Apr 01
Moral Complexity v. Moral Ambiguity
Posted: under Craft, Life beyond writing, the writing life.
Tags: craft of writing, Life beyond writing April 1st, 2013
A listserv I’m on mentioned that a member had published a review of Game of Thrones in a major market, so I wandered over to look. Here’s the link: http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=1543&fulltext=1&media=#article-text-cutpoint
I was impressed with the review on several counts, but the one I want to bring up here is the way other reviewers, critics, and readers talk about characterization, especially in the area of morality/ethics and spirituality. This isn’t about GRRM’s books, per se, but about a way of looking at all books, and considering how a writer’s view of reality affects how that writer constructs characters. Right now–in the review cited and in other writing about Game of Thrones–Martin epitomizes one particular view of reality, history, and human nature. Tolkein is often cited as his opposite. Thus it’s important to use language appropriate to those fundamental views–which Teitelbaum does in her review, and many others do not.