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A review by thesinginglights
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
5.0
The book is fantastic. There is nothing left to know.
I heard a joke about a book that is like Game of Thrones. Want to hear it? What do you take when you mix war, violence, rape, dark magic? Game of Thrones. Everything that has that is Game of Thrones. "It's like Game of Thrones meets Hogwarts." "Like Game of Thrones meets the Looney Tunes." "It's like Game of Thrones meets Game of Thrones."
Truth, I have seen many a book that have had similar patterns that loved to talk about politics and violence and prophecy and death and betrayal and unforgiving worlds. They all must be Game of Thrones. George Martin is taking a long time writing The Winds of Winter because he is writing the western fantasy canon. Or he is an Ent.
Truth, I’ve read stories where the heroes don’t so much win as they do arrive at the ends of their stories. Not all of them get what they want, and if they do, it’s not as it appears. Like life, you see? It's the misery we endure through disappointments.
Truth, despite its darkness “Game of Thrones” has a pattern to its deaths, a method to the madness. The darkness has its foils, but the darkness is in us all.
Fuck the gods, do you believe everything everyone says? That Game of Thrones is the benchmark of darkness, eh? Did Martin start writing in a vacuum? Does he have ownership of certain themes? What about Lord and Queen of Grimdark? Are they the only ones? Are they too Game of Thrones? James might have shot himself with a joke. The media will take and distort and reframe and refine and brutalise and dress up and make vomit of the slightest comment till its original purpose is lost. Irony and polysemy and off-hand comments don't fit moral binaries. There is no grey in the printed word. Which means you should hold your tongue if have nothing straight or specific to say.
Let me tell you a story about a murder. It involves a bandit, a wife, a woodcutter, and a samurai. They are telling the same story but they are self-serving and contradictory. Who to believe? Every new story expands and contracts your understanding of what happened. I for one don't believe the woodcutter. He admits without admitting, which is not admitting. It is lying through lack of information. None of them, not even their creator will tell you what actually happened. This isn't a review, remember: You decide.
Fuck the gods, and everything, does this book not let up with everything? The violence and rape is too much, cha! Some say, "James does not set out to entertain, he does not want readers to be entertained by shocking events: he believes they should be rightly horrified…" others say him a hack like Tarantino. Some say his work is challenging and lyrical, and often uses multiple dialects for different characters. His style strays from traditional and expected literature by "creating wild and risky new possibilities for thinking about the region's place in our contemporary reality." Others say it is flowery, elliptical, pointless, needlessly dense.
Some questions, then. How long is a chapter supposed to be? The length of a chapter. Unhappy? A challenge, then. Pose that question to a literary fiction author. The same to a fantasist. The same to a crime author. What did you learn, who is telling the truth? Ask three different authors of the same genre. Who is telling the truth now? How long is a character's confession? How much of a fantasy map should we explore? What is relevant to a story? What is relevant to a story. How difficult should a book be? As easy as it can be read. How easy is [b:Ducks, Newburyport|43412920|Ducks, Newburyport|Lucy Ellmann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546225252l/43412920._SX50_.jpg|67454703] supposed to be? [b:Ulysses|338798|Ulysses|James Joyce|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1428891345l/338798._SY75_.jpg|2368224]? [b:Infinite Jest|6759|Infinite Jest|David Foster Wallace|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1446876799l/6759._SY75_.jpg|3271542]? [a:Toni Morrison|3534|Toni Morrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1494211316p2/3534.jpg] didn't write big or complicated, but she wrote difficult.
Truth: a man will suffer misery to get to the bottom of truth, but he will not suffer boredom. Truth is truth, and I do not own it. It should make no difference to me who hears it, since him hearing the truth does not change it. Truth does not depend on me believing it, does it? Truth is just another story.
So let me tell you about a fantastic story.
I heard a joke about a book that is like Game of Thrones. Want to hear it? What do you take when you mix war, violence, rape, dark magic? Game of Thrones. Everything that has that is Game of Thrones. "It's like Game of Thrones meets Hogwarts." "Like Game of Thrones meets the Looney Tunes." "It's like Game of Thrones meets Game of Thrones."
Truth, I have seen many a book that have had similar patterns that loved to talk about politics and violence and prophecy and death and betrayal and unforgiving worlds. They all must be Game of Thrones. George Martin is taking a long time writing The Winds of Winter because he is writing the western fantasy canon. Or he is an Ent.
Truth, I’ve read stories where the heroes don’t so much win as they do arrive at the ends of their stories. Not all of them get what they want, and if they do, it’s not as it appears. Like life, you see? It's the misery we endure through disappointments.
Truth, despite its darkness “Game of Thrones” has a pattern to its deaths, a method to the madness. The darkness has its foils, but the darkness is in us all.
Fuck the gods, do you believe everything everyone says? That Game of Thrones is the benchmark of darkness, eh? Did Martin start writing in a vacuum? Does he have ownership of certain themes? What about Lord and Queen of Grimdark? Are they the only ones? Are they too Game of Thrones? James might have shot himself with a joke. The media will take and distort and reframe and refine and brutalise and dress up and make vomit of the slightest comment till its original purpose is lost. Irony and polysemy and off-hand comments don't fit moral binaries. There is no grey in the printed word. Which means you should hold your tongue if have nothing straight or specific to say.
Let me tell you a story about a murder. It involves a bandit, a wife, a woodcutter, and a samurai. They are telling the same story but they are self-serving and contradictory. Who to believe? Every new story expands and contracts your understanding of what happened. I for one don't believe the woodcutter. He admits without admitting, which is not admitting. It is lying through lack of information. None of them, not even their creator will tell you what actually happened. This isn't a review, remember: You decide.
Fuck the gods, and everything, does this book not let up with everything? The violence and rape is too much, cha! Some say, "James does not set out to entertain, he does not want readers to be entertained by shocking events: he believes they should be rightly horrified…" others say him a hack like Tarantino. Some say his work is challenging and lyrical, and often uses multiple dialects for different characters. His style strays from traditional and expected literature by "creating wild and risky new possibilities for thinking about the region's place in our contemporary reality." Others say it is flowery, elliptical, pointless, needlessly dense.
Some questions, then. How long is a chapter supposed to be? The length of a chapter. Unhappy? A challenge, then. Pose that question to a literary fiction author. The same to a fantasist. The same to a crime author. What did you learn, who is telling the truth? Ask three different authors of the same genre. Who is telling the truth now? How long is a character's confession? How much of a fantasy map should we explore? What is relevant to a story? What is relevant to a story. How difficult should a book be? As easy as it can be read. How easy is [b:Ducks, Newburyport|43412920|Ducks, Newburyport|Lucy Ellmann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1546225252l/43412920._SX50_.jpg|67454703] supposed to be? [b:Ulysses|338798|Ulysses|James Joyce|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1428891345l/338798._SY75_.jpg|2368224]? [b:Infinite Jest|6759|Infinite Jest|David Foster Wallace|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1446876799l/6759._SY75_.jpg|3271542]? [a:Toni Morrison|3534|Toni Morrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1494211316p2/3534.jpg] didn't write big or complicated, but she wrote difficult.
Truth: a man will suffer misery to get to the bottom of truth, but he will not suffer boredom. Truth is truth, and I do not own it. It should make no difference to me who hears it, since him hearing the truth does not change it. Truth does not depend on me believing it, does it? Truth is just another story.
So let me tell you about a fantastic story.