An amazing and glorious work of fiction. Never before has a story been better told, though unfortunately the story itself was rather poor. Had Eddison a better plot, I think this book would rival most I've read. Unfortunately I was left wondering why characters acted in certain ways, annoyed when the main action was held off-stage, and wondering where main characters were for stretches of one hundred pages. Luckily, Eddison's prose makes up for any of the holes in the plot, and it's just simply a joy to read him. His mind seems to be of glorious battles, high-minded warriors, and epic landscapes, and his descriptions are like gazing through the eyes of one who has first seen such beauty. To read him is to be in awe. I just wish his story was up to par with his ability to write...

Where to begin? I chose to read this book because it had been suggested to me that Tolkien might have found some inspiration for his own novels within its pages. And I should say, that literary spark does lie within. That being said, this is the most difficult book I have and likely will ever read due to language barriers. Now, I am not without intelligence. Some people have even refrained from calling me a fool, although it has proven a rare compliment. Even so, I struggled, so much at times that I forgot the meaning of what I was attempting to read.

To clarify, I will break down this book’s language barrier into three levels of what I will refer to as “Ye olden-timie language, levels one through three.”

Level one of Ye olden-timie language is mostly presented by the narrator voice, and I should say, I greatly enjoyed it. There are some beautiful passages written in this voice, of which I have never experienced before. Here is an example:

“So, in the golden autumn afternoon, in the midst of that ⁠sad main of sedgelands where between slimy banks the weed-choked Druima deviously winds toward the sea, were those two men met together for whose ambition and their pride the world was too little a place to contain them both and peace lying between them. And like some drowsy dragon of the elder slime, squat, sinister, and monstrous, the citadel of Carcë slept over all.”

If that already confused you, you should probably stop reading there. I found it fascinating, but it already does require a bit more effort to follow.

Level two of Ye olden-timie language comes in the form of most of the characters, who have their own regional dialects, and may misspell some words, while choosing strange ways of speaking. It ranges from just a little more complex than ‘level one’ to bordering on ‘level three.’ Here is a good example somewhere in the upper-middle of its complexity:

“If mine enemy uproot a boulder above my dwelling, so I be mighty enow of mine hands I may, even in the nick of time that it tottereth to leap and crush mine house, o'erset it on him and pash him to a mummy."

Strange, in my opinion. There were plenty of times that characters would communicate with each other, and a phrase like that would set me off figuring out what it said, to the point that I genuinely forgot what was happening and couldn’t remember what led characters to choose the actions they did. That's where the book officially started to leave me behind.

Lastly, level three of Ye olden-timie language mainly comes in the form of anything written in letters or sung in verse. It has many intentional misspellings, and has the unfortunate side effect of forcing my eyeballs to repeatedly punch the page, leaving abrasions on my corneas:

“Soo schel your hous stonde and bee
Unto eternytee
Yet walke warilie
Wyttinge ful sarteynlee
That if impiouslie
The secounde tyme in the bodie
Practisinge grammarie
One of ye katched shulle be
By the feyndis subtiltee
And hys liffe lossit bee
Broke ys thenne this serye
Dampned are you thenne eternallie
Yerth shuldestow thenne never more se
Scarsly the Goddes mought reskue ye
Owt of the Helle where you woll lie
Unto eternytee
The sterres tealde hit mee.”

That is… a mess. With sections like that, I just had to hope I didn't miss something important.

Overall the book was interesting. There were a few parts (Gorice the 11th’s wrestling, Gorice the 12th's conjuring, and the demons scaling of mountain ranges) that I found really engaging. The ending did fall flat for me. Spoiler: Gorice the 12th (I’m guessing) blew himself up on purpose to be reborn as the 13th. But there was no final standoff showcasing his insane abilities, which was quite disappointing, and I’m still not entirely sure what happened. I do own Eddison’s other 3 books in the series, so I could likely find out, but I’m not entirely sure I want to risk further trauma to my gray matter at this time.

