Game of Thrones and Kant

So whilst in Oxford, out for lunch with an old friend, I ended up spending 70 quid on books. Now even though I am both an avid reader and a philosophy student, that's still a lot. A massive, gaping hole in my already pitiful bank balance. Still, I figured it had to be done. I acquired a selection of philosophy books that I'm going to need for next year. Including in those, is one Critique of Pure Reason by Emmanuel Kant. Now anyone who knows me will be aware of my dislike of what I have studied of Kantian philosophy, but I have been somewhat reliably informed that I will be more impressed by the rest of it. I have to say I will take some convincing.

Luckily, Kant is a topic for another day, probably read over Christmas while hammering on my ginger friend's door at 3 in the morning to complain about him. That'll cheer her up. Nope, for now I have to buckle up for over a 1000 pages of British philosopher fun!

But luckily for me, the real reason I went into that book shop was to finally acquire the infamous A Song of Fire and Ice stories, commonly referred to as Game of Thrones, after the first book and (obviously) the TV series. I've watched all three series, so it made cracking on with Book 1 weird, but also, strangely, it made me appreciate just how very, very good a homage the series is to the books, as well as how good the books are.

There are many adaptations which completely screw around with the works they're working from. Films where they run out of time so jam everything in and cut and chop out important bits, little touches of inspiration. But, when you have 10 hours to translate the book, rather than 2, it is incredible how not only does every scene feel identical, but at times you can sense they've lifted the dialogue right out of it.

The attention to detail when moving GoT from the paperback to the screen is incredible and it pays off. In a book series, especially an unfinished one, the tiniest of details and characters are important. Take the Eragon series. A great set of books, but a movie so butchered, it ruined the series, made it impossible to continue, because they'd left out so much, the second film became almost impossible to write.

With Game of Thrones, you not only feel that the show does the book justice, but it also means you can appreciate just how good the book is. When you love the series, you realise you owe that to the book.

Now the dilemma remains, do I carry on reading past what's already been shown, or wait...