Customer Reviews (5)

the highest summit of art
It shouldn't even be necessary to point out that Eric Eddison's books are the high point of twentieth century literature.

It should go without saying that he is the best prose artist in the history of the English-language novel; his writing, and his dialogue in particular, are at least fifteen percent better than whichever lesser genius comes in second (Lord Dunsany, perhaps?).

In a saner world, every college freshman would be expected to read his books, and to at least pretend to understand that the themes Eddison presents within them - the cycles of time, the duality of the godhead, human life lived as a work of conscious art - are the closest approach to Truth that are possible in fiction. (And they are only expressible in fantastic fiction, for we must come at these things indirectly and through the side door of Myth.)

The reason that Eddison is obscure and his infinite virtues remain almost unsung is, of course, because ours is a civilization, and indeed a world, so unrepentantly degenerate that it isn't capable of understanding his works. A typical professor presented with The Worm or Mistress of Mistresses is in the position of an ape given a laptop computer: the best he can do is to bang his head against it. For what Eddison brings us is truth, at both the spiritual and mundane levels, and truth is more than the little men of this world can bear.

You, dear reader, are probably already a cut above, to even have taken time to find out that Eddison exists and to bother to read a review of his books. (And be assured that this door is shut to the modestly endowed, as a survey of reviews on the web will reveal. Books on the level of Eddison, particulary the Zimiamvia trilogy, cannot be written with the masses in mind. This is the very definition of elite literature.)

If you haven't read any of these works, you now have a great opportunity to evolve further away from the "common muck", as Eddison might call them, and perhaps later on, even agree with the tone and substance of this review. Or, you can do what the common muck will do: instead of attempting to rise to Eddison's level, resent the fact that he is simply smarter, better and more enlightened than you, or any other novelist you've ever come across. And most of all, of course, resent that he doesn't care if you know it.

The chance, and the choice, are yours.

If this is fantasy I prefer reality
It's really hard to express how bad this book is. And to think that on his cover I read a praise from "the master" himself (ie Tolkien). I wonder what they put in his pipe that day! This story is a repulsive conglomerate of wanna-be fantasy scenarios, victorian fashions, latin and greek reminiscences. The characters are stereotypical (beautiful, strong, etc.) and seem to be all taken from some idiotic"high society" club. You get no impression of a living, warm, pulsating, lively world, but just of a few snobs wasting their time and yours. And how logically irritating can be to have characters citing latin and greek verses of our world? The prose tries desperately to sound ornate and elegant but is just convoluted and cold.

Mature British Fantasy that Predates The Hobbit
The Zimiamvian trilogy is a philosophy beautifully realized through Eddison's deftly extruding a world based on Beauty, his "fundamental value" of the universe (but how it's accomplished you'll just have to read for yourself). The fact that he starts with a philosophy means that his mindset throughout Zimiamvia is consistent and allows him to progress confidently through plot, prose, and poetry.

He describes environments with sumptuous imagery, but the best of his writing is in how he conveys that which is left unsaid: in the wonderful, bantering conversations, in the way Fiorinda conveys so much in the simple tilt of her head. Indeed, transitory beauty found in the fleeting moment was one of Eddison's obsessions, and important to the books. Simple gestures create changes in mood and atmosphere and it's fascinating to see Eddison impart these sweeping temporal phantasms again and again.

My only criticism is that Eddison's Victorian sentiments towards the roles of men and women can be quaint. But he obviously loved these characters and his commitment to them and to the philosophy behind Zimiamvia makes them utterly convincing, and such anachronisms are easily forgiven. After all, he fully admitted that his idea of utopia might not be everyone's.

This edition of the Zimiamvian books (Mistress of Mistresses - published in 1935, A Fish Dinner in Memison, and The Mezentian Gate all in one volume) also has the benefit of an introduction and wonderful footnotes by Paul Edmund Thomas which helped me since I'm uninitiated in the scholarship of Scandinavian and Viking sagas and a little rusty on some of the classics, to which Eddison makes copious references. I don't know if the individual books have the benefit of such notes, but I would recommend seeking out a copy with them if you're not intimately familiar with those subjects (also with Renaissance Italian political intrigue, European art history, and, in one passage, cricket match terminology). But please don't let this deter you from reading these marvelous books. Thomas' notes are conversational and even funny sometimes, which makes them very accessible. As of the writing of this review, the book is out of print, but I easily found a cheap used copy online and I encourage you to find one, too.