I will end with one of this books clever insults, which I found especially entertaining:

“But Brandoch Daha laughed, and answered him, "To nought else may I liken thee, O Juss, but to the sparrow-camel. To whom they said, 'Fly,' and it answered, 'I cannot, for I am a camel'; and when they said, 'Carry,' it answered, 'I cannot, for I am a bird.'"
"Wilt thou egg me on so much?" said Juss.
"Ay," said Brandoch Daha, "if thou wilt be assish."

This book has the best ending ever. Well, one of my favourites, at least.

It's only when one gets to the end of The Worm Ouroboros that one learns what the story is really all about and can glean some kind of understand thing that there are some thoughtful underpinnings to Eddison's otherwise brashly heroic tale, that's brashly modelled on a range of sources with it's overtly ornate mock-Jacobean prose, snippets of classic poetry and larger than life but strangely one-dimensional heroes and villains.

The clue is in the title, but there's a wonderful red-herring, since Eddison leads the reader to believe that the Ouroboros - the one that will be continually reborn - is King Gorice and that his evil will perhaps never be thwarted. That's partially true, but Eddison's smarter conceit is that the heroes wish for him to be reborn and that they want the fight to continue forever since without they are lost. It's only when we understand this is it possible to appreciate how the book links in with storytelling and traditional narrative and even why the Lessingham framing device is important. As readers of fantasy stories we are all wannabee heroes, like Juss, Brandoch and Goldry, desiring to read about and take part in heroic exploits over and over to the extent that, once the story is over, we wish it reborn. If what happens in the real-world is finite, what happens in stories and the imagination is potentially infinite.

There's also, of course, a less romantic reading of the ending that gives it a harsher, more cynical edge that speaks to humanities insatiable appetite for war and sees these heroes as encompassing both the best and worst aspects of our humanity. If one puts this idea alongside the other, then it muddies the concept of reading heroic narrative in a quite brilliant way.

On another level, this book is just awesome because it has fantastic prose, great scenarios, characters and battles. It's nonstop excitement that doesn't really falter from page one, with the action taken to levels beyond most - later - fantasy works through the power of Eddison's amazingly colourful descriptions that I simply never tire of reading. The book is at its height when Juss and Brandoch head out to Koshtra Pivrarcha and Koshtra Belorn to rescue Juss's brother Goldry, the narrative taking on a dreamlike, magical quality (almost hallucinogenic at one point) whioch really recalled the Arthurian quest for the holy grail to my mind. If nothing else in the story could top this, the continual descriptions of battles or in-court feuding or general sense of wonder, regardless, never ceases.

This is often described as a flawed masterpiece. That may be true, but I love it regardless and it remains one of my favourite books after re-reading it for the first time in 10+ years. The Worm Ouroboros is one of the first modern day ambitious fantasy epics - even though it has an old-school heart - and, beyond being highly influential, it's still one of the most readable and one of the best.

Not an easy read by a long shot. The prose is very poetic--maybe too poetic, quite frankly--and there is a lot going on here. The opening scene is very clunky and unnecessary, and the idea that this is all taking place on Mars (I think it's Mars) is pretty ridiculous.

Still, the sweeping nature of the story and the heroism of the characters is really striking, and I really got caught up in rooting for the characters. It's a lot like LotR (but published about thirty years earlier), but the writing style is much more challenging.

I thought it was great, but be aware of what you're getting into when you read this. It's kind of like Shakespeare meets Tolkien.

“The harvest of this world is to the resolute, and he that is infirm of purpose is ground betwixt the upper and the nether millstone.

I just don't think fantasy is my genre, not in the way that it's presented in so formulaic a branding as it seems to be offered nowadays, anyway. There always seems to be an evil dragon, or evil wizard, or evil king, or a magical item that needs to be obtained in a quest that the suddenly appointed and apprehensive hero or heroes must undergo in order to save the world. This is nothing new, and Hollywood has made stacks of money using this formula for decades, in many settings, telling and retelling the same old story. In recent years I've discovered that the term 'monomyth' is, essentially, the descriptor for this type of journey. The one where the hero has been selected by prophecy, or a wise old sage, or hand-selected to do great things, oftentimes against their own will. Another term for this, which is becoming consistently more prevalent in pop culture usage, is the 'Hero's Journey'.

