E. R. EddisonRecensioni

The language is delightful, but one can't help but agree with Tolkien's assessment that what underlies the entire saga is "an evil and indeed silly 'philosophy'" and the ending has one wondering indeed if Eddison admired "arrogance and cruelty."

Well, it took me 15 months and a stack of dictionaries, but I've finally finished this epic! I feel as much a sense of accomplishment in the reading as Eddison might have felt in the writing of it!

I don't recall it having been so laborious from my first time of reading back in my teenage years, but I guess without internet reference rabbit-holes to fall down, it would be faster, though somewhat more archaic and obscure.

Anyway, the plot takes precedence over character, and there's barely any plot to speak of, so what you are left with is a framework over which Eddison drapes his sumptuous language, weaving moods and reveries, sometimes loud, brash and theatrical, at othertimes delicate fretworks of bejewelled, gilded traceries. It's definitely a love/hate book, and I've needed my own mood to be right to enter into Eddison's world, but I was happy to take my time and approach it as a feast of many courses, rather than a fast food binge.

Abandoned read. Wading through a jungle of archaic language to find the story proved to be too tiring and just wasn't worth the trouble.

I‘d first read it when I was around 13 and picked it up again now. At the first chapter in “Demonland”, I was sure I wouldn’t get through it and didn’t understand how my younger self had managed. Then, with the wrestling match, I was captured, and read on in sheer delight. This time round, what’s outstanding is the way the sexual relations implied are consensual and very discreet as would be standard in most literature of the time. There is a stronger sensuality in these books which evokes the atmosphere of sex, rather than references or allusions to the act itself.

You might like to consider E. R. Eddison, unfortunately almost forgotten these days, but in his time counted among one of the premier fantasy writers -- the man who Tolkien's publisher asked for a blurb for “The Lord of the Rings”. His novel “The Worm Ourobouros” and the three novels of the Zimiamvian series deserve to be rediscovered. They're not easy reads, and maybe not for a contemporary reader of SF. But for lovers of language, they're a must-read.

“The Worm Ourobouros” is a fine example of a feudal fantasy not in decline, where the heroes are thoroughly heroic and entirely human, where magic is real and as deadly to its practitioners as to those who suffer its effects, where sex is vitally important, omnipresent but not explicit, where violence is conducted on a massive, monstrous scale, but is again not explicit in its descriptions.

After reading this, I don’t look forward to another sloppily paced contemporary Fantasy novel, full of characters (who will disappear for 4-5 episode stretches) making frustrating decisions and being treated along the way to pages worth of exposition, some of which will be be delivered during sex scenes, just because. And when some Fantasy novels are afraid your attention may be waning, it will jolt you back with some extreme violence. Thank God we still have stuff like “The Worm Ourobouros” to get back to when we want to treat ourselves to something good SF-wise.

NB: This blog is mainly is for the books that slipped through the net of full-length “reviews” and normally one or maybe two people read them, grumbling that there's fantasy in what was a fantasy-horror-SF grab-bag…This time, because it's the Post-Summer doldrums, this review might become a bit more noticeable (or not).



SF = Speculative Fiction.

A flawed classic of high fantasy. Notable for breaking ground where few had tread before in such a sweeping manner. Flawed by being primarily declamation and posturing with little character insight. For instance, why is Lord Gro always tempted to support the underdog? As such, it reads, especially in its faux archaic language, like an Icelandic Saga more than anything else, although there was never any saga this complex. Oh, and there is Wrastling too!

Also, I'm not sure what happens to the "dreamer" Lessingham since he inexplicably disappears along with his little talking bird after a few chapters never to return (at least in this novel). I'm not sure why Eddison didn't simply go back and remove this unnecessary device once the novel was finished.

There are also some great unintentionally funny plot twists. Demon Lords Juss and Brandoch Daha travel at great peril and exertion to Koshtra Belorn to acquire the ONLY Hippogrif egg in Middle Earth. They need this to rescue Lord Goldry Bluzsco who has been conjured into a prison on the highest peak in Middle Earth. After acquiring the egg, one of Juss's knights for no real reason, steals the large egg while Juss is sleeping with the thing on his stomach. He hatches the egg and flies the Hippogrif around only to crash and drown it. Well just in case, the Queen sends out her trained birds to see if there might be any other Hippogrif eggs. After waiting a year the last bird returns only to tell all that there is one more Hippogrif egg but its at the bottom of a tarn all the way back in Demonland where the Demon Lords started.

