Taming The Beast (Emily Maguire)

For my first read of the summer, I decided to revisit a novel I bought and read four years ago. As well as the provocative title and cover image, 'Taming The Beast' possessed the kind of dark love story that habitually piques my interest. My recollection of my first read was that I genuinely enjoyed it. Strangely, second time around, I did not enjoy it at all, bar the odd passage. Funny how time changes one's perceptions. Perhaps there are some books that shouldn't be re-read after all.

The plot itself is rather clichéd, although attacked by the writer in a feisty and direct manner. Sarah Clark, a prodigy and a nerd, experiences sexual awakening in a high school English class in suburban Sydney, where Shakespeare and Donne lead her directly into the arms of her teacher, Daniel Carr. The prodigy takes to sexual studies the same way she took to academic studies, and soon enough their affair is all consuming and dangerously violent. Carr flees to Brisbane with his family, leaving Sarah only memories. This part of the novel is uncomfortable to read, but mostly well written, with the exception of the shoehorned quotations by prominent writers that make their way into the dialogue and narrative. Sarah is clear about the choice she is making, and her strength and conviction go a long way to making this a believable love story.

It is in part two that Maguire goes wrong, on reflection. The story picks up some years later, with Sarah now a twenty-one-year-old honours student at university with a reputation for sleeping around. Her affair as an adolescent has turned her into a rampant nymphomaniac who has no interest in tenderness or affection. She studies hard, screws hard and lives in a spartan flat filled with beer cans. Her life is balanced somewhat by her childhood friend Jamie, who has her best interests at heart, but his own girlfriend's pregnancy and his own feelings for Sarah lead to complications, even before the inevitable re-appearance of Daniel Carr...

The concept behind 'Taming The Beast' is promising, and part one gives the impression that Maguire has really thought about the controversial subject she is examining, but sadly this good work goes by the wayside as cliché after cliché is relentlessly rolled out, from the way that young men like Jamie get trapped into fatherhood at too young an age to the negative way that all of Sarah's friends view her carnality. The sex scenes occur with such regularity and with such depressing amounts of detail that they soon lose all power. You are literally anaesthetised to them after thirty pages, and yet Maguire never lets up- most of the book seems to be laboured descriptions of vaguely edgy sex. The dialogue and interior monologues of Jamie and Sarah are particularly excruciating, and upon his reappearance, Daniel becomes a pantomime villain rather than a genuinely complicated and ambivalent figure.

My guess is that Maguire wanted to tell us that true love is neither pleasant nor polite, that it is a raging, inescapable conflagration that destroys all in its path. Her implication seems to be that Shakespeare and his cohorts thought this too, and she rolls out a whole laundry load of quotations from the Sonnets and 'Othello' to prove her point. I hate it when writers try to prove their erudition by telling the reader what they've read. It hardly ever comes across well. The third person narrative is unbelievably embarrassing at times, with the filtering through the primary characters usually hitting the level of a mid-1980s problem page letter to Just 17. The prose style picks up again in the last few pages, but by then, it's too late.

I really wish I hadn't re-read this book. Although it was a nice easy read to get my eye in for a long six weeks of work free reading, going back to it spoiled the positive memory I had of it. I suppose that one's perception of a book is sharply bound up in the memories of the time it was read in, and four years is most certainly enough time for the rose tinted spectacles to be removed. So I can definitely tell my twenty-seven-year-old self that he was wrong for enjoying this book first time round. It starts promisingly and ends powerfully, but the long middle section is just embarrassing really. If you want to see this kind of storyline done well, try Zoe Heller's 'Notes On A Scandal', which I feel like re-reading to take the bad taste of this out of my mouth.

A Song of Ice and Fire (George R. R. Martin)

For as long as I can remember I have been a reader. The written word enchanted me from my earliest days, and that love for reading of all sorts led me all the way to an English degree and a job teaching English. Books are my life in many ways, and this blog is a way of celebrating that fact. Most of the books I have reviewed would be classed as literary fiction, the kind of thing I studied in my degree, the kind of thing I teach teenagers on a daily basis. I love the canon, I love the challenging nature of literary fiction, and I'm eternally glad that my path in life was defined by that fact. However, long before university, long before I knew the difference between high and low culture, long before I knew what was considered "literary", there was one kind of book I loved to read more than any other. From around seven to around seventeen, I devoured hundreds of works of fantasy literature. My love for this type of literature has never, ever gone away, either.

