Rating: 
Summary: Perhaps the most unique book I've ever read.
Review: The Worm Ouroboros, E. R. Eddison, Millenium, London, 2000, 521pp. (...) This is perhaps the most unique book I have ever read. In his brief but eloquent tribute to Eddison, his friend C.S. Lewis described his work as representing 'a new literary species, a new rhetoric, a new climate of the imagination', and those approaching his magnum opus, The Worm Ouroboros (1922) for the first time, may find themselves agreeing wholeheartedly. The worm ouroborous itself, the snake which eats its own tail, has its origins in ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as many parallels in European, Chinese and Indian cultures, but for Eddison, its function is almost entirely symbolic. It represents, for him, and the characters in his wonderful novel, an endless cycle of recurrence and repetition; in short, history constantly playing itself back-and-over again.
The novel begins conventionally enough, with a genial English gentleman called Lessingham spending a night apart from his lovely wife, but he is soon whisked off to the planet Mercury by a wingéd chariot, either in his dreams or in reality, to witness the events of a great war between the inhabitants of Demonland and Witchland. Lessingham however soon disappears, never to return (except as a central character in Eddison's other major work, the Zimiamvian trilogy), having fulfilled his rather obvious role as a plot-device. In Mercury, we see the Lords of Demonland, the brothers Lord Juss, Spitfire, Goldry Bluszco and their kinsman, Brandoch Daha, receiving in their court an emissary from Witchland, who, on behalf of his sovereign, Gorice XI, makes a territorial claim upon Demonland. They spurn his claims and elect to settle the dispute on the chance of a wrestling match between Goldry and Gorice, to be held in the neutral Foliot Isles. Goldry wins the match, which ends with the death of Gorice, but in order to avenge his predecessor, and with the help of a resourceful Goblin named Gro, the new King of Witchland (Gorice XII) unleashes from the Pit an awesome Satanic force, which falls upon the Demons as they return by ship to their home.
Although all the Demons are shaken, only Goldry is spirited away, and the remainder of the novel deals with their quest to find him again, and to defeat Witchland in all-out war. After many adventures, they succeed in rescuing Goldry, and in a final battle vanquish their enemies. With one last throw of the dice, Gorice XII again attempts to release a sending, but this time without the help of Gro, who has defected to the Demons. He fails in this, and the black spirit consumes him and all his works. The Demons themselves, however, find victory not entirely to their taste, as their agonistic mentality demands constant strife. So, with the help of the Gods, they are returned to the events which began the novel, and thus Eddison completes the circle suggested by his title.
Admittedly, the novel has many grave, even risible, faults. For example, the inhabitants of Mercury are given to quoting songs and passages largely from the work of Scottish and English writers such as Dunbar, True Thomas, Carew and Donne, hardly a proposal realistic enough for any modern reader to take seriously. Moreover, the Demons, Witches, Goblins, Imps and Pixies bear little or no resemblance to the types suggested to us by their generic names. But even so, suspension of disbelief is a surprisingly easy task with the work of Eddison, and this is because he is a powerful and supremely confident storyteller. Much, perhaps overmuch, has been made of the difficulty of Eddison's mellifluous Jacobean prose, but not without reason, for his word-hoard is enormous and his command of 17th century English idiom absolute, to say nothing of the range of his medieval and classical allusions. But readers familiar with Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson will soon find themselves warming to the lusciousness of the style, perhaps even before the intriguing and compelling plot, with its echoes of Homer and the Norse sagas, draws them in irrevocably.
There are many striking scenes: King Gorice's conjuration, the Demon soldier Arnod's off-screen account of the conduct of Brandoch Daha at the Battle of Krothering Side, Juss's fight with the mantichore (a beast like a lion but with the face of a man and a poisonous tail), the first hatching of the hippogriff or wingéd horse, the demise of Mivarsh Faz in the jaws of a crocodile in accordance with an old prophecy, the suicide of the Lady Prezmyra, Gro's encounter with the little folk, and so on. The character and placenames alone are a veritable feast: Jalcanaius Fostus, Gaslark, Corund, Corinius, Corsus, La Fireez, Carcë, Salapanta Hills, Moruna, Eshgrar Ogo, Koshtra Pivrarcha and Belorn, Ravary, Ishnain Nemartra, Krothering and Zora Rach Nam Psarrion, although one such name at least, (Fax Fay Faz), is decidedly corny.
Here, fully 15 years before Tolkien's The Hobbit and more than 30 before The Lord of the Rings, we encounter Eddison taking a fully-fledged, eagle's flight into high fantasy. But apart from the odd phrase or oath which draws upon the Christian mythos, there is nothing even implicitly Christian about Eddison's vision, no definitive sense of redemption such as we find in Tolkien, and he exhibits a dark, unhallowed, almost hallucinatory power in many of his scenes, which can still shock modern readers. Indeed, it was these qualities which led Lewis to state that he found Eddison's world 'alien and even sinister'.'Once there was a man called Eddison dwelt in an old low house in Marlborough ...' Let's hear from all those Eddison fans out there! (...)
