Abhiroop Basu

George R.R. Martin: An American Tolkien for a Jaded Age

Martin has produced — is producing, since the series isn’t over — the great fantasy epic of our era. It’s an epic for a more profane, more jaded, more ambivalent age than the one Tolkien lived in. Tolkien was a veteran of the Somme, and The Lord of the Rings was partly written during World War II. (It was published in 1954.) Tolkien wrote at a time when it really seemed as if a war was on for the fate of civilization.

Now we’re not even sure what civilization is. George R.R. Martin (his R.R. stands for Raymond Richard; Tolkien’s stands for Ronald Reuel) was born in 1948. He didn’t serve at the Somme, though he may have played through it once or twice in a video game. A Song of Ice and Fire — which is the rather florid title of Martin’s series — is an epic for us, for the way we live now and the way we fantasize now.