It all started in a primary school classroom in a small town in East Kent on a rainy day in the late 1980s. Forced to play inside of a lunchtime due to the inclement weather, two friends of  mine introduced me to the Fighting Fantasy series, a series of books that doubled as games. You chose your own adventure and battled fearsome beasts on your way through a perilous quest filled with ingenious traps. They were like crack to an imaginative seven year old, and I read through them voraciously. Soon after, I discovered Tolkien, first 'The Hobbit', then 'The Lord of the Rings' and finally 'The Silmarillion'. I read the Forgotten Realms series (a particular favourite of mine being the Finder's Stone trilogy by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb). I read David Eddings' Belgariad and Mallorean quintets. I read Terry Brooks. My favourite series of all, as my late teens arrived, was Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time...but by then I was about to start a degree and fantasy literature was something of a guilty pleasure, to be read in holidays or perhaps on a weekend when my study schedule was light. 

Fast forward to the early days of my teaching career, the summer of 2004 to be precise. I found myself without reading material one free evening and took a wander down to Borders, which, in Brighton, used to open until nine. I was perusing the fantasy section and my eyes lit on George R.R. Martin's 'A Game of Thrones'. Now, years before, an acquaintance at university had recommended the series A Song of Ice and Fire to me, but I had entirely forgotten until then. I picked up the book and read the Prologue. Soon after I was walking to the counter. Two days later, I returned to purchase 'A Clash of Kings', book 2 of the series. Three days after that, I was buying 'A Storm of Swords'. At that point, 'A Feast For Crows' was still a year and a bit away from publication, so I had to content myself with re-reading the first three books. Martin's series had me well and truly hooked. When 'A Feast For Crows finally arrived, that was devoured a manner similar to the title. Then a six year wait for the next book commenced. That was torture.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll know by now that HBO optioned the series for a television show, which hit screens in April of this year under the name 'Game of Thrones'. While it is, no doubt, a highly laudable piece of television, beautifully shot and well acted, if you love the show but haven't read the books, you're doing yourself out of experiencing Martin's world fully. There's so much you miss out on, inevitably, as any screen adaptation, especially one that adapts a fantasy book as rich as Martin's, has to cut an awful lot out. 

What with one of my favourite books in the world being adapted for television, and what with the fifth volume of the series 'A Dance With Dragons' finally being released, with much more fanfare than with previous books, I recently embarked upon a comprehensive re-read of the first four books in time for the release of 'A Dance With Dragons' last Tuesday (July 12th). It is my intention here to do some justice to the sheer enormity of Martin's achievement and explain to the uninitiated why these books are a must-read. For the initiated, I hope to touch upon the themes, moments and characters that are most important to me. This blog post is a labour of love. I'll try and keep spoilers minimal and circumstantial.

So, where to begin? A Song of Ice and Fire is set in an alternative world, a world where seasons can last for a decade or longer, but which otherwise appears to be extremely similar to Medieval Europe. The political and social system is entirely feudal; the King is given homage by the Lords of the Great Houses, each Great House has the fealty of their "bannermen" (lesser lords who live in that given geographical area), and the bannermen are in turn served by knights (heirs and younger sons also have knighthood conferred upon them), who are served by smallfolk (who spend a distressing amount of time being "put to the sword"). The continent most of the action takes place on is called Westeros and is roughly the size of South America. In its antiquity (that is, three hundred years before the start of the series), it was unified by the conquest of Aegon the Conqueror, a scion and survivor of a lost empire named Valyria (roughly analagous to the Roman Empire) which had been consumed by a "doom" some years before. Aegon and his sisters had the advantage of owning and controlling the last three dragons of the Valyrian freehold, which allowed them to subdue most of the continent in short order, despite having a comparatively small army. Following the coronation of Aegon as the first king of a unified Westeros, the Targaryen dynasty was established, its heraldic sigil a three headed dragon, red on black, its seat a new city raised at the site Aegon and his sisters landed at (King's Landing). 

Following their conquest, the Targaryen dynasty often married incestuously to "keep blood lines pure", but this of course led to a certain degree of unpredictably in the line of kings; indeed one central character remarks during the series that when a new Targaryen arrived into the world, the gods tossed a coin to see whether he would be great or mad. This increasing tendency towards unpredictability eventually led to a mad king, Aerys II, a cruel, paranoid monarch who feared his own son as much as the great lords who looked upon him with contempt. Following a controversial tournament where the son of the mad king, an impressive young man named Rhaegar, won the honours at the joust and named the betrothed of another man the Queen of Love and Beauty. This single act began an avalanche of dire and dramatic consequences. Rhaegar and Lyanna Stark disappeared, leading Lyanna's hotheaded brother Brandon to asume that she had been kidnapped. He rode to the capital with a group of companions, shouting for Rhaegar to "come out and die" but he was not there, and they were imprisoned for threatening the royal family. Mad King Aerys then demanded the fathers attend court to answer for their sons' crimes. Both fathers and sons were summarily executed, including Rickard Stark, Warden of the North, Lyanna and Brandon's family. Following this incident, Aerys called for the heads of Lyanna's betrothed, Robert Baratheon (a great lord in his own right, but at this point a ward of another great lord, Jon Arryn) and Eddard Stark (following the deaths of his father and older brother, also now a great lord). Jon Arryn, Warden of the East, refused to give up his wards and raised his banners in rebellion. The following year of warfare, with around half the realm staying loyal and half joining the rebellion, forms the backstory of the first novel, and indeed subsequent novels. The rebellion ended with Robert Baratheon winning a mighty victory at a battle on the fords of a great river where he killed Rhaegar Targaryen. He ended up sitting the Iron Throne, with the mad king dead and Rhaegar's children dead, due to the last minute arrival to Robert's cause of House Lannister, who opportunistically picked the winning side and sacked the capital on Robert's behalf.

