Tag Archives: fiction

What Pretty Pig Said to Crunch

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I’m close to the end of A Dance With Dragons, the fifth book in George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy, A Song of Fire and Ice. If you haven’t read the earlier books, you really should read them before reading this one, although it would be interesting to read the fifth and then go back and find out much more about Jon Snow, Cersei, Tyrion, Theon Greyjoy, Arya Stark, and all the other characters that populate this turbulent world.

Here are a few observations that should not be spoilers.

  • There are more and more detailed maps in A Dance with Dragons. Place and movement are very important in Martin’s worlds; the maps provide some orientation for those of us who like/need that kind of thing.
  • In all the books, Martin has focused each chapter on a character, using that character’s name as the chapter title. He does that in Dance, but he also use other names or nicknames for some characters, adding a layer to the story’s meaning.
  • If anything, Dance is more brutal than the earlier books, but maybe I am just becoming more tender-minded. The sexual references, if not activity, also seem more frequent. They are also crude. When our children were young, my wife read The Lord of the Rings to them. I would consider this book PG 13 at least, if not R. Aw, adolescents should be able to read it: it’s no more vulgar or violent than most rap.
  • If you want to know what Pretty Pig said to Crunch, read the book!

A closing speculation on categorizing A Song of Ice and Fire. One would think to to be a series, but I think of the books in a series as being at least quasi-stand-alone. While events conclude, and characters die, throughout this group of books, Martin has created a number of plot arcs that have not ended so far. If there’s no conclusion until (one hopes!) the seventh book, then perhaps A Song of Ice and Fire is a novel in several volumes.

That is the case for The Lord of the Rings: while TLOR is commonly referred to as a “trilogy,” it is really one novel, not three. Compare C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books or Ranson trilogy for genuine series. The seven Narnia books may be read in any order; the same is true for the Ransom books. In the case of Narnia, there’s a legitimate question of what the order is anyway.

In any case, I highly recommend Martin’s books about Westeros, the Free Cities, Slaver’s Bay, and so on.

Realpolitik in a Fantasy World – By Alyssa Rosenberg | Foreign Policy

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Realpolitik in a Fantasy World – By Alyssa Rosenberg | Foreign Policy. This article gives a good look at an important aspect of A Song of Ice and Fire. Its readers, however, might come away thinking that these novels are treatises on politics. The characters are equally important: their motives, desires, strengths, weaknesses all contribute to the rich texture of Martin’s stories. For myself, I care about the politics because I am fascinated by Cersei, Tyrion, Arya, Daenyris, Jon Snow, and all the rest of the major characters. And there’s a long list of them!

Solitary Freedom

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Walter Mosley is probably best known for his mystery novels about Easy Rawlins and Fearless Jones. I really like the Easy Rawlins books and have read them all. Fearless Jones I don't care for so much, and I've not yet gotten through one of Mosley's science fiction books. His new series, featuring Leonid McGill, is very promising after two novels.

Browsing our local used bookstore, I found The Man in My Basement, shelved with Mosley's detective novels. This book is a "mainstream" novel (discussion of genre is for another occasion). Published by Little, Brown, and Company in 2004, The Man in My Basement is narrated by Charles Blakey, who lives alone in a large house that has been in his family for "seven generations or more." Blakey is African-American, but his family pride themeselves on never having been slaves. In Easy Rawlins, the reader discovers a Los Angeles experience, a gritty urban life; Easy struggles to survive and protect the ones he loves. Leonid McGill lives in New York City and works out of an elegant office he acquired through happenstance.

With both Easy and McGill, Charles Blakey shares a darkness of soul, a need to be alert to nuances in order to survive. Blakey is not a private investigator, however; he lives alone, associates with two card-playing and drinking buddies, spending most of his time in his house reading and drinking. Blakey also is in dire need of money.

A white man shows up at his door with a strange request: he will pay Blakey nearly $50,000 to live in the house's large basement for a couple of months in the summer. This man, Anniston Bennet," has a very strange summer in mind, a summer that changes Blakey and gets him moving in a different direction.

Before the basement can be inhabited, Blakey must clear it out. He finds there a trove of family possessions: diaries, furniture, paintings, and three small ivory masks. In moving these things and having them evaluated by an antiques dealer brings Blakey to a new knowledge of his family's past and thus of his identity.

The Man in My Basement is the story of a man's crisis, economic, social, and existential. The writing is clear and clean and the insights convincing. I hope you read it and enjoy it.