wow! nothing like good old epic fantasy fun to keep you going on a backpacking trip. closest comparison is to the Odyssey, rather than lord of the rings, but the fellows in this book make Odysseus look like a hack. Highest quality feats of strength, political intrigue, dashing of skulls on rocks, bringing-forth of darkness, and all manner of derring-do. Totally sweet; although if you can't see yourself reading shakespeare for pleasure, it might be tough to get through due to olde english aspirations as far as spelling and grammar.

Another love-it-or-hate-it book. Mannered in its language, weird in so many ways, and chock-full of larger than life characters acting in ways that most people just don't get. If you have a problem with something written in an archaic style, then you probably won't get much out of it, but if you like that kind of thing I think the book repays reading and is definitely worth it.

First off a caveat: it took me two reads of the book to appreciate it and a third to decide that I thought it was genius.

The Worm is definitely unlike almost anything else out there and is a throw-back to much older works. The first sign, as mentioned above, is the prose itself. Eddison uses a faux-Jacobean that is certainly foreign to most people's preference for Hemingway-esque 'transparent prose'. Don't worry overmuch about this though, for Eddison knew what he was doing and he is one of, if not the, only writers post-Renaissance who actually can get away with this style. He knows what he's doing, as opposed to the myriad other fantasy authors who try to add 'realism' to their stories by sprinkling it with 'thee's' and 'thous' without knowing how to properly use the language. This was a man who intimately understood the archaic form of the english language and used it to perfection...he was a stylist and thus anyone who hates stylistic prose will not likely be
drawn to him, but anyone who appreciates the crafstmanship of language (think Morris & Dunsany) has to at least appreciate if not love Eddison. Reading this book is analagous to partaking of a sumptuous feast, so long as you enjoy devouring words.

The characters are not perhaps as 'psychologically realistic' as what is generally expected these days, but I'd definitely say they are more than just names. Think of them as archetypal 'supermen' striding across the pages performing great deeds for their own sake. They don't really want to save the world, just experience it to the full, so they may not be particularly sympathetic according to your world view. I always found that they generally had very distinctive characters, but they did each generally represent one dominant trait or way of looking at the world.

If you want a larger than life adventure in exquisite prose then I think _The Worm_ is great. If you want something else you should perhaps skip it.

On this ‘re-read’ of Eddison’s fantasy classic I listened to the audio version produced by Librivox. Now normally Librivox recordings, given that they are free, can be pretty hit-or-miss. This, I am happy to say, is a case where they stumbled upon an excellent reader. Jason Mills tackles Eddison’s delicious, albeit often difficult and certainly archaic, prose with panache and style. For me his accent didn’t hurt either and leant the reading a somewhat exotic flair (for those of us across the pond at least). The reading was smooth and very well paced, with emphasis and inflection exactly where I would expect it and just the right mood injected into each scene…very well done. If you’ve had trouble overcoming Eddison’s prose due to its idiosyncrasy on the page then perhaps listening to this version might be your best gateway into the Worm.

Ah the Worm...how to describe it? I would liken it to an opera scored by Wagner with a libretto written by Shakespeare based on a story cribbed from Homer. I’ll admit that statement is in some ways blatant hyperbole, but I think it still aptly express the ambience of the book. I’ve written a previous review on the Worm so I won’t go into too much of an overview of the story itself and will instead record my impressions of things that struck me from this re-read. One thing to note in general though: this is without a doubt an elitist work. As far as characters go if you are not one of the great and mighty, whether good or evil in disposition, you need not apply (with the possible exceptions of Mivarsh Faz and the single chapter given from the POV of a common soldier of Demonland and his family, but even then they display a distinctly worshipful attitude towards their ‘betters’). So if you cannot abide a fantasy world that does not model itself along the right-thinking ideals of liberal democracy then you might want to give this one a pass.