This thick volume collects four works of fiction by a British civil servant who spent his free time inventing and exploring worlds vastly different from that of his day job. He was a passionate student of the ancient Scandinavian sagas and transposed their values, along with a strong admixture of Homer, Sappho, and a bit of potted Spinoza, to imagine worlds where gods take flesh. The results have led Eddison to be called one of the first writers of fantasy literature. One of his early fans, the American aficionado of lost, aristocratic worlds, James Branch Cabell, used the term “romance,” however, to distinguish these books from what he called disparagingly “novels.”
I read this in the Kindle version, which was good enough, but it would have been better to have a print copy to make it easier to consult the maps or the charts of the intricate and confusing cast of characters.
The first book in the collection, The Worm Ouroboros, is set in a world the author calls Mercury. It is similar to our world but also different. The various lands are inhabited by beings motivated by recognizable human qualities but called Goblins, Ghouls, and Imps. The two leading nations are the Demons and the Witches. Despite their name, the Demons are the good guys. But while the Witches have many traits usually associated with the villains—they never make a treaty they don’t intend to break at the first opportunity—, Eddison is careful to impart to them a certain nobility. In fact, the greatest tragedy that could befall the Demons would be to not have an adversary as strong as the Witches. For then they “must turn shepherds and hunters, lest we become mere mountebanks and fops,” as their monarch, King Juss, laments. This is not the morality of the Biblical prophets; the thought of turning swords to plowshares is foreign to this world. A sword is nothing more than forged metal unless its glory is found in testing its mettle against another, wielded by a powerful foe.
Fittingly, there are many battles, and I enjoyed the way the author varied his descriptive technique. Some are told as straightforward narratives, another from the viewpoint of an observer watching from the ramparts, while others are recounted after the fact by surviving participants.
The other three books form a cycle set in a land only glimpsed from afar in Worm, Zimiamvia. They are printed here in the order they were published, although the first of them, Mistress of Mistresses, is the last narratively. I read them in the order they appear in this collection. This works because Mistress of Mistresses is the most fully realized. Eddison employs two plots in parallel, one in Zimiamvia, the other on our earth, with the action shifting back and forth. It soon becomes clear that the protagonist on earth, Lessingham, is (as is his wife) an incarnation of a figure who also lives in Zimiamvia, a more rarified plane of existence (this is also a feature of the subsequent book).
The remaining two books fill in the history of Zimiamvia and its rival dynasties. One, A Fish Dinner in Memison, has a high ratio of talk to action. Even more so than in Mistress, Eddison’s mix of intricate description and complex philosophy veers to incoherence. Overall, I found it the weakest of the four, although the dinner involves a marvelous conceit.
The final book, The Mezentian Gate, is the most ambitious in scope but was left unfinished at Eddison’s death. He left behind a plot outline, however. This, along with notes for some of the unwritten chapters, stitch together the finished chapters so that one gets the picture. Fortunately, the portion Eddison wrote includes the closing chapters. In particular, the lengthy final chapter is a fitting conclusion to the entire cycle.
It’s jarring, however, that the plot of Gate surrounds that of Fish Dinner, the events of which are crucial for the unfolding of the denouement in the final book. It seems as if Eddison did not start out with the entire trilogy in mind but added to it as new plot elements came to him.
Eddison’s style, like his values, is that of the Scandinavian sagas. It’s interesting that, on the one hand, he is an adept of philosophy, with its insistence on viewing life Sub specie aeternitatis, as the mephistophelean Vandermast is fond of saying, yet on the other, he (like the characters he creates) is in love with sensual world. Eddison spends pages describing a castle and its halls, for instance, as well as the fantastical landscapes in which it is set. Readers of modern fantasy might grow impatient, wondering when the action might begin. At first, I found the prose slow-going, but my enjoyment rose once I slowed down to savor the luxuriant, archaic prose.
Perhaps the key to this duality of philosophy and sensuality is the basic theme of these books. Eddison has the temperament of an aristocrat and is a devotee of the pantheon, whether in its Greek or Nordic guise. His heroes (all brave and manly) and his heroines (all beautiful—voluptuous, even) are, to one degree or another, incarnations of the divine two, one of whom, Zeus, creates worlds to delight the other (Aphrodite).