This 'Hero's Journey' is the summarized labeling of the consistent patterns recognized in a number of stories that follow a consistent structure and outline, and which lead our hero down a set of steps they must follow in order to accomplish the tasks laid out before them. The inquiring reader may find it interesting to read a bit on this structure and acquaint themselves in its use as a means to tell a story. Once familiar with the pillars of this formula it is easy to pick see its application in dozens of stories that we all know and love. For a few fantasy specific examples we can look to the Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter. It is precisely this series of events, the 'hero's journey, that, when told in consistently derivative and formulaic ways, becomes uninteresting and boring. We all know what's going to happen, and we all know when it's going to happen because we've seen it time and time again.

One of the the other applications of storytelling in fantasy is the insertion of 'realism' into the genre, which can also have an unfortunate effect if taken to its extremity. The greatest example for this from my own experience is A Song of Ice and Fire. It goes in the opposite direction of not having a specific 'hero' character, presenting the vast majority of its characters with various forms of character flaws that serve to express their humanity. Unfortunately, the series also suffers from a great number of character deaths that don't seem to have any other point than shock value. While this has the possibility of serving the story when utilized to do so it can create an environment where the stakes for success are quite high; if used just to present to the reader that people die suddenly then it is merely a sideshow with nothing to focus on or story to follow. A story without a character is usually a purposeless and aimless quest without purpose, since we have no emotional interest in the outcome of anything, especially if it is rooted in realism in that the characters suffer deaths that have no meaning. This is where A Song of Ice and Fire falls. If there's no hero, or no one to connect with for any length of time, or if the person that I connect with ultimately dies in an unsatisfying manner (without serving the betterment of the story), then the story loses some of its purpose, and therefore the reason that I'm investing my time in it. Sure, a character can have such a death if it serves the purpose of the story as a whole, but when it happens again, and again, and again, with no purpose, then there is no reason to continue with that story. In life, perhaps, death can suddenly occur without any implied meaning or value, in story, authors make decisions that serve or do not serve the story at hand. Meaningless deaths are meaningless to the story, but I digress.

Fantasy, as a whole, has generally failed to keep my interest or truly impress me since I was a boy and had been inundated with  Rankin Bass cartoons,  80's fantasy movies,  video games, and  game books. I greatly enjoyed all these fantasy influences, especially the Lord of the Rings, because they felt new and exciting. Now the typical fantasy story of the underestimated hero on the quest to save the world has well been played, so it takes something different in the setting to really gain my attention. Upon recently completing Of This and Other Worlds, which is a series of essays by C.S. Lewis, among which he discusses his love of fantasy and myth, and because of my general disinterest in the genre, I decided to read one of the novels he mentioned: a foundation novel that influenced him and Tolkien both. With Lewis' enthusiasm and his convincing rhetoric, I hoped to find and rekindle an interest that I just don't seem to have anymore. Thus I chose The Worm Ouroboros.

The Worm Ouroboros was written in 1922, long before the likes of Middle Earth, or Narnia, or Dungeons and Dragons took command of fantasy practically standardizing it into imitative submission. Whether it be barbarians, wizards, orphaned heroes, or evil beasts, we see much of the same played out across thousands of pages, and usually in ridiculously long multi-book epics. I've no particular love of excessively long fantasy tales  and am far more appreciative of a shorter yarn. Eddison manages to get the job done in a mere 300 pages while maintaining the awe and power of heroism his created world. His world was imaginative (though somewhat overly wrought at times), the characters felt like people and not caricatures and, most importantly, I had no idea how the story would play itself out. This is primarily because of the way that Eddison chooses to portray his characters and their morality.