This should not be out of print - head for the library
... and look for it, or the individual titles:Mistress of Mistresses, Fish Dinner in Memison, The Mezentian Gate.This is fantasy of the highest order, and unlike anything else you might read.The prose itself is unusually beautiful.Though not writing the same as any of them, I place him in my pantheon of writers with Gene Wolfe, Thomas Pynchon, Kazantzakis (more than a few similarities there), perhaps Sam Delany.I first got recommended his less subtle, but still great, book The Worm Ourobouros back in the late 60's as a follow-on to Tolkien.This is a much more grown-up vision.

Awesome, unique, larger than life - but demanding - fantasy.
Ornate and splendid, Eddison's trilogy is by far the most audacious andambitious fantasy I've read. The third volume is sadly incomplete, Eddison(like Peake) having died before he could finish it; but fortunately he hadwritten the final sections, and it is the middle that is fragmentary. Eventhe plot summaries which do exist show that some of the best scenes infantasy were, tragically, never written! The books are set in the world ofZimiamvia, where superhuman noblemen and women love, die, fight and endureintricate political wrangling. What is unusual about the books is theirunderlying philosophy, whose gradual revelation and embellishment is thereal purpose of all this plot-mongering. To say more would be to reduce theintellectual excitement of discovering it. This is not an easy,story-teller's yarn, but a demanding AND REWARDING project. Its very proseis rich, dense and ornate, appropriate to the grandeur and seriousness ofthe author's intent. This is high fantasy for grown-ups. I like a bit ofescapism as much as the next person, but it is also good to see the genre(before it WAS a genre) being used to a much higher purpose. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Flawed but one of the Best "Saga" Novels
Affecting the ornate cadences of King James English, which was the common usage of 19th century saga translations, E.R. Eddison here recreates the saga that might have been (had one survived) of Styrbiorn Olafsson, heir to one-half of the Swedish throne in the tenth century. Styrbiorn, surnamed "the Strong" for his remarkable size and physical accomplishments, is mentioned only briefly in Snorri Sturlasson's Heimskringla (the Norse Book of Kings) and elsewhere, and does not seem to have merited a saga of his own to chronicle his rather brief and tumultuous life. At the least, no such saga has survived.

Early on Styrbiorn establishes his viking credentials when he goes into a voluntary three-year exile at the urging of King Eirik, his uncle, who will not consent to share the throne with him until he has demonstrated a certain amount of Norse maturity. Although a youth of prodigious strength, who amuses himself by wrestling with his pet ox in his spare time, and of unusual fairness, Styrbiorn is also somewhat of a dullard by modern standards -- unable to fathom the deeper matters of policy and human interaction. Still he is an honorable fellow and not unintelligent in his own way as he demonstrates in his dealings with the Jomsburg vikings, who accept him as one of their leaders, despite his extreme youth, after a dramatic shipboard duel and, later, in his encounter with the legendary Danish King Harold Gormsson (surnamed "Blue-Tooth" for his rather prominent dental problems).

Still, Styrbiorn is ultimately undone by his own impetuousness and susceptibililty to the allure of the young and beautiful wife of his uncle, the legendary Sigrid the Haughty. Having returned to Sweden from his voluntary exile earlier than promised and discovering himself drunk in Sigrid's bed, after a dream-like carousal of the night before, Styrbiorn is unable to suppress his shame and despair at having cuckholded Eirik, his uncle and benefactor. Enraged by Styrbiorn's apparently brutish rejection of her after their steamy nighttime tryst, Sigrid now plays Potiphar's wife to Styrbiorn's Joseph and cries out that she has been raped and violated by him.

Eirik, knowing Styrbiorn's past arrogance only too well, is more than willing to believe the worst of him, and swiftly chases Styrbiorn from the palace and kingdom, leaving his nephew with no other means to reclaim his patrimony but the sword. Nor does Styrbiorn scruple at this, though it galls him to do it, and, in a dramatic confrontation with his uncle, casts his hopes in a final toss for all or nothing on Fyrisfield. But Styrbiorn is undone as the battle goes against him and falls in the conflict while those of his followers who survive must flee into the woods to save their lives.

Despite the power of the language of this tale, which is both beautifully wrought and heroically evocative, the book ultimately leaves one unsatisfied. The last great battle occurs almost as an afterthought, off-stage, while the final scene is like a deus ex machina in reverse with Odin, the chief god of the Nordic pantheon, seated like some old testament vision on his throne above the earth, prononuncing his verdict -- that he has taken Styrbiorn for his own. We are transported abruptly and without fair warning from the domain of the saga to another place, which is somehow discordant with all that has gone before. It is as though Eddison, who had labored so mightily and with such skill to render this epic tale, had suddenly grown tired of his own words and ended it as best he could, for want of anything more to say.