This novel is about the semi-legendary Viking prince from the 10th century. Named Bjorn at his birth, his quarrelsome nature caused others to add the first syllable “styr-“ to his name; we might say “bothersome Bjorn.” The name was expanded again in his youth by the addition of the epithet “sterki,” the strong; it certainly referred to his prodigious physical strength, but probably his stubborn temperament as well.
In writing it, Eddison, better remembered today as an author of fantasy literature, acquainted with Tolkein, adapted an ancient saga detailing this hero’s exploits. In keeping with the saga tradition, there is little interior reflection, and almost no intrusion of an omniscient author. Instead, the narrative is propulsed by the words and even more the deeds of the characters. Eddison adds to the flavor by use of archaic vocabulary (for instance, the use of “weird” as a noun, meaning fate) and kennings, metaphors composed by joining two words (sea-deer for ship, for example).
The adventures make a good tale, but the final chapter gave me pause. Despite the lack of authorial editorializing, the events recounted were enough to establish the character of the hero as badly-flawed. As powerful in body and winning in personality as he was, his haughty disregard of others, especially the thralls he and his uncle ruled over, brought unnecessary suffering and death to hordes. Yet when his lifeless corpse (sorry, forgot to signal a spoiler alert) is carried to Valhalla by the Valkyrie Skogul, her reproach to Odin is answered “I chose him first I loved the best.” So that’s the standard of quality: to be the strongest?

A high-epic-like fantasy written in the 1920's in fake Tudor English and which chronicles the story of a war between different peoples living on Mercury but it's not really Mercury but instead is Middle Earth and, oh, I give up. Honestly, it reads like a toddler telling a story a la Tolkien. Just...reread Tolkien and call it a day.
Seriously, though, if you like this kind of ye olde fantasy stuff, go for it - this very well may be your jam. It is not, however, mine.

Not my cup of tea. My mind can stretch to embrace a lot of fantastical creatures and concepts, but demons just seem so absurd to me. I just couldn't care about their struggles with the witches.

That was a tough read. Nothing like the Worm other than it's complexity, it did not endear itself to me at all though as it's predecessor did.

That was a tough read. Nothing like the Worm other than it's complexity, it did not endear itself to me at all though as it's predecessor did.

The book itself is a collection of 5 star aspects and 1 star aspects and the 3 should reflect this is an average of my reactions, and not that this is your standard, "it's alright" kind of a 3-star book--because it's not.

It features a weird, hard-to-get-past framing device, intentionally dense and archaic prose, and a bewildering array of odd names. And yet it's rather glorious, at the same time--imagine your favourite story (let's say Jane Eyre, to pick something people have heard of, then change the names to the worst names imaginable (Babatina McLurkinfish becomes governess to Mr. Pesky's children), then rewrite the novel so a 12 year old wouldn't understand it ("I am a free human being with an independent will" could become "I persist a sovereign soul possessing autarchical volition")) ... it can become absurdly tedious, but, if you can stay awake, there's a power and a sweep to it.

It's definitely worth investigating--you may love it. It's that kind of a book. Give it a whirl, and if it's not going to work for you you will know very very quickly, at least there's that!

It is very poetically written, and I liked the actual bits of poetry strewn throughout the story. They were, for the most part, not penned by Eddison himself, but a glossary indicates in the back of the book where they originated.
Character names confused me several times, for example Corsus, Corund, Corinius; Gorice, Gorius, Gro. Tolkien, I think, has more memorable character names.
His metaphors are much more imaginative than Tolkien's.
Will finish review later...

This is just as bad as I remembered. Fantastic and endless descriptions of scenery, clothing, buildings but little feeling of actual emotions. Then after fighting the evil Witch lords for the entire book, enduring hardship and betrayal and loss of friends--do these characters, the Demons, look forward to peace and prosperity? Nope, they want to fight again, and their wish is granted. Feeeehhh.

