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Wonderfully and deliberately archaic to the core, in its near-Elizabethan language, its resemblance to old epics and romances, and its unapologetic love of aristocracy. The Worm Ouroboros also has its share of surprises in store, particularly the ending, which is guaranteed to catch you off guard.

First is the frame story, once a staple of novels, now almost unknown. Ouroboros' tells of a man, Lessingham, who goes to sleep in the enchanted "lotus room" of his English estate, only to be transported to Mercury, the setting of the novel's action. Others remark on how after the opening chapters, Lessingham is never mentioned again (not quite true, he receives one mention roughly a quarter through). The reason for this seems obvious to me. As the martlet tells Lessingham, he cannot be seen or heard, nor physically effect any object. He is in effect, YOU, the reader. Whatever he sees is what he/you are seeing, and whatever you feel is what you/he is feeling. Noting his presence throughout the novel would be pointless.

Another is the mundanity of the initial setting. Reading the blurb about a war between Demonland and Witchland, you'd expect some dark and crazy setting, but in fact, the Witches and Demons of the story are near as can be completely human. The opening chapters describe the demons as horned, and Lord Spitfire breathing small flames from his nostrils, but nothing ever comes of this. They are about as demonic as your average Star Trek alien is alien. The Witches have a particularly bad misnomer, as only their king, Gorice XII, has any interest or skill in magic. The people of Goblinland, Pixyland, and Impland prove equally human, though the Red Foliot is actually red, and so presumably the others. Demonland and Witchland are closer to England and France than any denizens of Hell.

Because of that, the diction is the main avenue for keeping up the fantastical atmosphere early on. Eddison pulls out not only the thees and thous, but the anons, withals, wherefores, redes, "or ever"s, and many other words and constructions now gone from English. Most of the time this presented little difficulty in decoding, until I hit something particularly bizarre or archaic, or where context was unhelpful. As an example, "You are pleased to jest, O King. For my part, I had as lief have this musk-million on my shoulders as a head so blockish as to want ambition." I still don't know what a "musk-million" is. I think it's a type of food. Characters write phonetically, and I can only thank Eddison that he had the kindness to have a character read out "shuldestow" as "shouldst thou".

The other avenue is the descriptions, which are as lavish and detailed as his aristocratic subjects would demand. The description of Brandoch Daha caught my eye especially.

His gait was delicate, as of some lithe beast of prey newly wakened out of slumber, and he greeted with lazy grace the many friends who hailed his entrance. Very tall was that lord, and slender of build, like a girl. His tunic was of silk coloured like the wild rose, and embroidered in gold with representations of flowers and thunderbolts. Jewels glittered on his left hand and on the golden bracelets on his arms, and on the fillet twined among the golden curls of his hair, set with plumes of the king-bird of Paradise. His horns were dyed with saffron, and inlaid with filigree work of gold. His buskins were laced with gold, and from his belt hung a sword, narrow of blade and keen, the hilt rough with beryls and black diamonds. Strangely light and delicate was his frame and seeming, yet with a sense of slumbering power beneath, as the delicate peak of a snow mountain seen afar in the low red rays of morning. His face was beautiful to look upon, and softly coloured like a girl's face, and his expression one of gentle melancholy, mixed with some disdain; but fiery glints awoke at intervals in his eyes, and the lines of swift determination hovered round the mouth below his curled moustachios.

Maybe I'm alone here, but aside from the moustache, isn't this almost exactly what your sword wielding bishie is meant to look like? This and other descriptions kept me imagining a riotously coloured and flowing Amano-esque world.


Final Fantasy II concept art by Yoshitaka Amano

The first third of the story is more of a prologue, establishing the reasons for and setting of the epic quest of the lords of Demonland, and it truly is epic. Mystical enchantments, encounters with strange beings and curses, and feats of arms and courage worthy of any Greek hero. After the quest is nearly complete, however, we return to the mundane world to see the war between the Demons and Witches. The story becomes personal and political. This final segment is much more grounded than the preceding quest, and plays out like a drama between the Witches and Demons.

