Narrative Illusionism: Visual Metaphors for RLJ

Well... 3 weeks later, we get this Not-A-Blog post revealing that his first trompe l'oeil commentary was Not-A-Random commentary. Or at least, it was less random than it appeared at the time.  Turns out, GRRM was commissioning John Pugh himself to create a piece on the back side of his movie theater. Naturally I thought... Aha! A hidden message from the author! Clearly he is trying to tell us something. He must be laying groundwork for the release of WINDS.

"What the hell, Snowfyre?" I hear you asking. "You mean he's asked John Pugh to paint the book cover on his theater wall? What's the point of that?"

No, that's not it. It's not the specific painting that's relevant to ASOIAF - but the notion of Narrative Illusionism as a pre-existing legitimate form of art. See, by highlighting Narrative Illusionism generally, GRRM's also introducing his readers and fans to a concept that he may well find useful within the next year or so, when thousands of them suddenly slam full speed into the painted brick wall that was RLJ. (It's quite possible some won't enjoy that.)

But having featured John Pugh, commissioned a piece for his theater wall, and generally discussed this stuff with his fans - when that day finally comes, and the hordes wield accusations of betrayal, GRRM will calmly point back to his Not-A-Blog posts: his discussions of trompe l'oiel and Narrative Illusions. And then he'll say, "Look, this is not unprecedented. It's art. We've been discussing this for some time!"

And he'll be right. But for some, it might not make things feel any better...

Snowfyre I'm gonna need you to explain it to me like I'm 5 I feel like you're onto something that's kinda going over my head a bit.

Sorry, didn't mean to be too enigmatic.  I've been convinced for some time that the R+L=J story is more illusion than reality in Martin's story - and increasingly I've become convinced the illusion will be dispelled in the next book.  So when I saw GRRM feature John Pugh and his "Narrative Illusions" on the Not-A-Blog this past month... my gears started churning.  I laughed at myself at first, and told myself I was reading too much into it (and that still might be true!), but to mix metaphors here... right away it looked to me like GRRM was moving trampolines into place beneath the windows of RLJ Headquarters.  (You know, like he thought the building might catch fire in the near future - and he wanted to pad the landing for jumpers. LOL.)

Anyway.  Martin's posts also got me looking at some of this tromp l'oeil stuff online, which I've always thought was really cool. (I just never could remember what it was called!)  It really does seem like a great visual analogy for what I think Martin's done with the untold story of R+L.

Well, after all, people see only what they want to see. I do love that GRRM is basically painting a giant Sealord's Cat on the face of his beloved Cocteau.

No updates, that I know of. Strange, that GRRM would let a commissioned work of art languish incomplete for so long. Or maybe... not so strange? In a way, perhaps it only solidifies the metaphorical parallels.