Much of today's fantasy has an assumed cast of 'lesser' or 'evil' races, filled with disfigurements, or different skin colors, or undesirable traits that make them unlikeable, such as orcs, goblins, imps, or house elves. They act as an inferior species and often provide the fodder that the story's heroes need to wade through while attempting to achieve their objective. Eddison does not pursue this route, but populates his world with multi-faceted, depthful characters who are defined by more than just race. Sure, there are wild creatures such as Hippogriffs, and Mantichores that exist in the author's fantasy lands of Mercury, but the most dangerous beast that lives there is man.

In this manner The Worm Ouroboros is similar to A Song of Ice and Fire in that it is political tension between kingdoms which creates the conflict in the narrative, nudging the characters to venture out into dangerous lands on a journey, rather than an artificial instigator like a prophecy, or a magic item. There are quests, and there is a war, but neither of them feels like a forced concoction of modern day role-playing leftovers and rejected Saturday morning cartoon pitches. The disagreement between kingdoms is presented clearly from both sides, establishing stakes that feel applicable and valuable to the story's many characters., and none of them resulting in the 'end of the world'. This maturity in the storytelling seems to be slightly undermined by the rather unique naming conventions.

The men of the land of Mercury rule the kingdoms of Demonland, Impland, Witchland, and Pixyland. These monikers have a sort of juvenility to them as it makes it sound as if the world is divided into a series of oddly themed amusement parks. It would be easy to imagine the residents of such places to be the creatures suggested by their titles, though they hold no descriptive power over their inhabitants whatsoever. They are, in essence, nothing more than names of countries and the citizens that reside in them do not have any specific physical characteristics that represent them as a whole. Demonland's rulers and citizens are referred to as 'demons' and have no attributes as such. I did think this naming scheme was a little silly, and wasn't the only one, as Eddison was criticized for these decisions by his peers. He did state, however, that he had originally created the roots of this story when he was a young man and wanted to stay true to his original invention, which, I suppose, I cannot fault him for. The names serve the reader no difficulty, and actually create a relatively clear image of the political struggle that informs the story.

In which struggle befell the most bloody fighting that was yet seen that day, and the stour of battle so asper and so mortal that it was hard to see how any man should come out from it with life, since not a man of either side would budge an inch but die there in his steps if he might not rather slay the foe before him.

The major conflict of the book is steeped directly in the battle between two of the major powers in the world: Witchland and Demonland. They have recently ended a great war against a race known as the Ghouls in which the two kingdoms were united, and in which the king of Witchland withdrew his army from Demonland's assistance in their greatest hour of need, likely in the interest of assuming power over Demonland should they be conquered in the conflict. The book opens with the king of Witchland, Gorice XI requesting the submission of Demonland, to which the demon rulers will have no such thing.

As I mentioned previously, there are a number of major characters on each side of the conflict, as well as many from other nations in the world who are either married into the associated royal families, or involved with them based on alliances or political influence. In this way the story takes on similarities to works of legend like The Iliad, or Three Kingdoms. The general population of the world, its citizens, and especially the soldiers, fall distinctly into the background of the story while being influenced and led by a number of specifically named characters. This is all the more evident during scenes of battle in which the armies involved are assumed to be present while the action focuses primarily on the duel between principal characters.

In that nick of time came Spitfire through the stour, with a band of Demons about him, slaying as he came. He shouted with a terrible voice, “O Corinius, hateful to me and mine as are the gates of Hell, now will I kill thee, and thy dead carcase shall fatten the sweet meads of Owlswick.” Corinius answered him, “Bloody Spitfire, last of three whelps, for thy brothers are by now dead and rotten, I shall give thee a choke-pear.”

The story and language reads as 16th century English, which is the style the author intended, and which truly adds a great deal of epic weight to the events as they play out. It feels like Shakespeare and the The Iliad with an eleven-year old child in charge of naming conventions. At times the language can interfere with the story, specifically when Eddison gets carried away describing the environment and landscape while several of our characters traverse various portions of the map. At other times it heightens the mood and atmosphere to moments of inspirational quality. It's very effective in creating the mood and tone of legend and mysticism, though I can see it as a barrier to some. I read this on a kindle having downloaded the free version which I've since read is plagued with spelling errors and is a poor port of the story, so my experience may have been hindered by this flaw. I would recommend finding a physical copy to ensure a bit more accuracy.