The heroes and villains probably aren't what you've been conditioned to expect from later fantasy fiction. The heroes are first and foremost kings and nobles, as all Arthurian and Greek heroes were. Sure, Frodo was technically a landed gentleman, and Aragorn was technically a king in exile, but that's not really their lasting image in cultural memory. We remember Frodo as the underdog and Aragorn as the ranger "Strider". The Demons, on the other hand, are better than everyone else, and they know it. They live almost exclusively for glory in accomplishment, and honour in combat. There is no trace of Christian humility in them, and indeed their religion seems to be Olympian. Juss is somewhat bland, not being allowed any flaws as the main character. Spitfire and Goldry Bluszco receive bafflingly little focus throughout the story, leaving Brandoch Daha as the standout character, but damn is he good. A complete daredevil, without Juss's cooler head he'd probably ruin the quest several times over. On one occasion, he manages to curse himself out of a showdown with his nemesis by spurning a spectral woman he seduced. Luckily he's such a skilled swordsman and supremely loyal friend that he can't be done without. I'd read a book entirely about him.

The villains of Witchland are only slightly different, being just a bit less honourable and scrupulous, but they are first and foremost worthy foes of the Demon lords. In fact, there are about as many scenes from the perspective of the Witches as the Demons. Corund may even be their equal, and in the final chapters Juss honours his enemy by remarking that "none greater hath lived on earth than King Gorice XII." Gorice is the arrogant sorcerer-king par excellence, feared even more by his own subjects than his enemies. Barlowe captured his image near perfectly in his Guide to Fantasy, including his absurd jewelled crab crown. Eventually, the immortal Queen Sophonisba tells the heroes that Gorice is also immortal, but in a different manner: whenever he is killed, he is reborn in another body, explaining how Gorice XII was ready to rule the kingdom as soon as Gorice XI died, despite no mention of XI having a son. Curiously, Gorice is not the same each time he reincarnates - Gorice X is a brave warrior, XI a sadistic Herculean wrestler, and XII a sorcerer. However, Gorice relates how Gorice VII was also a sorcerer, so Gorice is living his own cycle of the Ouroboros. How exactly he acquired this power is never brought up. There are also some odd implications for his character. When Gro warns Gorice XI of the bad omens for his wrestling match, Gorice rebukes him in a rage and threatens to kill him after the match. Gro's warning comes to pass, however, and Gorice XII immediately takes Gro into his confidence and congratulates him on his good counsel to his predecessor. He also claims in chapter seventeen that if he had been king, he wouldn't have agreed to the invasion of Goblinland. Of course, he was wasn't he? The fact that XII knew of Gro's private council to XI proves that he has the memories of his predecessors, but his personality seems different in his incarnations. In what sense then, is he really the same person? All the Gorices share the same rapacious greed to rule the world, so maybe that is the only real essence to his being across many lives.



The only exceptions to this shared ethos are the women and Gro. The women are supports for the men and stewards when they're absent. Eddison does differentiate them, Mevrian being iron-willed and icy, Prezmyra increasingly bitter and despairing as the story goes on, and Sophonisba perfect and wise, but they're pretty minor elements. Gro, on the other hand, is an enigma outside the mutual understanding of the Demons and Witches. Introduced as a Goblin turncoat working for Gorice XI, he proves instrumental in Gorice XII's success, but later switches to the Demons. He is the only male character not motivated by the struggle for power. He presents himself as a philosopher and explorer, and his knowledge of Impland enables Juss to succeed in his quest. When he sees the Demons coming close to defeat, he switches sides. When the Demons have nearly defeated Witchland, he betrays them in the heat of battle and meets his end. The closest Gro comes to justifying his ways is this:

"But because day at her dawning hours hath so bewitched me, must I yet love her when glutted with triumph she settles to garish noon? Rather turn as now I turn to Demonland, in the sad sunset of her pride. And who dares call me turncoat, who do but follow now as I have followed this rare wisdom all my days: to love the sunrise and the sundown and the morning and the evening star? Since there only abideth the soul of nobility, true love, and wonder, and the glory of hope and fear."

In that light, then, he sees the struggle for power differently from the others. It is not an end, but a journey. Whenever power is too close in reach, he must abandon it to begin the struggle again.

All that ties into one of the strangest endings I've read. Plunged into despair at peaking so early, the Demon lords pray to the gods to return their enemies to life so they can struggle against them again, and their prayers are answered. The story "ends" with the same inciting event as the beginning. It is no ending at all, which explains why Lessingham doesn't appear to close out the story - it isn't done.

Stray thought: A soldier at one point relates a drowning/choking game he took part in as a child. I've never thought much of it, but I suppose such things must've happened in the past. It's just not one of those things people choose to write about, like playing doctor.

I read this book on my Kindle, primarily on planes and in airports.

This was incorrect.