Rating:
Summary: Eddison's Epic Fantasy Masterpiece
Review: The Worm Ouroboros
by E.R.Eddison
Introduction and notes by Paul Edmund Thomas
Foreward by Douglas E. Winter
Dell Books / 1991 This is one of those classics which will never generate popular appeal because it is simply too difficult to read, and it has almost nothing in common with the majority of books in the fantasy genre it helped to spawn beyond the broadest of themes (good heroes battling evil villains in a fantastic world). It is also one of the most original books to be written in English in the 20th century, and has inspired and been admired by a pantheon of popular writers: this edition boasts superlative testaments from Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, H.Rider Haggard, Piers Anthony, and Ursula K. Le Guin, among others. For readers with a serious interest in the origins and possibilities of the modern fantasy genre, this book is simply not to be missed. E.R.Eddison (1882-1945) was an English civil servant, Icelandic scholar, and mountaineer. The Worm Ouroboros was his first novel, published shortly before his 40th birthday. It is a story of grand conflict on an imagined world, and is told in a language that is Eddison's own: a rich, heady prose that draws on written English over the last 500 years for its grammar, vocabulary, and expression, and most heavily on that of the Elizabethan dramatists for its dialogue and description. Eddison's prose, above his other powers of invention, is what makes this book (and those that followed in his Zimiamvia trilogy) so unique, and qualify it as a classic. Some of the speeches that come out of the mouths of Eddison's characters are beyond belief! The book also boasts honorable and courageous heroes as well as the most dastardly villains, and the high adventure, outrageous exploits, battles, and sorcery that ensue from their interaction. Marked differences from contemporary novels are its lack of introspection (the narrator does not judge, and we see only the actions of the characters) and its lack of character development (the characters are archetypal, and so while human, they are also something more and something less than human). The Dell edition has an introduction by Eddison scholar Paul Edmund Thomas, who cites Homer and the Icelandic sagas as Eddison's primary sources. Thomas has also annotated the text, which is very helpful as Eddison's prose is riddled with archaic vocabulary and literary references not familiar to this reader. Highly recommended, but not for everyone!
Rating: 
Summary: A Unique Work of Fantasy
Review: This is one of my favorite books and I have read it several times. I have given it four stars only because it is probably not for everyone. As fantasy, the book is a tremendous success. It is epic; it has all the adventure, nobility, villainy, magic and heroism anyone could want. The characters are larger than life and they are presented and developed in a manner that causes the reader to embrace them. I was enchanted as a teenager; but I was also taken by Eddison's work ten years later when I first read it again. The unique aspect of this book is its language and stylistic features. Eddison seems to have melded together Malory, Shakespeare, William Morris and Walter Scott to create a specialized vehicle for story-telling in a world of shining honor, foul villainy and everything in between. This linguistic medium (which in our age reflects practically a dialect) is necessary to transmit a feudal ethic which runs through the work and for which modern language has very poor resources. Eddison is successful at this because of his own artistic talent -- his use of this language he has created and the descriptive power he displays with it is awesome! In this respect, this book should be placed into the genre of great fantasy work coming out of the United Kingdom in the first half of the twentieth century. There is no doubt that this, like Tolkien's work, represents a type of delightful escapism during a period of extreme disillusionment, when many of the heroic notions of empire and even human goodness were lost in the trenches of two horrible world wars. For those willing to be transported by Eddison's language imagination, this is a truly delightful journey.
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Summary: What if Shakespeare had written prose?
Review: This is the way I typically describe this wonderful book. You must have a love for the ENTIRE English language (Old, Middle, and Modern) to fully appreciate "the Worm". I have read it at least ten times, and I find something new to love about it each time. The characters are more caricature-like (I would like to see a GOOD comic-book adaptation of it some day, perhaps if Classics Illustrated ever really comes back), but the narrative is marvelous. Maxfield Parrish could do justice to it in terms of illustrations, as his colors (and maybe Alma-Tadema's artwork) are the only ones I can think of that might be worthy. Alas, they are dead and gone and no-one alive today (that I know of) could do "the Worm" properly. God forbid it ever becomes a "movie".
Rating:
Summary: One of the great fantasy classics
Review: This my second favorite fantasy novel after Lord of the Rings, but I think it's a book that might even appeal to readers who don't like Tolkien. It is has heroic action but at the same time truely engading characters; it consistantly but subtly reflects the author's peculiar, sometimes profound romantic philosophy. The language sytle is pseudo-Elizabethan, but very stylishly and readable. Some reviews have called the prose difficult or even "turgid" but that is unfair in my opinion -- in fact, the prose is a major part of the allure of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Real magic, this one.
Review: This was the first really hefty book of fantasy I ever read -- at age 14, it mystified, challenged and delighted me, and the reverberations are still felt at age 43. It is thick with detail, but not limited by it. It is uneven as a whole and occasionally precious -- and yet, at the same time, it manages to be gripping, subtle, moving, mystical, and here and there overwhelming. Reading about the heroes' ascent of the mountains Koshtra Belorn and Koshtra Privrarcha makes your teeth chatter and your bones ache. Eddison's other works, though much more consistent, are too cerebral and obscure to satisfy most of us -- but this one will. Every few years, I have to read it again.
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