I’ve mentioned in my previous review how many of the characters are archetypes – supermen striding across the page generally lacking in psychological realism. I’d still generally stand by that statement, but I did notice that with perhaps the exception of a few of the Demon (good guy) princes quite a few of the characters displayed much more complexity than I had previously given them credit for: Lord Gro of course is an interesting character – a philosopher and courtier so in love with lost causes that he is driven to betray his friends and allies when they ascend too highly on Fortune’s wheel, and who is also the hapless lover of two peerless ladies who may admire him but can never return his love; Corund the stalwart general of the Witchland armies who is no hero, but displays a nobility of character and strength of personality that makes him admirable for all his villainy; his wife Prezmyra a lady of peerless beauty and iron strength of will, utterly devoted to her husband and her brother and who will never back down from her convictions once she has set herself a goal. Corund and Prezmyra are fast becoming my favourite characters in the book and who better to express their virtues than Eddison himself through the mouth of Lord Juss, their enemy:

For royal and lordly was Corund, and a mighty man at arms, and a fighter clean of hand, albeit our bitter enemy. Wondrous it is with what cords of love he bound to him this unparagoned Queen of his. Who hath known her like among women for trueness and highness of heart? And sure none was ever more unfortunate.

It is a book chock-full of cinematic moments against which you can almost hear the swelling score as in the return of Lords Juss and Brandoch Daha to Demonland from their expedition to Impland, or the return of the Demons to the steppes of the Moruna as seen through the eyes of Lord Gro. Not to mention the death of Gro: both in its manner and the actions that precipitate it, which are just so apt, so expressive of who he is and the tragedy of his life, that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry upon reading it. I was struck as well by how much the expedition to Impland made by Juss and Brandoch Daha seemed so similar to something you might read in Malory with its constant procession of tests and marvels that are stumbled upon in the wild and which our heroes must simply accept and overcome. I was also a little surprised to note that Juss’ testing on the mountain of Zora Rach Nam Psarrion had glimmers of the Lovecraftian in its expression of existential horror: “…but that pain was a light thing beside somewhat he now felt within him the like whereof he never before had known: a deathlike horror as of the houseless loneliness of naked space, which gripped him at the heart.” Or again:

The cloud had lifted from the mountain’s peak and hung like a pall above its nakedness. Chill air that was like the breath of the whole world’s grave: vast blank cloud-barriers: dim far forms of snow and ice, silent, solitary, pale, like mountains of the dead: it was as if the bottom of the world were opened and truth laid bare: the ultimate Nothing.

But of course one of the primary reasons to come to this book and fall in love with it is the language. Whether Eddison is describing an epic action of great heroism or villainy, or simply a commonplace occurrence seen with the eyes of glamour he provides the reader with a veritable feast of words. Here are a few choice excerpts I noticed this time around:

On sleeping in:

Corund answered, “Truly I was seldom so uncivil as surprise Madam Aurora in her nightgown. And the thrice or four times I have been forced thereto, taught me it is an hour of crude airs and mists which breed cold dark humours in the body, an hour when the torch of life burns weakest.”

The ambiguity of the fall of night:

Behind them rolled up the ascent of heaven the wheels of quiet Night: holy Night, mother of the Gods, mother of sleep, tender nurse of all little birds and beasts that dwell in the field and all tired hearts and weary: mother besides of strange children, affrights, and rapes, and midnight murders bold.

Sunrise and the hope of morning:

Day goeth up against the tyrant night. How delicate a spirit is she, how like a fawn she footeth it upon the mountains: pale pitiful light matched with the primeval dark. But every sweet hovers in her battalions, and every heavenly influence: coolth of the wayward little winds of morning, flowers awakening, birds a-carol, dews a-sparkle on the fine-drawn webs the tiny spinners hang from fern-frond to thorn, from thorn to wet dainty leaf of the silver birch: the young day laughing in her strength, wild with her own beauty; fire and life and every scent and colour born anew to triumph over chaos and slow darkness and the kinless night.

Dive deeply into Eddison’s fantasy or don’t enter at all. It is like a heady draught of strong wine that pleases the palate as it ennobles the spirit and gosh it’s a lot of fun!