I first read " Worm Ouroboros" as a teenager, having found it on a shelf at the summer camp where I was working as a counselor more than 40 years ago, and have reread it about every two years since then. It is a fantasic story written in a lavish style now lost to Hemmenwayesque brevity of tale telling. Full of omens, virtuous heros, fair damels, dastardly villans and complex characters, this is not for everyone, but for those who enjoy getting lost in a fantasy world, this may be for you.

Where this specific book came from I have no idea, as there is nothing else like it in the library. This edition, it is the second edition with some very fine illustrations. and is in remarkably good condition.

A heroic quest, and high adventure set perchance on Mercury, and dealing with the actions of demons. The high style is strongly reminiscent of William Morris and of the Cabell of the same period. There seems little depth to this story but it passes the time.

Quite a production. You can take this book as (1) ridiculously overwrought, (2) unchristian, or (3) a sideways approach to truth. So far as I can see, you could choose which you like, without harm.

A very, very different book from Eddison's most famous work [The Worm Ouroborous]. The character of Lessingham is in both books, though in this one he is returned from death into a vibrant life lived on the same world, Zimiamvia. Instead of one great adventure and travel after another with mythical creatures, this book has Lessingham and his allies in friction with the bastard son of the late king. There are a number of different leaders and lesser men, a Vicar who serves as the power to the young king, and many, many beautiful women in their own kingdoms.

Perhaps it is correct to say this book is a successor to "Ouroborous" but I would hazard that it is much less a successor than an addendum. The world presented here has very little bearing on the world of Goldry Bluzco. The shifting alliances, the dalliances, the attempts by the king to woo his lady love (who does not want him), the Queen and her lovely young friend, all are characters presented in a work without the Elizabethan English that so captivated me in "Ouroborous." While there is an index at the back of when a character is first mentioned, it is often not the first mention that drives the story and this convoluted tale becomes increasingly hard to follow and less and less interesting as it progresses.

The Worm Ouroboros is one of the great granddaddies of fantasy, sandwiched between Lord Dunsany, who was an influence, and J.R.R. Tolkien, who received its influence. As such, it’s a kind of a bridge, but one that harkens back to earlier eras, drawing on elements of the great Norse and Germanic sagas and combining them with Elizabethean prose and, at times, Victorian sentimentality.

A bit of backstory about the edition pictured. First published in 1926, Worm was re-released in paperback form in 1967 by Ballantine Books, with a cover by Barbara Remington who also did the covers of the first official paperback of The Lord of the Rings trilogy (without even having access to read them, though it does appear she got to read Worm.) Ballantine was clearly trying to capitalize on the trilogy’s success. This was the same paperback I saw in the library of my SF-loving uncle who was a member of First Fandom, and the book I picked up to read as child… … and immediately put back, for the thickness of the prose. It seemed too adult for me, too heavy and ornate. Happily, forty years later I sought again to tackle it, and I was glad I did.

Eddison, though not a professor like Tolkien, was a scholar of the same things that interested him, and using those same materials he created an amazing pastiche of heroes, villains with outlandish names and all too human flaws, mythic creatures, mighty battles, and quests. I found the prose still heavy, but also delightful and surprising. The book is not to be savored quickly. Like a rich desert it is best small slices, the simplicity of the action aiding in this.

Eddison’s world is planet of Mercury, though it’s clear this is just lip service to the otherworldly aspect; no retrograde summers here or lead-melting temperatures. The countries of Demonland, run by good guys Lord Juss, Goldry Bluzco, Lord Spitfire, and Brandoch Doha, and Witchland, led by Gorice the reincarnating sorcerer-king (he gets 12 turns, like Dr. Who) and his generals, come into conflict when expansionist Witchland demands freedom-loving Demonland submit to its rule. The four lords say nay… and the action begins with a nude wrestling match, a death, a sorcerous storm, the loss of Goldry Bluzco who is exiled to the top of a frozen mountain peak, and his rescue; there’s an immortal Queen on the mountain who makes her entrance with a momentous chord, and intrigue in the sorcerer-king’s court, including a Lady MacBeth subplot; there’s also manticores and hippogriffs, a treacherous advisor, and talking birds… it sounds complicated, but was all pretty straightforward, presented by the author as a rousing he-man tale told around the fire, not an examination of more complicated themes, as Tolkien’s work was.