Know when to speak, for many times it brings Danger to give the best advice to Kings;

The Worm Ouroboros is a book that I do not regret reading though I was pleased to see it come to an end. It was an enjoyable addition to my fantasy experience that, while it had some very powerful moments, did not strike me with the greatness I was hoping for. I think that this is a story that rewards additional readings, and exploration of the language. When I think on specific scenes and moments I'm impressed by their power, and how Eddison successfully uses Jacobean language to heighten their impact. His characters are compelling, defined by their actions and not by simple descriptions. The ones I grewto appreciate for their honor and nobility had their flaws, just as their enemies had respectable and likable traits. I also very much appreciated the prominent and strong female characters, especially Lady Mevrian who is in several of my favorite moments of the book. None of the women are presented or described as weak, just the opposite actually: they are intelligent, charming, challenging of their male counterparts, and very capable of leading and handling the situations presented.

The story is certainly not without its humor either, which, in a story of war and political wrangling, provides a much needed dose of levity and humanity. It makes the characters more believable and enjoyable, rather than just being muscle-laden warriors that seek only the good of a particular kingdom or the death of a foe, they have desires and weaknesses. One of my favorite moments is the following quote in which our band of adventurers is leading a war party through a vast track of waste and expanse. They're weary after days of travel and find themselves resting in a strange tower, marveling at their fortune when a very obvious supernatural woman walks into the room in which they are sheltering:

Then a faint music, troublous in its voluptuous wild sweetness, floated on the air, and they beheld a lady enter on the dais. Beautiful she seemed beyond the beauty of mortal women. In her dark hair was the likeness of the horned moon in honey-coloured cymophanes every stone whereof held a straight beam of light imprisoned that quivered and gleamed as sunbeams quiver wading in the clear deeps of a summer sea. She wore a coat-hardy of soft crimson silk, close fitting, so that she did truly apparel her apparel and with her own loveliness made it more sumptuous. She said, “My lords and guests in Ishnain Nemartra, there be beds of down and sheets of lawn for all of you that be aweary. But know that I keep a sparrow-hawk sitting on a perch in the eastern tower, and he that will wake my sparrow-hawk this night long, alone without any company and without sleep, I shall come to him at the night’s end and shall grant unto him the first thing that he will ask me of earthly things.” So saying she departed like a dream.

I can imagine her exiting the room enticingly leaving our dumbfounded characters to stare for a few seconds before one of them speaks up enthusiastically:

Brandoch Daha said, “Cast we lots for this adventure.”

Or this excerpt, when two opposing leaders cordially share insults:

Juss answered, "Thou dost thee and thou me. And indeed it were folly in either of us twain to bend knee to t'other, when the lordship of all the earth waiteth on the victor in our great contention."

And unto Lord Juss he said, “Of all ensuing harm the cause is in thee; for I am now resolved never to put up my sword until of thy bleeding head I may make a football.

Ultimately, I enjoyed it, and would recommend this book to fans of myth, those who enjoy the Elizabethan playwrights, and fans of fantasy who are not dissuaded by a non-formulaic, non-monomythic story that inspired much of what the genre is today. I respect The Worm Ouroboros for containing a great deal of what I still hope to find in fantasy, should I keep looking - an aspect of mystery and wonder that isn't derided by stock archetypes and generic premises, but one that makes me stop and contemplate the characters and the world; lands that are both representative of things unknown, intriguing, and worth exploring; and a sense of adventure that promises excitement, rather than the tedium of the heroic motions, and which doesn't feel like a well-worn groove on the road to the land of derivative fantasy heroes and villains. The language may be challenging at times, but the moments of true greatness are worth every page, feel unique, and manage to surpass in originality anything that I've read in terms of fantasy for some time. Here's to hoping that the heroes of Eddison's world continue their heroic battle until I return.

Rightfully, having such a timeless life, this King weareth on his thumb that worm Ouroboros which doctors have from of old made for an ensample of eternity, whereof the end is ever at the beginning and the beginning at the end for ever more.”

