Crasstalk Book Club: A Dance with Dragons

HBO’s critically acclaimed Game of Thrones TV series introduced George R. R. Martin’s brilliant A Song of Ice and Fire series to a mass audience who may never have been interested in fantasy fiction. But it also happened to air at a particularly auspicious time, with the first season ending shortly before the long-awaited fifth book was released.

Considering that the 1510-page length of A Dance with Dragons (available on Amazon) only makes it the second-longest book in the series, plunging into the text version of a world so well-constructed on screen is no small undertaking, but it is well worth it. As a prose stylist, Martin is no Nabokov, but the point-of-view chapters full of flashbacks and internal dialogue give his world and characters a historical and personal depth that can only be hinted at in the screen adaptation. And despite their daunting length, the pages turn so quickly that one could easily plow through a third of the book in a single sitting without even realizing it.

So what will this book club discuss? What won’t we discuss? Aside from the continuation of the war in Westeros and catching up with the favorite characters we missed in A Feast for Crows, this book builds greatly on the eastern civilizations introduced in A Storm of Swords, thoroughly exploring a whole new continent’s worth of politics, history, and culture. Among other things, we will debate the influence of Orientalism on Martin’s writing, speculate about real-world historical analogues to the societies presented, and discuss the relationships between monarchy, feudalism, democracy, and slavery.

Aside from particulars of plot, setting, and characters, we will also spend some time on the narrative structure of the series up to its present point. Possible topics include the dilemma of complexity versus closure, pacing between the multiple POV characters, and the overall direction of the story. Pay particular attention to the introduction of entirely new characters and plotlines in this book and A Feast For Crows and how they might affect the main narrative. Of course, detailed discussions of the book’s many sex scenes, as well as general expressions of adoration or detestation of particular characters or societies are welcome as well.

The discussion will be held on Saturday, October 22. Depending on how things go, there may be a second discussion at a later date. If you have not yet begun reading the series, it is unlikely that you will read five consecutive books in the following weeks just to participate (though if you want to, I heartily encourage it). However, those of you who are in the middle of the series or have not yet picked up the more recent books now have an incentive to catch up.

Happy reading, and remember: Winter is Coming.