I also think Eddison was not as serious about it; I could tell he was having a rollicking good time with the writing and evinced an impish sense of humor about it as well. For example, many of the bizarrely-named characters and places — Fax Fay Faz, Pixyland, and Lord Spitfire — came from childhood make-believe games he played with his friends. Admittedly, these names were a big hurdle for a serious reader to get over at the beginning of the book, but eventually I became normalized to them, and I do admire Eddison’s boldness for incorporating pieces of his own childhood like that. Other names, particularly those of the Impland mountains, sound based on Tibetan and Nepali, not surprising since the author was an accomplished mountaineer and likely read first hand stories of Himalayan ascents, which shows in sections of the epic.

The framing device of the book is also a hurdle to overcome: an English bloke named Lessingham astral-projects in the company of a talking bird who takes him to Mercury, where he serves as incorporeal fly on the wall narrating the first chapter’s events. This device is soon done away with however, and the story proceeds in a normal way. The narrator never returns, but at the end, you’ll see why; it has to do with the book’s title.

The main draw of the book, however, was lots and lots of ornate language and hyper-descriptive porn (18th-century poetry was also an influence)… there was sky and sunset porn, landscape porn, food porn, mountaineering porn, Galadriel-beautiful-virtuous-lady porn… oi!

I’ll open up the book at random to give a sample.

" Men were roused and lights brought, and Brandoch Daha surveyed that which he held pinioned by the arms, caught by the entrance to the fortalice; one with scared wild-beast eyes in a swart face, golden era-rings in his ears, and a thick close-cropped beard interlace with gold wire twisted among its curls; bare-armed, with a tunic of otter-skin, and wide hairy trousers cross-stitched with silver thread, a circlet of gold on his head, and frizzed dark hair plaited in two thick tails that hung forward over his shoulders. His lips were drawn back, like a cross-gained dog’s snarling betwixt fear and fierceness, and his white pointed teeth and the whites of his eyes flashed in the torch-light. "

Now that’s thick. (And also, unfortunately, a stereotypical “savage” character, but the book was written in the early twentieth century.)

There were also a fair amount of archaic words, which to my mind added to the enjoyment: martlet, fustian, myriapod, deflagration, alembic, to name a few. The prose also demands the work not be evaluated as one would a more traditional novel, as the prose IS the novel and its main draw. But, I’ll go there anyway.

The plot reduced to its basic form is silly and kind of slapdash. Some crucial events are skipped over, and some subplots could have been skipped for a tighter work. There are few female characters in the story, but they are strong presences, often acting as the voices of chivalry and reason. The villains receive more examination from the author than the heroes; they are presented as having flaws, in the Greek tragedy sense, that facilitate their downfall, while the heroes, though having their quirks, are steadfastly noble and manly. All this should be easy to snark on, but I can’t, because the author himself didn’t seem to be totally serious about it. There were also surprising moments of emotional resonance at times despite the over-the-top pathos, such as when Lord Juss finally rescues his brother and believes him to be dead, and thinks all his sacrifices have come to nothing.

Like Tolkien, there was also a fair amount of Ho-yay! — elements that from a modern viewpoint could be interpreted as showing male homosexual desire. There’s that nude wrestling match, and many other sections where the men’s bodies are lovingly, sensually described. This may just be par for the course for writing of that time period, or from the ancient sagas that influenced the author.

In conclusion, I do recommend that both fantasy readers and writers tackle this work, daunting as it may seem. It’s a both vital piece of history of the field and an inspiration.

I was first introduced to this book in the late 80's and never finished it. So I decided I needed to and what a difference some time makes. I've read somewhere that this book is probably the best representation of Elizabethan English prose in existence, or maybe the largest prose in that language. In any event, it is a dense book and takes time to read.

It starts as many books of the era (1920's) do with a journey to another planet via the means of the mind; this premise is quickly dropped and instead the narrator disappears into the elements of story. There are the Demons, most notably Brandoch Daha, Goldry Bluszco, Juss, and Spitfire, who are the heroes of this tale. They are matched, good for evil, by the Witches and their King, Gorice XII. Places are sailed and marched to, forces are pulled together to invade or protect, and precipices are climbed despite snow, ice, and manticores.