It is this incredibly rich backstory which underpins the series and makes it such a rewarding experience to read. One is always anxious to find out the next tidbit of information (even in book five, we are still finding out more about the backdrop to the Rebellion, and we still don't know everything, with one particularly infamous detail still not revealed). What makes this series so different to other fantasy epics is the fact that it is so gritty and based in historical reality. After all, fantasy always epics have incredibly detailed backstories, that's the nature of the genre, but A Song of Ice and Fire has all the political complexities of real historical conflicts like the Wars of the Roses, the Thirty Years War, the Norman Conquest and more. This is ultimately a series about people, with all their flaws, mistakes, triumphs and failures front and centre. There are no elves, goblins, orcs or anything of that sort. The series is primarily about dynastic conflict...but there are some otherworldly elements, namely dragons (who everyone believes to be extinct) and the Others (creatures of ice who command armies of frozen undead who everyone believes to be a myth) and, at least to begin with, these two elements stay under the radar while the human conflict takes centre stage.

The novel begins at a point fifteen years or so after the Rebellion. In the far north, a force half penal colony and half retirement home for knights, known as the Night's Watch, guards an enormous wall of solid ice, seven hundred feet high. As far as they are aware, this wall is to keep out the "wildlings", a savage group of raiders loosely based on something like the historical Picts (with the Wall being analagous to Hadrian's Wall). However, this was not the real reason the Wall was raised, historically speaking. At the beginning of the novel, three rangers from the Night's Watch come across a creature known as an Other, a cold being at whose hands death becomes as frozen undeath. Two of the rangers are killed, while the other is so terrified he deserts. At this point, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the entire novel would pick up on this event. But no, the above backstory is woven in amidst a royal visit; Robert Baratheon visits his childhood friend and battle companion Eddard Stark to offer him the office of Hand of the King (a kind of chief counsellor role) after the sudden death of their beloved Jon Arryn. He is initially reluctant to accept, but does so when suspicions about Lannister involvement in Arryn's death are raised in a letter sent by his sister-in-law, Jon's widow. As he leaves for the capital, his bastard son Jon Snow goes to the wall to become a brother of the Night's Watch. Meanwhile, the last scions of the ousted Targayen dynasty, Viserys (who styles himself Viserys the Third) and Daenerys (born during the rebellion) are across the sea on the eastern continent. Viserys plans to win back his father's throne by wedding his sister to Khal Drogo, a Genghis Khan type horselord who commands 100, 000 mounted warriors. These three storylines- the wall, the intrigue at King's Landing and the Targaryens across the narrow sea- form the backbone of 'A Game of Thrones'.

I should at this point discuss the narrative structure of the novels. Each chapter is filtered through the point of view of a named point of view character. Through their eyes, we see the events unfold, and their differing perspectives allow Martin to knit together his vast tale. Fans of the series each have POV characters they love and POV characters they love to hate. In the first novel, the POV characters are the honourable Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North and Hand of the King; four of his six children (pretty, courtly thirteen year daughter Sansa, fierce, willful, tomboyish ten year old daughter Arya, naive and adventurous eight year old son Bran and his fourteen year old bastard son Jon Snow, ironically far more like his father than the rest of the truborn children are); his wife Catelyn, who will do anything to protect her family; Tyrion Lannister, a shrewd, intelligent dwarf who doesn't share too many of his ambitious family's flaws; and Daenerys Targaryen, a shy girl who begins the novel under the yoke of her petty, cruel brother Viserys but subsequently goes on an extraordinary journey.

Martin originally planed to tell the entire story through the arcs of just those characters, but subsequently changed his mind. The second book requires the addition of Davos Seaworth as a POV character, a man who was once a smuggler but who was rewarded for winning through a naval blockade to provide Robert's besieged brother Stannis with onions and salt fish to keep his garrison going. He provides a window into Stannis, which is important to the second book. The other POV addition in 'A Clash of Kings' is Theon Greyjoy, once Eddard Stark's ward, now despatched back to his father's Iron Islands with an offer. Theon is a much hated character by most fans, but he elicits my sympathy, somebody who was taken from his home as a hostage and belonged to neither land. In 'A Storm of Swords', Jaime Lannister, the undoubted pantomime villain of book 1, gets a POV which may change your mind on how you view him. Samwell Tarly, a Night's Watch companion of Jon Snow also gets a POV as he gets to work on a masterful piece of political manouevering. Once we get to 'A Feast For Crows' and 'A Dance With Dragons', there are many more POV additions, too numerous to go into here, but all of which increase yet further the richness and complexity of the narrative. You'll drink in every detail, I promise you.