I should have been sitting in a high-backed leather chair, preferably in a tall-ceilinged octagonal library paneled in dark wood, lit by a gas lamp when the rays of the setting sun coming across the moorlands of my estate no longer provided sufficient light. Instead of a tiny plastic cup full of ice and Diet Coke I should've had, oh, let's say, a vintage port or cognac poured from a crystal decanter.

I would, of course, have been wearing a smoking jacket but the actual pipe & tobacco would've been entirely optional.

The Worm Ouroboros is a frankly magnificent, although not especially accessible fantasy novel from the 1920s. After a very brief framing story (as was the style at the time) it proceeds to tell the story of a great war on the planet Mercury (no, not that planet Mercury) between Our Heroes the Demons (no, not those kinds of Demons) and the villains of the piece, the Witches (no, not those kinds of Witches).

Other races inhabiting the planet include the Pixies, Imps and Goblins. Plus the Ghouls, although they were exterminated in a great war a few years prior to the events of the book. (And they totally had it coming; they were bad eggs.)

The Demons are represented by Lord Juss (the King), his brothers Goldry Bluszco and Spitfire, and their cousin Brandoch Daha. They're all impossibly handsome, brave, courteous and gallant and have little horns growing from their foreheads. (Some of them are also a bit rash and easily goaded into poorly-judged but impossibly heroic actions.)

On the distaff side we have the Witches, represented by King Gorice, wielder of Dark and Terrible Powers, plus the nobles Corund, Corinius and Corsus, and their sometimes-ally and advisor Lord Gro of Goblinland.

And there are ladies! Including, but not limited to, Lady Mevrian of Demonland and Lady Prezmyra, a Pixy but wife of Corund. And they actually do things! And some of those things (we are led most delicately to infer) are at times of an intimate nature ...

As to the meat of the story ... It's both too simple and too complicated to summarize easily -- at the beginning of the book, Gorice, who asserts himself rightful ruler of the world, including Demonland (a position with which the Demons have no truck) and Goldry Bluszco have a wrestling match to decide who has the right of the matter. Although the match is settled with one side most indisputably the victor, there then follows a great series of battles, betrayals, intrigues, dark gramaries and lengthy treks across inhospitable wastes.

Although the Demons, if you scratch too far beneath the surface, come out as essentially Edwardian landed gentry having Jolly Adventures, and the Witches, if so scratched, come out as essentially Edwardian landed gentry who fail to demonstrate proper nobless oblige and are otherwise bad sports, the whole thing is carried to dizzying heights by Eddison's sweeping and mighty language. To wit:

THAT night they spent safely, by favour of the Gods, under the highest crags of Koshtra Pivrarcha, in a sheltered hollow piled round with snow. Dawn came like a lily, saffron-hued, smirched with smoke-gray streaks that slanted from the north. The great peaks stood as islands above a main of level cloud, out of which the sun walked flaming, a ball of red-gold fire. An hour before his face appeared, the Demons and Mivarsh were roped and started on their eastward journey. Ill to do with as was the crest of the great north buttress by which they had climbed the mountain, seven times worse was this eastern ridge, leading to Koshtra Belorn. Leaner of back it was, flanked by more profound abysses, deeplier gashed, too treacherous and too sudden in its changes from sure rock to rotten and perilous: piled with tottering crags, hung about with cornices of uncertain snow, girt with cliffs smooth and holdless as a castle wall. Small marvel that it cost them thirteen hours to come down that ridge. The sun wheeled towards the west when they reached at length that frozen edge, sharp as a sickle, that was in the Gates of Zimiamvia. Weary they were, and ropeless; for by no means else might they come down from the last great tower save by the rope made fast from above. A fierce north-easter had swept the ridges all day, bringing snow-storms on its wings. Their fingers were numbed with cold, and the beards of Lord Brandoch Daha and Mivarsh Faz stiff with ice.

If you can countenance another 500 pages of such stuff, then I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Myself (to be clear), I enjoyed it mightily and look forward to following up with Eddison's Zimiamvia trilogy.

THE WORM OUROBOROS

Rambling, obscure, written after the style of the seventeenth century, filled with characters it is difficult to even like, much less love, and the story is supposed to take place on Mercury, though it is not science fiction and there is no particular reason why the author should have hit on that planet more than any place else — this hardly sounds like a recommendation, I know, yet the book is, deservedly, considered a classic.

