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PaperclipPerfector  20hr ago (text post)   663 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 16, 2026

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So, what are you reading?

I've finished Al-Ghazali's Prophetic Ethics, the rather slim 20th volume of his Revival of the Religious Sciences. Most of it is a recounting of Hadith, and somewhat threadbare, since the previous 9 books had apparently dealt with the issues presented in detail. The best parts are all when Al-Ghazali speaks in his own voice, which happens rarely near the end. I suspect I'll be pouring over this one occasionally neverthless, looking for lessons to be drawn from its structure and focus.

A Feast for Crows. Favorite ASOIAF book hands down. Don't mind the plot slowdown as much as some others, and although I clearly recognize that it is an inferior book to ASOS, I really enjoy the deeper interiority we get with the characters and the general theme of the book (what happens to a kingdom country when all the competent people are gone).

Also reading Los girasoles ciegos (the blind sunflowers) which was a gift from my Spanish friend. Definitely a challenge for my Spanish, but also enjoying it.

I remember liking A Feast for Crows, and not being able to finish A Dance with Dragons. I think that may be just a product of my own biases, though. For my money the 'good part' of A Song of Ice and Fire is the Westerosi feudal backstabbing, whereas all the side plots are generally bad. I do not care about Essos, Daenerys, Targaryens, or dragons. All of that is boring. The Night's Watch and the Others are... good, actually, but should be a different series. There is no need for them here. I think the biggest criticism I have of A Feast for Crows is that I think it's the one that introduces most of the Greyjoy characters, and I'm sorry, we do not need this massive excursus about Cthulhu-worshipping Vikings. Are they a cool idea, in the abstract? Yes. They're certainly better than anything featuring Essos or the Targaryens. But - focus, GRRM! Focus!

I think aSoIaF is, for me, a good example of one of those works where the author does not understand the appeal of his own writing.

Then again, judging from those TV shows they keep making, apparently there is somebody out there who likes the incest dragons...

Dance used to be my favorite book in the series. Last reread I could not stomach most of it. I think the Mereenese Blot (Adam Feldman) does a good job at unpacking the themes, and there is a lot of good stuff there. It's just not engaging in the way that the King's Landing stuff is. The North Plotline in that book is pretty good, but again it's because as you say, that George is focused on plotting and backstabbing.

Well, the things that worked best for me in the series were generally either individual character work, or the entertainingly convoluted web of treachery. The most popular characters in Ice and Fire are the ones that lean into both, right? Tyrion stands out. But even past that, if I think about characters I liked or chapters I looked forward to, there's Davos, Jaime, Brienne, or even to an extent Sansa. Cersei getting chapters for the first time was also appealing; really, all of the core Lannister trio are great. I liked characters with strong convictions and complicated personal loyalties who get mixed up in or who have front row seats to leaders making difficult decisions under uncertain circumstances. Jon and Sam had some of this as well, though as I said, in general I think the Night's Watch sections, though good, deserve their own separate novel and don't complement the rest of Ice and Fire.

Meanwhile I tended to get bogged down in or just want to skip past the Bran or Daenerys chapters, or even a lot of the Arya chapters, because they are not connected to most of the political action. All the vague mysticism and prophecy is not what GRRM does well, and Essos in general suffers from firstly being a land of absurd racial caricatures, and secondly being completely disconnected from and irrelevant to the action of the story. I just do not care about the Targaryens.

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