E. R. Eddison es un poeta épico. Sus fuentes son las mismas de Homero, de Milton, de la epopeya, de los cantos heroicos. Esta obra no es más que la conjugación de un imaginario que está más allá del tiempo, lejano, incomparable y autónomo; una obra de fantasía en toda regla que no intenta desligarse de sus antecedentes, sino que los refuerza, convive con ellos; los pone a dialogar para mostrarnos un abanico de personajes y sus hazañas, sin intervención de una moralidad narratológica. Bélica, apasionante, estéticamente poderosa e injustamente olvidada fuera de los marcos más académicos.

Si la fantasía contemporánea quiere sobrevivir y no ser nada más un producto editorial de turno, debe beber más de Eddison y sus pasajes, sus pasiones, sus pulsiones. No es una historia de origen, pero sus palabras, cada verbo, cada locación, nace desde el lenguaje y para el lenguaje; desde la imaginación y para la imaginación.

This is a 'classic'. A lot of high-powered writers liked it. I tried several times to make it through it before I managed it. The language is almost constructed - it doesn't flow for me as much as writhe around before I finally pin it down. It's in an odd style (Elizabethan?) with a story that reminds me of the Iliad or the Odyssey. Great story, sucky style. Why he writes such long, convoluted sentences with archaic words in such a stilted style is beyond me. All the critics like it, but I doubt it will ever be popular with the masses.

Once I got past the style, the story was a lot of fun. It's an imaginative world where the inhabitants are demons, witches & the politics are as bad as those of the Iliad. Heroes abound & they journey about committing deeds of bravery.

Epic high fantasy! Compared to Lord of the Rings! Rich and majestic!

Well, I guess all of those are true to certain degrees. E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros is a challenging read because it is written in Jacobean prose, about 200 years after it went out of style. Here is a fantasy story of epic supermen battling equally powerful and very evil enemies on the fields and in the mountains and on the seas of Mercury. Yes, that Mercury. The planet. They are the lords of Demonland, four epic heroes against the evil king of Witchland. Ugh.

The book was impressive in it's use of language. I will give it that much. It is interesting to read, and I suppose for Eddison, to write in Jacobean prose, but I found it annoying, because to me it didn't feel authentic, and because at times its seemed anachronistic. In particular: His highness swapt him such a swipe o' the neck-bone as he pitched to earth, the head of him flew i' the air like a tennis ball. (p. 395) Tennis ball? Really? In the ancient days of knights and goblins?
Also, football, which in some early incarnation probably was around, but still seems out of place in the novel: I am now resolved never to put up my sword until of thy bleeding head I may make a football. (p.458)

Okay. Maybe those are too nitpicky, but something like the following excerpt seems really silly: And some shot at them from the wall, until a chance shot came that was like to have stove in Corund's helm, who straightway sent word that when the rout was ended he would make lark-pies of the cow-headed doddipole whosoever he might be that had set them thus a-shooting, spoiling sport for their comrades and endangering their lives. (p.90) And yet I continued for another 400 pages after that line made me stop and laugh.

Most of The Worm Ouroboros is not so funny. Some of it I actually found beautiful, such as the description of the jade lily vase on p. 136: They sat here and there as they listed on chairs and benches, near a huge tank or vase of dark green jade where sulphur-coloured lilies grew in languorous beauty, their back-curled petals showing the scarlet anthers; and all the air was heavy with their sweetness. The great jade vase was round and flat like the body of a tortoise, open at the top where the lilies grew. It was carved with scales, as it were the body of a dragon, and a dragon's head agaping reared itself at one end, and at the other the tail curved up and over like the handle of a basket, and the tail had little fore and hind feet with claws, and a smaller head at the end of the tail gaped downwards biting at the large head. Four legs supported the body, and each leg was a small dragon standing on its hind feet, its head growing into the parent body as the thigh or shoulder joint should join the trunk.


Despite the over elaborate descriptions of all the set pieces, and the clothing of the characters, I felt that none of the four Lords of Demonland were distinguishable from each other. The villains were similarly vague. So King Gorice starts a war just because he is full of himself and wants the other kingdoms to bow to him? That's the motivating conflict! I didn't find that too believable. Where were his advisers telling him maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to lead his country in a war against the four men that the entire world (of Mercury) acknowledges are the best and brightest (and strongest and bravest) chaps to ever live.