So, I will preface this here 5-star rating by saying that I do not think this book is for everyone, but neither is any book. It's only when a book is slightly less "for everyone" than the average book does criticism prompt this qualifier. I will detail why I think this book deserves a perfect rating despite its eccentricity and stylistic touches which many consider off-putting.

First off, I think that a lot of the commonly criticized elements of The Worm Ouroboros are actually strengths. Many people point to the "silly" names of the characters and places as out-of-place and hard to take seriously. Going in with the understanding that he made up most of these names when he was 10 years old, it felt like an authentic collaboration between a mature writer and his 10 year old self, something I think all but the most imaginative and skilled writers would be incapable of. It also came across as E.R. Eddison telling you that he is going to tell you this story on his terms, and nobody else's. He did not write this book to pander to anyone, especially in a time before fantasy was even solidified as a genre. Furthermore, I think the book is meant to be a bit silly. There is an undercurrent of humor, I would even say satire, to the entire thing. It takes itself so dramatically serious that it goes full circle (I swear the pun was not intended as I typed that) and becomes funny, which I think was entirely on purpose. I don't think a writer makes you read way-too-long lists of obscure gems and foods, making you look up useless archaic terms in complete seriousness.

Another thing that some might consider a fault is the language. I showed a passage to a friend of mine who's got an English degree and has done an independent study of Ulysses and he couldn't do it for long. Not because of complexity, so much as he couldn't stand the archaic English and found it taxing. It's not just one form of archaic English, this book uses many different forms of archaic English as influence for how the narrator and characters speak and write. Personally, I got used to it and came to enjoy it. It adds a touch of drama that wouldn't be there otherwise. The notes section of my copy were very extensive, checking them frequently annoyed me at first, but after a while I accepted it as part of the experience. I actually learned a good bit from them. Mostly useless stuff, but fun nonetheless. Admittedly, about half way through the book, I did put it down for a month or two and read some simpler stuff as a detox. I don't think that's a flaw of a book though, plenty of books would probably make me do the same thing.

I have read some criticism of the theme of exaggerated strongmen engaged in eternal battle for the sake of pleasure while the commoners are treated like ants, or ignored almost entirely, to be near-fascist. The argument could certainly be made, and I don't really expect an aristocratic English guy of his time like E.R. Eddison to have the most enlightened political views. However, I chose to interpret it as a bit of a satire of the bloodlust of powerful, warlike men that echoes the ancient Norse belief in Valhalla, an afterlife of eternal combat. There are far too many silly, cartoonish elements of the story for me to assume that almost any aspect of it so seriously. He wanted it to be a "Story to be told for its own sake." Tolkien had similar aims, but still let his political and religious beliefs slip through. I believe that E.R. Eddison succeeded where he failed. There are scenes where, in my view, some racial bias or stereotyping can be seen, but they're a couple lines, don't come off as particularly malicious, and are not central to the plot in any way. It is completely impossible to write a novel without ideology coming into play at all, since it is inherent in just about everything the human mind creates. Other than that, it's hard to discern a definitive political message here. I'm certainly the type of person that gets caught up examining the politics of a written work, but here I really didn't flinch once. It does a good job coming across as simply a piece of entertainment and not a grand statement on the human condition.

Next, I think I'd like to talk about style. I'm a huge fan of prose, and I don't really read fantasy if the prose is any lesser than Moorcock. Eddison more than passes this test. While, yes, it gets the slightest bit boring to read the archaic talk, especially the style Eddison chose for letters and such, he writes such lush and vivid description that it more than makes up for all of it. The description of the throne room in the first chapter is what got me hooked. There are some passages in this book that nearly made me cry. His vocabulary is truly insane. I really just can't praise his writing enough to do it justice.

Another thing that needs to be mentioned is the characters. He has some of the strongest fantasy characterization out there. The greatest example of which, for me certainly, is Lord Gro. I don't want to say why, I want this to be mostly spoiler free, but he's great. The women are written as very strong for the time this was written, and are about every bit as memorable as the men for me, and are not at all portrayed as babymakers. I like that.