The book, though finely crafted and with characters who come brilliantly to life in the high-toned speeches placed in their mouths by the author, ultimately totters and stumbles to an awkward and unsatisfying end. Still, for some of the finest prose in English literature (old or modern) or one of the purest evocations of the old Norse sagas and tales, few books have done it better.

SWM

Other saga novels if you're interested:

Eric Brighteyes: The Works of H. Rider Haggard

The Golden Warrior: The Story of Harold and William

Saga: A Novel Of Medieval Iceland

The King of Vinland's Saga

Two Ravens

The Greenlanders ... Read more

Book Description
When J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was published, reviewers saw that there was only one book with which it could legitimately be compared: E.R. Eddison's classic fantasy adventure The Worm Ouroboros. Set on a distant planet of spectacular beauty and peopled by Lords and Kings, mighty warriors and raven-haired temptresses, Eddison's extravagant story, of a great war for total domination, is an unforgettable work of splendour.Download Description
And the Lord Goldry spake: "We, the lords of Demon-land, do utterly scorn thee, Gorice XI., for the greatest of dastards, in that thou basely fleddest and forsookest us, thy sworn confederates, in the sea battle against the Ghouls. Our swords, which in that battle ended so great a curse and peril to all this world, are not bent nor broken. They shall be sheathed in the bowels of thee and thy minions, Corsus to wit, and Corund, and then: sons, and Corinius, and what other evildoers harbour in waterish Witchland, sooner than one little sea-pink growing on the cliffs of Demonland shall do thee obeisance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (46)

Wars and Rumours of Wars
Reading these other reviews - with the notable exception of a couple well-penned and balanced spotlight reviews, it seems I have indeed entered another world - the world of crank reviewers.Says one, "It shouldn't even be necessary to point out that Eddison's works are the high point of Twentieth Century literature." ----Really? ---- It seems to me that it shouldn't even be necessary to point out the absurdity and boorishness of this remark.

And what did I think of it?I rather liked it overall.The language, which I found delightful rather than difficult, is truly the main draw.It much resembles the novels of Sir Walter Scott in this regard.Most of the archaisms can sussed out by context.And, as for the words that can't, there's nothing wrong with running to your unabridged OED from time to time.Another source of enjoyment, for me, was coming upon words, phrases and, above all, scenes that reminded me of sections of Tolkien's Lord of The Rings.It is clear that Tolkien's imagination was deeply influenced by this work, though, as pointed out by other reviewers, Tolkien's ethos is quite different.But I'll come to that.

Tolkien's most noble and admirable warriors are those who love peace above all else and are only forced into battle by hard necessity.Eddison's book, au contraire, is filled not only with the warrior ethos, but also detailed descriptions of the combatants splitthrough the middle, disembowelments, decapitations and meads imbrued with the blood of both sides.Also, there are rapes and depredations and all sorts of things you won't find in the, comparatively, whitewashed LOTR. Given this ethos, and the overarching theme inherent in the title of the book, eternal recurrence, it is not too far a stretch to say that Eddison was influenced, as other reviewers have remarked, by Nietzsche, given especially the ending of the book where the Demons, having conquered Witchland and the dark arts of King Gorice are sad and dispirited until....well, I shan't give away the ending.

The mentality of all the main characters herein, save the enigmatic, world-weary Lord Gro, my favourite character in the tale, remind me of Ezra Pound's poem "Sestina Altaforte" where he "brings back to life", so to speak, Bertran de Born, who was condemned by Dante to his Inferno as "a stirrer up of strife."Readers enamoured of this mindset might want to read Pound, if, indeed, they desire to expand their horizons to Twentieth-Century poetry that does not fit into the "Fantasy" genre.

That said, all this metaphysical hocus-pocus upon which some other reviewers elaborate is just so much eyewash.As Eddison writes in the dedication in my copy of the book (dated 9th January 1922): "It is neither allegory nor fable but a Story (capitalisation Eddison's) to be read for its own sake."

And a jolly good read it is too, if one doesn't take it so, ahem, bloody seriously.

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"
I have refrained from writing this review for a long time, owing to the number of excellent reviews below, but I can no longer be silent.

By any standard, the Worm Ouroboros is a classic of the fantasy genre, to be included on anyone's top three list, with the Hobbit and LOTR filling the other two spots, of course.(Differences in personal taste can account for individual orderings!) Why this book isn't in more prominent circulation is a riddle to me.Others have complained that its Elizabethan diction is a barrier, but I have trouble relating to this.A high style is a necessary costume of the genre, and WO is much easier to read than, for example, Shakespeare without notes.Here's just another symptom of the decrement of our Western educational system.