At least the violent battles scenes are good. They seemed very intense for being published in the 1920s. Here are some good bits:

Neither man nor horse might stand up before 'em, and they faring as in a maze now this way now that, amid the thrumbling and thrasting o' the footmen, heads and arms smitten off, men hewn in sunder from crown to belly, ay, to the saddle, riderless horses maddened, blood splashed up from the ground like the slush from a marsh.
(p.392)

Never saw I such feats of arms. As witness Kamerar of Stropardon, who
with a great two-handed sword hewed off his enemy's leg close to the hip, so huge a blow the blade sheared through leg and saddle and horse
and all. (p. 394)

And our own folk fell fast, and the tents that were so white were one gore of blood.
(p.395)

Unfortunately these violent bits were few and far between. Most were in the final battle at the end of the book. Much of the rest of the novel was spent describing the great exploits of Lord Brandoch Daha, Lord Juss, Lord Spitfire, and Lord Goldry Bluszco while they wrestled, climbed mountains, and retold stories of their past glories. Fortunately, their manly feats of strength are much less clunky than their love-making:

But Brandoch Daha, seeing how her face became on a sudden such as are new-blown roses at the dawning, and her eyes wide and dark with love-
longing, came to her and took her in his arms and fell to kissing and
embracing of her. On such wise they abode for awhile, that he was ware
of no thing else on earth save only the sense-maddening caress of that
lady's hair, the perfume of it, the kiss of her mouth, the swell and
fall of that lady's breast straining against his. She said in his ear
softly, "I see thou art too masterful. I see thou art one who will be
denied nothing, on whatsoever thine heart is set. Come." And they
passed by a heavy-curtained doorway into an inner chamber, where the
air was filled with the breath of myrrh and nard and ambergris, a
fragrancy as of sleeping loveliness. Here, amid the darkness of rich
hangings and subdued glints of gold, a warm radiance of shaded lamps
watched above a couch, great and broad and downy-pillowed. And here
for a long time they solaced them with love and all delight. (p. 166)

This is not all that bad though. There are times when the text is annoying, and I think the author even recognized this by putting in a scene when some of the characters read an ancient tome and comment on how antiquated the language is. The language is a stylistic choice, and not a flaw of the story. The main flaw of the book is that it starts with a plot device of a magical bird taking an Earthman from his English conservatory and a magical journey to Mercury, and then that plot device is never returned to again. I think it would have been best just to set this story on some unnamed planet, and then also renamed all the countries so that they were something different than the uninspiring Pixieland.

Overall, while I wouldn't say that I enjoyed the book, I would say that I am glad to have read it. I managed to slough through it, and I did come away with some nice gems in between the dense prose. I'll end with one of my favorite's (of a knave rebuffed by the most beautiful woman in all the land): Like the passing of a fire on a dry heath in summer the flame of his passion was passed by, leaving but a smouldering desolation of scornful sullen wrath: wrath at himself and fate.
(p. 362)

The books that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien? Sure I'll read them.

This is an uncanny and beguiling book, and quite a wondrous reprieve from my usual fare. Homeric Greek, Victorian English, Norse sagas, and—what would later become—Tolkien high-fantasy blend into an arcane brew with an initial harsh taste but also with a sensuous finish. This book has been around for almost 100 years, so plenty of folks have given their critiques and textual analyses, so why should I really bother? I stumbled upon a very enjoyable dissection by a persona apparently only known as Charles at his blog site The Worthy House here: https://theworthyhouse.com/2017/01/25...