So, something about this book is that it is early fantasy. As I've said, it wasn't even fantasy at this point, just a curious form of literature. Does that mean it's particularly dated? Hell no. In fact, the way that he chose to write it mostly in a blend of archaic forms of English ironically makes it feel less dated than it would if it was written in the English of its time, at least in my opinion. The way it is written makes it feel more like an epic poem. Whenever I tell a Tolkien fan the reason I don't like Tolkien is his weak prose, they always give the excuse that Tolkien was "early fantasy", but writers like E.R. Eddison make that argument not hold water for me. Books have been around a long time. We know what good writing is. Dunsany and Eddison definitely knew.

And lastly, the "ending"? Lol. Just check it out. Have fun.

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.

This was great all-around, one of the better fantasy books I've ever read. It's from 1922 but it is weirdly out of time, a crazy mixture of the Iliad and Shakespeare and Arthurian romance, but with a bit of modern sensibility and darkness.

I've been reading fantasy on and off since I was a little kid, but lately I am hardly ever impressed by it at all, after suffering through too many sub-par Tolkien knock-offs. I've particularly avoided "high fantasy" -- the kind that has epic quests and world-changing plots and warfare -- and mostly only been reading "low fantasy" and "sword and sorcery" stuff like R.E. Howard and Fritz Leiber.

So I was surprised to enjoy a high fantasy again. The Worm Ouroboros has this crazy archaic Elizabethan-style prose, particularly in the dialogue, that was totally fun to read and sent me scrambling to occasionally look up a word. It also had hints of linguistic humor, like when the characters would occasionally read or write a letter, and the text would be have era-appropriate orthography with non-standardized spelling that was difficult to decipher.

It was fun, while reading, to compare The Worm Ouroboros to The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien intended TLOTR and his Middle Earth to represent an invented mythological past of our own world, a great saga for the English to rival Scandinavian and Germanic sagas. But really, TLOTR doesn't feel much like part of our world; it feels pretty much like a remote (but interesting) fantasy world. (If you start getting into "advanced" Tolkien material about Valar and Maiar and whatnot, it really feels out there.) Maybe the hobbits are similar to plain ole' Englishmen, but Tolkien's elves and wizards seem like aliens, his evil powers strange and otherworldly... what is Sauron supposed to be? It's hard to even know, he's not part of the human world or traditional mythology or a Christian devil. It's fantasy.

The Worm Ouroboros, though, really feels like something that takes place in our own world (even though it's sort of set on Mercury). It draws on European myths and ancient Greek archetypes, and in that sense is easier to relate to than Tolkien's world. Its setting, full of lords and ladies and warfare and honor, is really reminiscent of Arthur's knights traipsing through dark forests, or Tristram sailing to Ireland to capture Isolde, while in the background there is unrelenting warfare to rival the Achaeans and the Trojans.

Anyways, great fun... I want to either read more Eddison soon or else pick up the Iliad which is conveniently sitting on my shelf...

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)

I find this one hard to assign a star rating. It has some surprising effective moments, but also feels like the product of a precocious and inspired ten year old--which it kind of is, though completed by that child's adult self. It's high fantasy about war between Demonland and Witchland, with supporting players from Impland, Pixyland, Goblinland (I think it was...), all of which seem to be populated by bigger than life humans, for the most part. Mostly they like to fight each other, posture and proclaim. It's told in faux archaic language, filled with entertaining eccentricities, and possibly some words that are flatly made up. Lots of description and endless lists of places and names. One of its most interesting stretches is a mystifying opening that turns into a framing device, which is subsequently dropped forever. Tolkien and James Stephens, among others, found it inspiring. I'm glad I read it, out of curiosity if nothing else.

Originally published on my blog here in February 2001.

Often touted as a rival to The Lord of the Rings, Eddison's epic fantasy has more in common with the large scale of The Silmarillion. Eddison wrote four loosely linked novels while working as a civil servant, of which The Worm Ouroboros is the first and best known. Its subject is a war between the Demons and Witches, the latter aided by a willingness to act dishonourably and by the dread sorcery of their king, Gorice XII.

