In 1996, Georger Raymond Richard Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" fantasy series, "Game of Thrones," was published to great acclaim, and the second", "Clash of Kings" and the third "Storm of Ice rain", were subsequently published in 1998 and 2000, respectively, completely establishing his position as the master of the generation of epic fantasy novels. The 2005 book A Feast for Crows, while much inferior to the previous three, was still a bestseller, and Time magazine called George Martin the Tolkien of america.
In 2011, the famous American television station HBO broadcast the TV series "Game of Thrones" based on the first tv series of "A Song of Ice and Fire", which caused a sensation, not only the fifth novel published in the same year, "The Dance of the Dragon", which was sold well, but also re-appeared on the US bestseller list with the first three. In 2013, the third season of the "Game of Thrones" TV series was still widely concerned and became an important cultural phenomenon, and even the "New York Review of Books" magazine, which has always been serious and high-end in the United States, published a long article and praised it.
What kind of work is this, and why does it cause such a big response?
The landmark significance of George Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series is only clearer in the context of the history of contemporary Western fantasy literature.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
The most influential contemporary Western fantasy literature is John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, whose novel The Lord of the Rings was founded and laid the mainstream model for contemporary Western fantasy literature. Tolkien exhausted his efforts to build a huge "Middle-earth world", which included cute hobbits, elves, dwarves and murderous half-orcs, etc., real and detailed, he even used his linguists' expertise to create 15 languages for the world of the book, these languages have a strict vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, etc., very complete. Never before has a writer constructed a virtual world so meticulously, which naturally arouses the interest of a wide range of readers. After the publication of The Lord of the Rings in 1955, it became popular all over the world. Like many current Hollywood blockbusters that focus too much on special effects and ignore the characters and plot, Tolkien pays too much attention to the external details of building "Middle-earth", lackluster in plot setting and character building, and the entire novel structure adopts the routine of traditional Western tramp novels, monotonous and bland. Although Tolkien himself was a linguist, his own writing lacked literary style and was full of pedantry, and the writing of "The Lord of the Rings" was boring and dull, and the plot was lengthy and protracted.
As was the case with all founders, Tolkien's shortcomings were carried forward by his imitators. After the publication of The Lord of the Rings, it attracted a large number of follow-up works, these imitations are huge, such as Terry Brooks's "Sarana" series, David Edins's "Legend of the Sacred Stone" series, Raymond Feist's "Battle of the Rift in Time" series, etc., the most exaggerated is Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, which has been published for twelve years, and the entire series was not completed until Jordan's death. These fantasy works have some common features: the construction of a vast and detailed virtual world, the soothing and lengthy scene descriptions, and the trite and protracted storyline. (By the way, the success of the film The Lord of the Rings was due to director Peter Jackson's excellent adaptation and astonishing visual expressiveness, turning decay into magic.) ）
It was in this context that George Martin broke the clichés of Tolkien-style fantasy literature and created a whole new epic fantasy novel, becoming a new generation of grandmasters. If we use the analogy of Chinese martial arts novels, George Martin's contribution to fantasy literature is equivalent to the transcendence of Jin Yong's new martial arts novels over the old style of martial arts novels.
In "A Song of Ice and Fire", George Martin created a new world, full of magnificent artistic conceptions, novel and tortuous stories, three-dimensional and complex characters, reaching a very high artistic standard.
In the genre of plot-based literature, there are not many writers with excellent writing, and those who have created sales miracles are mostly not known for their writing, such as Agatha Christie, who is known as the queen of detective novels, and recently like Rowling, who created the Harry Potter series, and their writing is often criticized. George Martin is different in this regard, he is not only rich in imagination, but also has a wonderful ability to control words, the "Song of Ice and Fire" is condensed and majestic, whether it is writing scenes or exploring inner conflicts, "there is a hidden secret, no difficult feelings", reading his words is a pleasure.
George Martin cleverly blends history and fantasy. In the historical background, "A Song of Ice and Fire" obviously borrows the historical facts of the British medieval "Wars of the Roses", kings, lords, knights, and noble ladies are written vividly, but the author did not beautify the Middle Ages as often written in poetry novels in the past, on the contrary, he truly and vividly wrote about the cruelty, blood, intrigue and chaos of that era, and in terms of fantasy, he wrote about giants, shapeshifters, living dead and dragons, these fantasy factors make the whole novel full of mystery and epicness. But without destroying the authenticity of the characters and events, the author did not cheaply use fantasy elements to solve the character's dilemma as the previous fantasy novelists did. I remember when I first read "Game of Thrones" halfway through, I was deeply attracted by the author's true description of the character events, and secretly prayed that the author would not use supernatural elements to advance the plot, and not repeat the mistakes of "not enough drama, immortals". It turns out that George Martin has a very good sense of proportion between history and fantasy, which makes this epic fantasy novel free from the usual naivety of such novels, full of unprecedented historical heaviness.