The story begins when King Gorice XI of Witchland lays claim to Demonland and demands the fealty of her rulers, Lords Juss, Goldry Bluszco, and Spitfire. (Do not concern yourself with the names. The more you think about them, the less sense they will make. Demons, Witches, Pixies, Imps ... none of these means what you think it does, and names of many of the people and places seem to come from a mishmash of sources.) The Demons, as Gorice surely expects, refuse. A wrestling match between the hulking Gorice and Goldry, not mean wrestler himself, is arranged to decide the matter. Since Gorice has decorated his palace with the skulls and and bones of the ninety-nine champions he has already defeated, he is confident of his triumph. However, when the contest begins to go against him, he cheats, and is still defeated. He loses the match and his life in the process. The Witches, having cheated, accuse the Demons of treachery and murder, refuse to keep their part of the bargain, and depart.

And this sets off a series of kidnappings, battles, defeats, victories, treacheries, heroic deeds, more battles, treason, poisoning, battles, and suicide.

The most fascinating characters are the antagonists, that is, the inhabitants of Witchland, and one Goblin who switches sides so often it is hard to keep track of whose side he is on at any given moment. Yet Gro is no opportunist, for there is something in him that forces him ever to take the losing side when he already knows full well that it is about to suffer a staggering defeat. It is not quite compassion; it is undoubtedly a compulsion; it may be on philosophic or aesthetic grounds. Gro does not appear to be entirely certain himself. Corund, if ruthless and ever willing to advise his overlord to triumph by trickery and outright cheating, is nevertheless steadfast, and perversely honorable in his way. King Gorice XII, a sorcerer of great renown, and in some way a reincarnation of all the previous Gorices (another thing not to think about too much, Eddison often had several incarnations of a character living at once) is simply compelling in his own unmitigated wickedness.

Gorice is monstrous in his will to dominate. He cares for no one and nothing but his own ambitions, but Corund — great-hearted though not good-hearted (a subtle distinction) — forgives his one-time friend Gro his treason, although almost certainly in part to please his wife, the supernaturally beauiful Pryzmyra. Pryzmyra is all magnificent contradiction, by turns fierce and sensuously languid. We are to understand that she was given to Corund in marriage when she was barely more than a child, and he at least in middle age. Now he is old, while she has reached a gorgeous maturity. But she is fierce in her affections, and though naturally attracted to the high and noble, is deeply attached to her husband, even when it causes her great difficulty reconciling her loyalty to himand to the Witchesm with her equally fierce affections for her brother La Fireez, Prince of Pixyland and a staunch ally of the Demons. Why she should feel anything but contempt for Gro is a mystery, but something about him touches her.

The protagonists, however, are hardly less monstrous than the Witches, though in a different way, being egotistical in the extreme. Lord Juss’s bedchamber, for instance, is decorated with murals depicting, not the magnificent deeds of his ancestors, which would be too commonplace, no, his chamber is adorned with murals of his own glorious deeds. In their defense, each of these characters seems to admire the others as much as he admires himself. They are presented as beneficent overlords, yet two of them leave their people when war is threatening, in order to pursue a personal point quest. When given a choice between the easy way and the seemingly impossible they always choose the difficult and dangerous course in order to satisfy their heroic nature -- even though their swift and safe return home is desperately needed in order to turn the tide of battle. One gets the feeling that the people they rule do not matter in the least, and only exist to give these lordly characters someone to rule over — for men such as they must rule. It is in their nature. We wish for them to succeed, partly in grudging admiration, and partly because the results of their failure would be so much worse.

Eddison obviously admired the men of an earlier age — or at least an idealized version of them— and longed for a time when men were heroes and women were goddesses, or else not worth thinking about at all. Much of the book is taken up with the rather tedious adventures of Juss and his friend Brandoch Daha. Thankfully, there are also sections devoted to the Witches’ invasion of Demonland, a tender subplot about unrequited love, and another about the jostling for power among those of Gorice’s henchmen sent to lead the invasion.

One reason why the book succeeds is that the author has perfect command of the style he adopts. Writing in the 1920’s, late Elizabethan/Jacobean English is spot on, and he frequently uses it to create stunning and breathtakingly beautiful t effects. As you may have guessed ,from the description above, in spite of its weaknesses, the story is melodrama at its most heart-stirring and magnificent best, it’s characters, if infuriating, so very much larger than life. If you are up for a truly challenging read, you could hardly do better than The Worm Ouroboros.

I read this at the reccomendation of a teacher I worked with. I swear I've never had to force myself to keep reading a book quite like this one. I had to plow through each sentence and still came away utterly unsatisfied at the end. It was more a feeling of relief that it was finally over.