The flaws in The Worm Ouroboros are fairly obvious, particularly at the beginning of the novel. The strangest is a narrator, who is very dull and who is even forgotten by Eddison after a couple of chapters. It is symptomatic of a more general fault, which is a lack of revision. Unlike Tolkien's writing, The Worm Ouroboros is clearly not the product of years of obsessive rewriting, background notes and singleminded vision. It reads far more as though it were written down in one sitting. There are problems with details of the background. Like Tolkien, Eddison uses familiar names from folklore for his peoples; there are Demons, Witches, Imps and so on. However, with the exception of the Ghouls, these all appear to be nations of human beings, and the result is that the reader is torn between the traditional ideas conjured up by these names and the way in which Eddison portrays them. Tolkien's dwarves and elves are far more like their traditional namesakes, and this is a lead which has been followed by just about every fantasy writer since.

The whole story of the novel, we are told, is set on the planet Mercury, and this also gives a bizarre feeling; a magical realm works much metter in a mythical setting like Middle Earth.

There is one aspect of the way in which Eddison uses pieces of the real world which works extremely well. In most fantasy novels, when poetry occurs, it is usually a poor imitation of some sort of heroic sage, derived via models like William Morris and Tolkien from medieval sources. What Eddison does is to find poetry which fits with the style of his writing and the situation; this means that it is written by poets like Shakespeare and Spenser and is a pleasure to read rather than something to skip.

The Worm Ouroboros has many excellent qualities; once you get into to it, it is quite compelling. It is imaginative and literary, if a bit lacking in planning and structure. However, it did not grip the world's imagination as the less poetic Tolkien did, and so did not provide the inspiration to hundreds of imitators that The Lord of the Rings has, with the result that it remains something of a curiousity in a forgotten corner of the fantasy genre.

At some point I'll write a more cohesive review. Meanwhile, here are some of the thoughts I posted in discussions elsewhere.

I couldn't overstress how much I loved the language in The Worm Ouroboros. While I read, I picked up a couple of modern fantasy novels for some lighter reading and truly, though I enjoyed them, the writing was millions of miles behind. Some of his descriptions of even the simplest, most every day occurances made me pause in consideration and true enjoyment.

As I was reading, especially toward the beginning there seemed to be a lack of character development, but as I continued it seemed rather like a different kind of character development - the reader doesn't get a lot of insight into characters' thoughts, but you do discover who they are by their actions. As someone else mentioned they have more the quality of epic or mythological characters.

I kept wishing for a map to follow their progress round about and back and forth, but oh well.

One of the aspects of the book that bothered me in a couple different ways is the different lands/peoples. There is the lack of differences between some of the peoples though they're called by names that seem to signify differences in the type of being they are, e.g. Witchland, Demonland, Pixieland. The other bother for me was the complete disregard the demons had for the prince of Impland who travels with them, who is a different kind of creature, and definitely fits the whole idea of 2nd class citizen at the very least.

About 2/3rds of the way through I was thinking, in comparison to Lord of the Rings (for example), that there's a weakness in the lack of one purpose or strand through the book... or maybe simply the lack of a stronger purpose. It has quest in it, but it's really about this long struggle against a power that claims sovereignty over the world. Now that I write that I think it's funny that the purpose doesn't seem stronger, but perhaps it just doesn't seem cohesive somehow.

I think the purpose or main strand becomes clear at the end and I'm a bit amazed at how much of import was in the last 80 pages. I was really enjoying the way it was ending...and then Eddison throws that last bit at you and I seriously thought he needed a good talking to, or someone to argue with him about it.........but at the last word I had to nod in understanding. Still a bit in disbelief at what seemed initially a bit out of character for the honorable Lord Juss, but it fits a part of who he is, and, in a certain way, makes the story and central theme somewhat fuller.

Not sure if I can obtain copies of his other books at present, but will definitely look into it in the future.