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The amount of detail can be a drag, but it also paints the world of Westeros vividly. You have to give Martin credit for thinking through absolutely everything.
He certainly has an imagination, but I think many readers will get the feel of Westeros a lot faster than Martin gives credit for. I find him repeating details over and over again, and I'm going "I remember! Stop telling me!" I feel the "less is more" would really help - he can paint Westeros amazingly well even if he shaved out a few hundred pages.
I understand your point but if you consider the repetition as a way to catch readers up, due to the length of release dates between books, then you will see that the redundancy of the info is important for the reader.
I put a greater faith in the memory of the reader. Again, Martin isn't crafting a super intense, every minute detail matters type of book. There's a lot of description, and minor characters have a habit of showing up again. I have faith that a reader can remember characters and what they were doing (if they're important enough to remember). As a side argument, how many people who are completely in love with the books are going to, when the new one comes out, take a few weeks and re-read the previous ones to catch up?
Also, he has a tendency to repeat details within the space of a single book, so there should be no need to repeat the details there. The one that comes most readily is where he describes the hot springs that warm Winterfell castle. His initial description of it is perfect, unique, interesting, and I applauded his genius with it. Then, a few hundred pages later, he uses the exact same description with the same (or very similar - books aren't readily available to look it up exactly) wording. That's just unnecessary.
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Julianna
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Jun 29, 2012 11:05AM
The amount of detail can be a drag, but it also paints the world of Westeros vividly. You have to give Martin credit for thinking through absolutely everything.
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He certainly has an imagination, but I think many readers will get the feel of Westeros a lot faster than Martin gives credit for. I find him repeating details over and over again, and I'm going "I remember! Stop telling me!" I feel the "less is more" would really help - he can paint Westeros amazingly well even if he shaved out a few hundred pages.
I understand your point but if you consider the repetition as a way to catch readers up, due to the length of release dates between books, then you will see that the redundancy of the info is important for the reader.
I put a greater faith in the memory of the reader. Again, Martin isn't crafting a super intense, every minute detail matters type of book. There's a lot of description, and minor characters have a habit of showing up again. I have faith that a reader can remember characters and what they were doing (if they're important enough to remember). As a side argument, how many people who are completely in love with the books are going to, when the new one comes out, take a few weeks and re-read the previous ones to catch up?Also, he has a tendency to repeat details within the space of a single book, so there should be no need to repeat the details there. The one that comes most readily is where he describes the hot springs that warm Winterfell castle. His initial description of it is perfect, unique, interesting, and I applauded his genius with it. Then, a few hundred pages later, he uses the exact same description with the same (or very similar - books aren't readily available to look it up exactly) wording. That's just unnecessary.
