A Feast for Crows: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Four by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I can’t believe I have now finished a second reading of [b:A Feast for Crows|13497|A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, #4)|George R.R. Martin|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1358261107s/13497.jpg|1019062] This time around I read the books according to the prescribed method found on http://boiledleather.com/. I prefer this method over reading the books straight through. A Feast of Crows is a disappointing book if read straight through. It has very little of our favorite characters. Since both of the last two books start immediately after the third, the continuity seems to get lost.
In this second read, I had the advantage of watching the television series so as to know the characters better. I don’t think I had that going into the books the first time. I caught a lot more innuendo that I missed before. The bottom line of this read is that George R.R. Martin presented a world that was basically misogynistic, but full of good and bad people of both sexes. Each character was human with light and dark thoughts. Even the bad guys/gals had light thoughts and vice versa; that humans try but even while trying, fail. George did seem to project the idea of what women go through and glorified those women in his books who managed to pull up to their male equals and the dangers for those women that are power-hungry and not just wishing for equality. (Sorry for the awkward sentence there. My mind is a bit fuzzy right now.)
Once, again, I must sing my praises for narrator, Roy Dotrice. Yes, I would prefer that he not use leprechaun voices for women and/or Tyrion. Still it is handy to separate the characters. I listened to him on the Audible version as I read an ebook version. BUT–The Kindle version is now only $4.99. That is a 50% discount!!! It still isn’t text-to-speech enabled, nor is it lendable. For those of us with cash-flow problems, the books and cds are now at the libraries.
Below is the review of my first reading.
***
NO TEXT-TO-SPEECH. NOT LOANABLE. WAY TOO EXPENSIVE! AND ONLY A MACHISMO WAY OF LOOKING AT THE WORLD. POWER, POLITICS. WOMEN ARE AT THE LEVEL OF SHEEP OR COWS. And as I am reading this I remember being forced to read such as this in school and teachers telling me it is wonderful and a classic. Male teachers, no doubt.
I read to escape real life. If it wasn’t that I want to have an honest conversation with my adult children about this series, I would not be dragging myself through this. It is dark and bloody. This world is even worse than the world we live in now. It may help women who read this to see and remember how far we have come and yet how far we haven’t. As long as books like this praise rape and plunder and this is considered the usual behavior of males in our society, we will never have a society of peace.
Meanwhile, I do respect that the author has managed to keep tabs on all his characters. The writing is good. The plot is well strung. There are some phrases that I find irritating now as after this many books WE KNOW. But maybe it is how the author keeps the characteristics unique?
Anyway, I am on to book five. I think I see the light at the end of this tunnel. I have so many other books I want to read!
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