The series began in 1996, and is currently slated to have two further books added to it to complete the story. Since 'A Storm of Swords' came out in the year 2000, Martin has encountered infamous problems with the two most recent books which have tested the patience of a small but vocal group of fans. The novel after 'A Storm of Swords' was due to be called 'A Dance With Dragons' and Martin had originally planned for a five year gap in the timeline so that his younger characters could age enough to be convincing players in the destiny of the world. However, this only seemed to work for half the characters; the rest seemed ready to continue their storylines straight after 'A Storm of Swords'. Martin also found himself relying too much on flashbacks to fill in what had happened in Westeros over that time period. This delay led Martin to scrap these pages and start again with an "interim" book, 'A Feast For Crows'. This too was plagued by problems, and with several deadlines missed, Martin infamously decided to release the storylines he had completed, which all happened to be based around the southern half of the Seven Kingdoms. The storylines in the north and over the sea were to be filled in a short time later by book five, which would use the title 'A Dance With Dragons'. The two books would thus be companion volumes which ran alongside each other. Unfortunately, following the publication of 'A Feast For Crows' in October 2005, more problems plagued him, and an even longer wait than for the previous book commenced. Fans at this point began to run out of patience and accused Martin of being disengenous about his work ethic. I never felt that way myself, but I must admit it was a long six years!

Finally, following the success of HBO's television adaptation, which brought a whole new audience to the books, 'A Dance With Dragons' was released to huge fanfare and hype. In the end, the novel didn't just parallel the timeline of 'A Feast For Crows', it extended a little beyond it, and several of the POV characters from Feast began to pop up again towards the end of 'A Dance With Dragons'. So far, fan reaction to the book has varied somewhat. Personally, I loved it. The developments, plotting and suspense are all first rate, and there's time for yet more world building. Some are worried that this book brings the series no closer to its epic finale, but I am more than happy for there to be as many books as needed. The more George R.R Martin I get to read the better. Certainly, there are lot of cliffhangers this time around, perhaps too many, but I rather get the impression that this is due to the intervention of Martin's editor, who was apparently concerned that the book would be impractical to bind if it got much larger. The 150 or so pages taken from the end of 'A Dance With Dragons' will now form the basis of the next volume 'The Winds of Winter', for which we will hopefully not have to wait quite as long...

It's hard to explain why I love these books so much because there's so much in them, so many things that separate them from lesser fantasy works. I love the characterisation, which is so well observed. Characters all have convincing motivations and behave in the way they do due to the trials and tribulations they suffer. Martin is notoriously cruel to his characters, especially those with a point of view. Beautiful characters are physically scarred in such a way as to be mentally scarred too. Characters already ugly, like Tyrion or Brienne of  Tarth, are scarred and become even uglier, yet more beautiful on the inside. Another thing Martin is infamous for is killing off central characters, even POV characters. I won't spoil who dies for you, but the sheer open mouthed shock you feel is incredible. I mourned for days over several of my favourites who bit the dust! I love the world Martin has created, so vivid, entire cultures, faiths and geographical regions described in painstaking detail. I love the way Martin has adapted the real life medieval institution of knighthood and placed it in Westeros. Each lordly house has its own heraldry, motto, castle and traditions. I adore the descriptions of banners, shields and surcoats and the men who sport them. The descriptions of battles and sieges are epic, even when they take place "off camera". There's sex, lust, lies, incest, betrayal, blood, fire and torture. There's plotting, counter plotting, characters whose honour won't let them plot but somehow get drawn into the plotting. Martin creates songs, all the food served at numerous banquets, even bits of languages. He weaves together revenge arcs, personal growth arcs, a world in peril arc and manages to critique gender relations, slavery, feudalism and the sort of people who want the power to govern but can't do so effectively. The sheer mind boggling level of detail means that repeated re-reads are wonderfully rewarding. Most of all, these books are rollicking good reads, real page turners which happen to have been written extraordinarily well.

In concluding an epic blog post for an epic fantasy series, I would just like to urge everyone who reads this post to read A Song of Ice and Fire, especially if you enjoyed HBO's version of 'A Game of Thrones'. With season 2 being filmed shortly, you have a golden opportunity to read 'A Game of Thrones' then 'A Clash of Kings' and get ahead of the game. I promise you, you won't read a thing more enjoyable or fascinating. These are books for obsessives, and the army of GRRM obsessives is destined to grow, just as the Others' army or reanimated frozen corpses continues to grow in the series...