The origins of Gorice's kingdom are revealed mid-way through the tale, as are the few women characters who become a bit more involved and intriguing in their own right. Of course the numbers and the achievements on the Quests are above and beyond, but this book is about high fantasy and attaining one's desires. And in the end, it stands as a masterpiece of high, Questing fantasy that should be savored for its own sake.

One of the greatest fantasy novels ever written, though less read because Eddison chosen to write it in a high renaissance style of English. It concerns a power struggle between Duke Barganax of Zayana, bastard of the late king Mezentius, and Horius Parry, Vicar of Rerek in the middle part of Mezentius' empire, who is back by his kinsman Lessingham. Both Barganax and Lessingham are in some sense avatars of an Englishman named Lessingham, and their respective lovers (Fiorinda and Antiope) are in some sense avatars of the goddess Aphrodite. The Eddison decided to work backwards from this srory instead of forwards, the later books in this series (A Fish Dinner in Memison and The Mezentian Gate describe earlier events in the history of Zimiamvia in the reign of Mezentius.

The Worm Ouroboros might be called world-building fantasy in the tradition of The Lord of the Rings but for two details: it was published 22 years before Tolkien's trilog, and it is much darker. In fact, though Tolkien himself called Eddison "the greatest and most convincing writer of 'invented worlds' that I have read," he also said Eddison "was certainly not an 'influence.'" The Worm Ouroboros definitely deserves its place in Moorcock's Fantasy: The 100 Best Books, and there were moments in the book that really captivated me, but overall it took quite an effort to finish the book.

Part of the problem for me was the Elizabethan prose Eddison employed, and part of it was the fact that I could not get used to the names of the characters and the lands. It's not that I couldn't pronounce the names, but rather that they seemed so arbitrary and disconnected, invented with little thought: Juss, Spitfire, Goldry Bluszco, Gro, and Gorice, for example. And none of them interested me as people. Most of them seemed small-minded and petty.

The names of the lands, too, seemed to be arbitrary. They certainly had little to do with the inhabitants. Demons do not dwell in Eddison's Demonland, nor do witches dwell in Witchland, imps in Impland, or pixies in Pixyland.

Still, all criticism aside, I'm glad I read The Worm Ouroboros, and not just for historical or academic reasons. It was adventurous, imaginative, and well-told. It is a flawed fantasy classic, but still a classic. Here is what Tolkien himself had to say about it, in a letter to Caroline Everette, dated June 24, 1957:

I read the works of Eddison, long after they appeared; and I once met him. I heard him in Mr. Lewis's room in Magdalen College read aloud some of his works--from the Mistress of Mistresses, as far as I remember. He did it extremely well. I read his works with great enjoyment for their sheer literary merit. My opinion of them is almost the same as that expressed by Mr. Lewis on p. 104 of the Essays presented to Charles Williams. Except that I disliked his characters (always excepting the Lord Gro) and despised what he appeared to admire more intensely than Mr. Lewis at any rate saw fit to say of himself. Eddison thought what I admire 'soft' (his word: one of complete condemnation, I gathered); I thought that, corrupted by an evil and indeed silly 'philosophy', he was coming to admire, more and more, arrogance and cruelty. Incidentally, I thought his nomenclature slipshod and often inept. In spite of all of which, I still think of him as the greatest and most convincing writer of 'invented worlds' that I have read. But he was certainly not an 'influence'.

Eddison may not have influenced Tolkien, but I think you can certainly see his mark on dark fantasy characters like Conan the Barbarian, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and Elric of Melniboné, not to mention more modern works of dark fantasy like Martin's Game of Thrones or King's Dark Tower series. If you're a fan of any of those characters or works, then The Worm Ouroboros is a must read.½

The third book in the Zimiamvian trilogy. Left unfinished at Eddison's death, the completed portions, along with synopses of the unfinished chapters, were posthumously published in 1958. The story in this book predates Mistress of Mistresses, beginning seventy years and ending two years before the narrative of that work starts.

The second book in the Zimiamvian trilogy. Eddison's philosophy comes to the fore here, at the expense of the narrative, which alternates between parallel narratives in Zimiamvia and Earth.

First book in the Zimiamvian trilogy, and the best. Eddison uses this novel to begin to expound his esoteric philosophy.