In addition to being a riveting, plot-driven adventure yarn told in sonorous, beautiful prose, WO is a book of vast literary merit, weaving a complex tapestry of allusion to the Elizabethan dramatists, classical epics, and Norse sagas.No other writer, except the major poets, shows a defter hand at expression with an ever-ready, seemingly endless well of tropes from which to draw.Eddison possessed a first-rate imagination, depicting scenes of magnificent beauty and power.Just take for example the opening scene in the presence chamber of Lord Juss, the unearthly symphony when Sophonisba first appears, or the death-defying flight to Zora Rach Nam Psarrion.These scenes will stay with you in your hallowed moments!

WO is also a book that will edify!I have often marveled at the ability of the great fantasy writers like Tolkien and Eddison to convey more truth about life through an utterly unrealistic medium than most authors of realistic fiction are able.And I marvel at Eddison's fundamental honesty.WO wrestles with Shakespearian themes of principle and character versus base economic interest, and yet extends these themes to group dynamics and politics between nations.Learn from the Red Foliot how to bend and not break under the threats of a tyrant.

And to top all this off, WO closes with a suprise ending that would make M. Night Shyamalan jealous!

As a final word about the editions, I recommend the Ballantine edition for its superior cover art and the introductions by James Stephens and Orvil Prescot.I went through pains to get the vaunted Dell edition, but did not find it all that revealing.

A great book.A terrible book.A challenging book
"The Worm Ouroboros" is one of the main, if generally unread, underpinnings of the modern fantasy genre.It was written early in the Twentieth Century by a man profoundly out of sympathy with that century and with hours.

By profession, he was a bureaucrat.By inclination, he was a mighty-thewed hero.He was an outstanding success at neither.

This is a book of soaring ambition and grievous faults.Its language is spiky, ornate Jacobean, with its every word intentionally high-flown.Its structure is shockingly inept.The clumsinessand, indeed, pointlessness of the opening chapter--the "induction"--is almost guranteed to turn away most potential readers.Eddison's use of such names as Imps and Demons and Witches to designate his warring states is simply childish.

And yet ... there is true power here, even majesty.Was ever there so admirable, brave and noble a blackhearted villain as King Gorice XII?Was ever a band of virtuous heroes so obnoxious a gang of self-centered, overdressed, stuffed shirts as the Lords Juss, Goldry Blusco, Spitfire and Brandoch Daha?Is there a grander image in all the literature of fantasy than that of three armies perpetually doomed to pursue each other across the forbidding desert?And the ending of the book, utterly preposterous and yet wonderful at the same time: "Lord, it is an Ambassador from Witchland and his train.He craveth present audience"!

This is a book for a reader who seeks a challenge. I speak words of high praise for it when I assure you that "The Worm Ouroboros" is neither easy nor a fast read.For those who accept its challenges, though, it will serve as a base mark against which to measure all that is fantastical.

Five stars as bright as those "escarbuncles, great as pumpkins, hung down the length of [Lord Juss' presence chamber], and nine fair moonstones standing in order on silver pedestals between the pillars and the dais."

Nothing like Tolkien - Best Description of Sorcery Ever.
This work of Eddison is brilliant. I happen to like English at it's most difficult, like when the author simply makes up words for the heck of it. Or else he talked like this everyday, which is not impossible.

But before you think "this book is for nerds" I must say that the description of the magical spell cast by King Gorice the XII with Lord Gro is the coolest one I have ever read.

"...furnace glowing in the big hearth threw fitful gleams into recesses of the chamber, lighting up strange earthenware flasks and retorts, balances, hour-glasses, crucibles and astrolabes, a monstrous three necked alembic of phosphorescent glass supported on a bain-marie, and other instruments of doubtful and unlawful aspect."

So Eddison may not have liked chemistry.

Free SF Reader
The Worm Ouroboros is a high fantasy adventure, and most definitely archaic in style.Some people will probably find that quite impenetrable, as opposed to amusing.It is certainly worth a look for those interested in the origins of the genre.Warriors and warlords abound, here.Eddison is an author worth taking a look at.




... Read more

Book Description
The Sources of Lord of the Rings and The Children of Hurin by J.R.R.Tolkien, Series I : The Worm Ouroboros

J.R.R. Tolkien's books did not come out of thin air. Tolkien, an academic linguist, drew on the following source materials to inspire him.

The Worm Ourorobos by E.R. Eddison is second only to the Lord of the Rings in the pantheon of 20th century English fantasy.

E.R. Eddison, who moved in the same literary circles as Tolkien, was praised by Tolkien as "The greatest and most convincing writer of 'invented worlds' that I have read".

The Worm Ouroboros is a thoroughly enjoyable book which will satisfy anyone who has finished the Lord of the Rings and wants to discover a new universe. ... Read more

Book Description
* ... Read more