"A Song of Ice and Fire" takes place in the fictional continent of Westeros, and begins with Robert of the Balasson family, who led the rebels to overthrow the former king and conquer the world, his queen Selsey was a member of the Lannest family, her father, Thaiwin Lannest, was treacherous and deceitful, and his marriage to Robert was purely political speculation: the Lannest family supported Robert's rebels with money and force, so that his grandson could later sit on the throne. The most important character of the Lannest family is the second son, Tyrion, who is a dwarf and despises his father and brother, but he is one of the most interesting characters in the author's writing.
The Stark family was the lord of the town to guard the north, and Ned Stark fought with Robert and was loyal to Robert, who promoted Ned to be his prime minister. The fate of Ned and his family is one of the main points of the book. King Robert was killed in a hunt, and the Rannest family put Cersi's eldest son, Joffrey, on the throne, and clashed with Ned, who was honest but not ruthless enough, and finally lost the court battle, and Ned was ruthlessly executed in public.
Ned's execution was shocking, and I couldn't believe it was true when I read it, wasn't Ned the main character in the novel? How could he suddenly die? But when I confirmed that Ned was really dead, I began to look at George Martin and the novel as a whole, a writer who dared to deal with the main characters in this way, by no means an ordinary person, and this is not an ordinary novel, it breaks the pattern of the protagonist of the general novel not dying, which is a revolutionary innovation. George Martin once said in an interview: "When my characters are in danger, I want my readers to be too nervous to turn the next page." "He did succeed, and when I read the next few films, I was always worried about the characters I liked, afraid that they would lose their lives if they were not careful. It's a reading experience like never before. George Martin's approach is rare in genre fiction and unprecedented in TV series. This approach makes the novel seem more realistic, beyond the way genre literature is written.
After Ned's death, the fate of his family became our focus. His wife Caterlyn and his eldest son Rob raise an army against the Rannest family, the paralyzed youngest son Bran discovers that he has special functions, the beautiful eldest daughter Shansa marries Selsey's son, Joffrey, and is tortured, and the younger daughter Arya leaves the family and embarks on another path of life. Stark's illegitimate son, Joan Snow, joined the Night's Watch to guard the Great Wall in the north, which is 700 feet high, wrapped in thick ice and snow, and traverses the north of the country, mainly defending against the giants, monsters and savage tribes living in the snow and ice north of the Great Wall, and the Great Wall is one of George Martin's most imaginative constructs.
Another important thread in the novel is daenerys Targaryen's Road to Restoration, a descendant of a former dynasty overthrown by Robert, who was married to the Eastern Continent, gradually transformed from a girl into the leader of the nomads, and she bred three fire dragons, which undoubtedly added chips to her path to restoration.
In these contexts, the fragmented kingdoms, the cruel and bloody struggles, human nature is severely tortured, and the characters in the novel face difficult choices: the purpose and means of power, the hatred of the state and the family, and the self-positioning of women, which have universal significance in human society, are vividly revealed in the novel.
The "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, which now plans to write seven, has already produced five, and it is an unfinished series of novels, and the TV series is basically adapted in the way of one novel and one season. This has created a peculiar phenomenon: the TV series is based on the novel, but the novel itself has not yet been written, and the TV series is ahead of the finale, which has never been the case before. After the 2019 TV series finale was broadcast, it was greatly criticized, and a large number of fans asked for a remake. In fact, it is not surprising that the first three parts of "A Song of Ice and Fire" are very well written, there is no doubt that the TV adaptation is faithful to the original and very attractive, but the fourth and fifth parts of the novel are quite inferior, especially the fourth, this thick novel has almost no progress in terms of plot, reminiscent of the nightmare of the long and protracted old fantasy novel. The fifth part is more wonderful than the fourth, such as the chapters about Arya, but unfortunately there are not many such chapters. Whether George Martin can really reproduce the glory in the last two can only wait and see.
Text/Wang Qiang Author Affilications:Communication University of China
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