LATE TO THE PARTY

For years, friends told me I must read George R.R. Martin's Ice and Fire series, which is loosely based upon a subject close to my heart, the Wars of the Roses.  I trusted my friends' judgment, but I have never been drawn to fantasy; more to the point, I already had a TBR pile that rivaled the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  If I hadn't already had bumper stickers on my car for the University of Texas, the Philadelphia Eagles, Wales, and German shepherds, I'd have added one that said, "So many books, so little time."

But then HBO launched its series, Game of Thrones, and I knew I had to watch it, for it starred Sean Bean, and I'd follow him anywhere.  Well, I was hooked from the first episode.  So naturally then I had to read the books, for it has been my experience that no matter how good a film is, the book is always better.  Real life then screeched to a halt as I caught up with George Martin's millions of devoted readers.  It is an amazing series, one I highly recommend.  Yes, it is technically fantasy, but it is rooted in a gritty, medieval reality and that makes all the difference.  Also, I love the dragons and the dyrewolves.

It is fun trying to match Martin's characters with the people who may or may not be their real-life counterparts.  A few seem easy.  Robert Baratheon is clearly Edward IV.  Queen Cersei has to be Elizabeth Woodville, and Joffrey Baratheon is an unkind version of the uncrowned Edward V.   And I think Ned Stark is Richard III, although some of my friends disagree with me on this one.   After that, all bets are off.  Is Jon Snow meant to be Henry Tudor?   (I hope not, for I really like Jon!)   The dragon queen, Daenerys?   Does she represent the deposed House of Lancaster?    Or is she Elizabeth of York?  Only George Martin knows.  Then, too, the Wars of the Roses was the launching pad for the series, but he is lucky enough to control the destinies of his people and so he can send them down any road he chooses.  Do I ever envy him that freedom!  I'd have let Richard III win the battle at Bosworth Field, and sent Henry Tudor off to the Mediterranean as a galley slave.

One caution for new readers.  He believes in Tough Love.  He literally has a cast of thousands, with five books done in a projected seven book series, each one heavy enough to serve as a door stop in a pinch.  And when a character reappears after a long absence, he does not offer any clues or hints to jog a reader's memory.  It's sink or swim!   Thank-fully, he does provide a detailed genealogy for each House of the Seven Kingdoms.   And the sweep of the story line is so powerful that it carries the readers along like twigs in a flood-tide, too caught up in the action to fret because they can't quite remember which one of the despicable Freys has just surfaced.

Why do I like this series so much?   I think it is because he has created such three-dimensional, nuanced, memorable characters.  We care about their fates, want the ones we like to prevail and want the evil ones to pay for their often unforgivable sins.  My own favorite is Cersei's brother Tyrion, AKA the Imp, brilliantly portrayed by Peter Dinklage in the HBO series, winner of a Golden Globe for his riveting performance.  After Tyrion, I guess I'd choose Jon Snow and Daenerys.   So….my fellow Martin addicts, name your own favorites!

There was one great advantage in coming so late to the party.  The fifth book in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in July, after an agonizing six year wait for Martin's fans….six years!   But party crashers like me only had to wait a few months.  Now, of course, the countdown begins for Book Six., The Winds of Winter.  To read an excerpt, click here.  http://georgerrmartin.com/if-sample.html

I had a similar experience later in the year, finding a treasure trove long after others had discovered its riches.   When the National Public Radio asked me to write about the Five Best Historical Novels of 2011, one of the books I selected was Bernard Cornwell's new one, Death of Kings.  I am a great fan of his writing; I loved Agincourt and his Sharpe series, set during the Peninsular Wars between Napoleon and the English.  I don't think there is another writer on the planet who can match Cornwell's battle scenes, and I have a bit of experience myself in that area, the Middle Ages not being fertile ground for pacifists.  But I defer to the master here; whether he is describing a battle in 19th century Spain, one in 15th century France, or 9th century England, he will have readers smelling the gun smoke, hearing the twang of arrows and the clash of swords.  They'll be half expecting to see blood seeping onto the page!

A possible problem with Death of Kings was that I had not read the first five books in Cornwell's Saxon Series, and in order to choose it for the NPR assignment, I had to be sure that it could be read as a stand-alone novel.   Since I was not familiar with the earlier books, I was the ideal guinea pig, and within half a dozen pages, I could e-mail the people at NPR and assure them that Death of Kings was a perfect choice.  I then plunged happily back into the novel, marveling all the while how I had somehow missed these books.  After I'd finished Death of Kings and written about it for NPR, I ordered the five earlier books in the series, and once again real life came to a screeching halt while I followed the adventures of Uthred, the Saxon youth captured by the Danes, which would make him a man able to move easily between the two worlds but never fully at home in either one.  I'd never done much reading about this period in English history, so it was fascinating and surprising to discover how close the Danes came to winning their war with Alfred, the only English king to be called The Great.   Think how different British history would have been if Alfred had not prevailed.  Maybe we'd be speaking Danish today!   Of course that would also mean no Plantagenets, and without Richard III to write about, I'd probably have been doomed to keep practicing law.  So, thank you, Alfred; I owe you one.

I found Uthred to be a wonderful character: bold, courageous, clever, sardonic, stubborn, with just enough dark corners in his soul to be truly interesting.  It was fascinating to see Christianity in its early stages, viewed through the cynical eyes of Uthred, who'd been raised as a Dane and taught to worship their gods.   He is easily my favorite of the characters given life by Bernard Cornwell, and that even includes Richard Sharpe.   The Saxon series also features some very strong women, not always present in earlier Cornwell books, and the secondary characters are born scene-stealers, while the action is adrenalin-fueled, and he outdoes himself in Uthred's battles, which are his best ever– high praise, indeed.

Just as I felt the need to alert readers about George Martin's cast of thousands, there is something I think I should mention for those readers unfamiliar with Cornwell's Saxon series.  He is a very honest writer.  In other words, he anchors his people firmly in 9th century England.  They are very much men and women of that distant age, and they often do things that will jar modern sensibilities.   Some writers try to soften the hard edges of historical reality; you can find novels in which southern slave owners are secret abolitionists at heart and medieval women are all feminists and religious tolerance flourishes at a time when people of all faiths were utterly convinced theirs was the one true god.    That is not the road you'll travel in a Bernard Cornwell novel.  Readers will not like the way Alfred's daughter is treated by the men in her life.  They may not like entering a world in which human life is held so cheaply.  I know some of them will hate what happens to Ragnar's stallion and Uthred's dog.  And others might not like Uthred's caustic opinions about priests and the new religion of the Christians.   He is a pagan, proudly so, even though he realizes that the ancient Danish gods are not going to win this war.     So a reader must be willing to accept Uthred on his own terms, willing not to judge the past by the standards of our present.

Just as with the Ice and Fire series, I was fortunate in coming late to Cornwell's party.   Others had to wait between books.  I had the luxury of finishing one novel and then picking up the next one.  For a reader, it does not get much better than that.   Now I can only hope that both men are living like monks, chained to their computers, doing nothing but work on the next volumes.

Thanks to one of my Facebook friends, I recently came upon a very interesting interview of Bernard Cornwell by George R. R. Martin.  Not surprisingly, they are fans of each other's work.   I can't think of a better way to end this blog, therefore, than to provide the link to their interview.    http://www.georgerrmartin.com/news.html

January 20, 2012