off sounding irritating and preachy. If it can be done well, go for it. But it's very hard to do (i.e. don't do it). In Martin's case, (from what I can gauge of his books) I don't think he gets religion or religious people and he uses it as a filler for the medieval Church (the Seven) and paganism (the old gods). I don't think he gets either paganism or any other form of organized religion. So, both strikes.

*sigh* And all of these various things coming together helped make this book unbearable. Woohoo. The only reason I ended up actually finishing the thing was because I said I would. Let it never be said that ~LordShadowblade does not keep her word once she gives it.

I apologize if this just degenerated into an incomprehensible rant. After spending a good part of the past three days reading that book I must confess myself to be rather tired and spent. So I apologize in advance if I seemed snappish and somewhat irritated and peeved. Yes, but not at you dear reader. But I do hope there was something constructive in it, and, most of all, I hope I never spare one more thought on A Game of Thrones. Peace off.



Pax Vobiscum!

Valete!

~Omnes ad Iesum per Mariam~

Your Sister in Christ,

* ~ Lord Theophilia Shadowblade ~ *



Art for Other Deviants:

1.) St. Sebastian for ~ZhaneAugustine
2.) Pope Gregory the Great for ~alcuin18
3.) Adoring the Blessed Sacrament for ~mariapaulina
4.) Arthur and Morgaine for ~Alois-Noette
5.) Joan of Arc for ~Juniperfern
6.) St. Francis and mouse for ~agentflapjack
7.) Ballad of the White Horse Project with ~FireFiriel

Personal Artwork:

1.) Self-Portrait Oil Painting
2.) Pater Noster
3.) Dark Night of the Soul – Daethryn
4.) Star of the County Down
5.) Fall of Constantinople Cover
6.) Templar in a Courtyard
7.) Martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket
8.) Soldier of God painting
9.) Bohemund Crosses the Adriatic
10.) Self-portrait with Saints
11.) Psalm 45
12.) Staircase Scene
13.) Rosary Series
14.) Theotokos of Kazan
15.) Our Lady of Grace
16.) Our Lady of Poland
17.) Theotokos of Jerusalem
18.) Our Lady of America
19.) Salus Populi Romani
20.) Our Lady of Perpetual Help
21.) Our Lady of All Nations
22.) Our Lady of Fatima
23.) Godfrey carrying Baldwin
24.) "With Fire and Sword" pictures
25.) How to Wear/Draw Armor Tutorial
26.) Tancred von Marienburg pictures
27.) "I am a worm and no man…"
28.) Malik and Maryam
29.) Ballad of the White Horse Title Page (Kells Style)

…and tons of others….

Comics:

1.) Crown of the World
a. The Graphic Novella of the Prologue
2.) Ivanhoe
a. Ivanhoe and BI song
b. Pirates of Penzance
c. The Knight Deliverer Argument
d. Bois-Guilbert and Rebecca Montage
3.) The Battle of Cresson

Writing:

1.) Fall of Constantinople Play
2.) Articles
3.) My Story (that shall never be written)
4.) Beaver I. Mystery
5.) Tancred von Marienburg



My Book List

1. Poetic Diction - Owen Barfield
2. Kristin Lavransdatter – Sigrid Undset
3. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet
4. The Confessions -  St. Augustine
5. Chronicles of the Crusades - Joinville and Villehardouin
6. Theology of the Body– John Paul II
7. Letters to a Young Catholic - George Weigel
8. Seven Pillars of Wisdom - T.E. Lawrence
9. Woman - Edith Stein
10. Wisdom and Innocence - Joseph Pearce
11. The Crusades - Reginé Pernoud
12. King Lear - Shakespeare
13. Saint Thomas Aquinas - G.K. Chesterton
14. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
15. The Templars - Reginé Pernoud
16. St. Therese of Lisieux: Spouse and Victim - Cliff Ermatinger
17. The Man on a Donkey - H.F.M. Prescott
18. Diary: Divine Mercy in my Soul - St. Maria Faustina Kowalska
19. Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths - Reginé Pernoud
20. City of God – St. Augustine
21. Interior Castle – St. Teresa of Avila
22. Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
23. The Deluge – Henryk Sienkiewicz
24. Fire in the Steppe/Pan Wołodyjowski – Henryk Sienkiewicz
25. The Name of the Rose– Umberto Eco
26. Collected Works– Anton Chekov
27. The Decameron– Boccaccio
28. The Prince – Machiavelli
29. Dark Night of the Soul – St. John of the Cross
30. Pensées– Blaise Pascal
31. The Philosophy of Aristotle
32. Doctor Zhivago– Boris Pasternak
33. The Spirit of Thomism– Étienne Gilson
34. The Philosopher and Theology– Étienne Gilson
35. Painting and Reality– Étienne Gilson
36. The History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages– Étienne Gilson
37. Notes from the Underground– Fyodor Dostoevsky
38. The Antagonists– Anton Chekov

Not in any particular order…and not to mention tons of others (about Constantinople in particular).





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