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"I am a writer who likes to ask questions." He said he
liked to do things that some thought couldn’t be done and he liked to break
the rules.
RR Martin brought
his spirit of fantasy with him to Edinburgh
yesterday. He was spirited in the side gate by his lady helpers to Edinburgh International, Book Festival 2014,and smiled for
his photo shoot on the festival walkway. He has silver white hair and beard and could
be one of the characters in his writing.
.
A younger
than usual crowd packed into his talk, when he spoke of how Scotland and
Scottish history had informed his epic Game of Thrones, now a massively
successful HBO tv series.
He spoke
with Booker prize judge and literary critic Stuart Kelly, of a visit in ‘81 to Hadrian’s wall, on a cold grey October in the late
evening, when he thought of all the Roman legionaries posted there and how it
might have seemed the end of the world to them. This later became his Wall of
Ice, He also spoke of famous Scottish women who were often Queen Regents to 3
year old kings – such as Lady MacBeth, Mary Queen of Scots. Other Scottish
stories have also inspired his writing - the Glencoe Massacre, (the Red wedding)
and the writer Walter Scott. He was particularly interested in medieval history
and its blood thirsty side.
Martin
started out writing science fiction, with a horror twist – such as the Sand
Kings.
He thought
since Tolkien that most were writing in a Disneyland
style of fantasy. He liked to explore the grittiness of history.
One of his
main motivations Martin said, was strong characters who wrestle with the issues. He asked what are
their motivations, what is their culture?
Writing about a villain can be fun and looking at their dimensions and motivations.
His books are infused with moral realism and he said that he enjoyed writing about
broken things – outcasts, bastards as there is more drama and that conflict is the
heart of drama.
He
was asked about the locations in his books. He spoke of growing up in New Jersey, between 1st street and 5th street
and of how he escaped in fantasy to Gotham,
Middle Earth and with HG Wells. He said, I lived a thousand lives in the pages of books.
