SANDY ENGLISH—One book on the philosophical conceptions in Martin’s A Game of Thrones has called it a “genuine exploration of human nature in uncertain times.” And certainly, many people have the sense that we live in uncertain times now.
But the times in Game of Thrones are not our uncertain times, or any historically concrete uncertain times—neither the end of the Roman Empire nor the age of peasant rebellions in China—that ever existed. Even the wildest fantasy has to correspond, in the end, to the way life is for us. The series does not present the “human nature” of specific classes in specific societies. The “feel” of history is not the same thing as the drama of human beings acting within definite historical circumstances. Great drama presents the collision of social forces as it finds particular expression. The element of necessity is missing here.
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ART & POETRY
- ABOMINATIONSAMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISMAMERICAN PROPAGANDAAMERICAN STUDIESART & POETRYARTS & FILMIRAN
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RAMIN MAZAHERI—There is also plenty of humor: “No one has ever disobeyed the King of Kings,” shouts the CEO, excuse me, the aristocratic knight. “Oh really?” questions the Miller’s wife, “Then order the Arab army to retreat!” The lampooning also gets serious and sharper: “Do you put kings at the same level as bandits?” The laugh-to-keep-from-crying response: “Unlike kings, bandits show mercy to the poor.”
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PATRICE GREANVILLE—Mario Lanza, who crossed the artistic firmament of America and the world like a comet in the 1940s and 1950s, to die suddenly of a heart attack in 1959 at age 38 in Rome, the land of his ancestors, is credited with inspiring some of today’s greatest classical singers. Carreras, Domingo and even the incomparable Pavarotti have claimed a debt to Lanza. Such high testimony might have surprised even Lanza, not exactly given to excessive self-doubt. To this day, few people know that Lanza was born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza, to humble immigrant Italian parents on both sides of his genetic tree. Mario Lanza was the stage name he chose in honor of his mother, Maria Lanza.