Maybe you’ll enjoy it too. While Charles has his favorite passage from this novel, and shares it at the end of the review, I’ll share mine here for its poignant Buddhism/nihilism (depending on which side one’s mood swims):

“He bowed his head as if to avoid a blow, so plain he seemed to hear somewhat within him crying with a high voice and loud, “Thou art nothing. And all thy desires and memories and loves and dreams, nothing. The little dead earth-louse were of greater avail than thou, were it not nothing as thou art nothing. For all is nothing: earth and sky and sea and they that dwell therein. Nor shall this illusion comfort thee, if it might, that when thou art abolished these things shall endure for a season, stars and months return, and men grow old and die, and new men and women live and love and die and be forgotten. For what is it to thee, that shalt be as a blown-out flame? And all things in earth and heaven, and things past and things for to come, and life and death, and the mere elements of space and time, of being and not being, shall be nothing unto thee; because thou shalt be nothing, for ever.” (pp. 387-8 in the Nook version)

This is an odd book. It begins with a frame story the author abandons after a score of pages, and features a host of characters whose names sound like the imaginary friends of a clever six year old (Fax Fay Faz, Goldry Bluszco, Lord Brandoch Daha, etc.) and a meandering narrative often slowed by page upon page of magnificent but hardly essential description. Its style is an Elizabethan pastiche of leisurely--and often difficult--sentences crammed with "hard words" and crowded with allusive phrases bordering on direct quotation (mostly from Shakespeare), not to mention whole songs lifted word-for-word from the works of 17th century poets.

Yet it is partially the oddness of the book--particularly the eccentric and unique prose style--that gives it power. These characters do not live in a world that sounds like ours, and they do not speak as we speak, and this helps Eddison capture the majesty—and strangeness—of his epic warriors. His heroes share a combination of lofty nobility and careless contempt for others that puts them in the exalted company of Homer's Achilles and Shakespeare's Hamlet. These men are too great to worry about being good, let alone being likable, and they set an exalted standard for fantasy characterization that has never been equaled. Only Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone comes close.

I already commented on someone else's review of this book. Anyway, the best fantasy novel I've ever read (and the best read I've had this year). Not an easy read, but take it slow and let the beautiful language establish its own pace. Gorgeous prose that reads like poetry.

A strange and beautiful book. Eddison's old English styled prose is extremely effective in contributing to the setting, but also in some ways in presupposing the lack of more modern (in this case the 1920s) expectations like well-rounded characters and act structure. The result can be very entertaining but feel repetitive.

The characters, especially the more noble Demons, can almost double for each other in their lack of depth, but again, the style makes this feel more forgivable than in fact it should be. The villains of Witchland get much more favorable portrayals in that their foibles seem to interest Eddison more than the bland noble ethics of his heroes. In fact, Lord Gro reminded me of a sort of proto-Tyrion. There is very much a Game of Thrones type feel to this book as everyone jockeys for favor and blanches at various insults.

One could easily cobble out an archaic fashion show here in between the battles. Eddison spends an inordinate number of words on clothing and decor, but despite the overuse, I absolutely enjoyed the long-detailed descriptions nearly every single time. Ditto landscapes. The sun sets many times in a myriad of different ways, none of which bored me.

Though the book does drag at points, perhaps fittingly, as that's kind of the point, one could contend. The war drags on and on, people die, and so the book drags as well, and then when it ends, it all just starts right back up again... you know... like in real life. That feature felt hugely depressing. I know contemporary readers were like, "hey, you wouldn't feel that way if you'd seen the results of the world wars" and that the consensus is that Eddison was naively celebrating battle, but I chose to read it as a more critical perspective of human nature, and from that perspective it resonates here in 2025, over one hundred years later.

It seems like the last several reviews I've written include the "this isn't for everyone" caveat, and that's true here as well. I had a great time with the Worm Ouroboros and can honestly say I didn't find it hard to read or boring once I got into the rhythm of it. In fact, I could see myself reading it again at some point. But yeah, your average reader might read the first few paragraphs and throw out the tea. A solid 4 stars.

It has a dreamworld or afterworld quality, with the circumstances of the story evolving as it progresses. Some elements--Lessingham's framing device, the planet Mercury--drop away. Some mutate: the story itself transforms from mythic heroic adventure to political intrigue to military chronicle as the needs dictate. It is completely in the moment, heedless of its inconsistencies or anachronisms. It is grand and sprawling and filled with base treachery and grand heroism.

I am rather glad for having had some weight training with William Morris before this.