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SFReader Forums > SF Fiction and Art > Right Now I'm Reading.... > Worm Ouroboros, Chapters 11 & 12

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Nik
Adept

Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 735

Posted 2/13/2008 11:53 PM (GMT -4)

I have nothing to say since I haven't read 12 yet. Just wanted to put this here as a reminder to those reading.

Nicholas Ian Hawkins

Forthcoming
"Knowledge and Dust," in Magic & Mechanica, from Ricasso Press, Winter 2008

"What Heroes Leave Behind," in Return of the Sword, Flashing Swords Press, March 2008

Published
"Relativity," in FLASHSHOT, September 28, 2007

Visit my website, Trampler of Beautiful Phrases, at nihawkins.wordpress.com

Bill Ward
Biblioholic

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1572

Posted 2/14/2008 12:21 AM (GMT -4)

I'm running behind--unfortunately Ouroboros is starting to feel more like work than it should.

billwardwriter.com

Nathan Jerpe
Neophyte

Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 192

Posted 2/14/2008 7:40 PM (GMT -4)

We can always tweak the format if you think that would help? Personally I have avoided a temptation to dig in and read the whole book. The lull between chapters often makes it tricky to jump back in.

Meanwhile here's my favorite quote from Chapter XI:

"He that hath need of a dog calleth him 'Sir Dog'".

http://roguelikefiction.com

Nik
Adept

Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 735

Posted 2/15/2008 2:49 PM (GMT -4)

I fear keeping a schedule is the only way I'm going to get through this book. However, it might be worth taking a break to allow the laggers (everyone but Nathan) time to catch up. Maybe adjust the schedule by a week?

James Enge
Maker

Date Joined Jan 2006
Total Posts : 197

Posted 2/17/2008 8:20 PM (GMT -4)

I think my problem keeping the schedule is that the chunks are too small. It's hard to keep in the flow of a book reading two chs. at a time.

James Enge
http://jamesenge.com/

"A Covenant with Death" in Flashing Swords
"The Lawless Hours" in Black Gate 11
"The Gordian Stone" in Every Day Fiction
"The Red Worm's Way" forthcoming in Return of the Sword
"Payment in Full" forthcoming in Black Gate

Bill Ward
Biblioholic

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1572

Posted 2/19/2008 4:12 PM (GMT -4)

I have the same problem James, if I didn't have any other reading going on it wouldn't be a problem for me, but this month I've been doing a lot of 'research.'

I've read these chapters, should have the next two read soon as well.

I think 11 and 12 were great, especially 11--Gro and Corund manage to be more interesting to me than Juss and Daha, though of course the later two's adventures in the mountains was great stuff.

billwardwriter.com

Nik
Adept

Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 735

Posted 2/19/2008 4:20 PM (GMT -4)

Finally catching up, too. I did like the interplay between Gro and Corund very much. I think Corund's paranoia is reaching its height, which makes him seem all the more threatening and unstable. A good villain.

Some vivid description in 12. Still long-winded, but definitely paints a picture of the little "Land of the Lost" in between the mountains. However, as the references to earth and earthly things increase, I get more confused and annoyed. I say again: is this Mercury or Earth? I feel like it may be revealed in the end that Lessingham didn't go to Mercury after all, but instead forward or backward in time.

Bill Ward
Biblioholic

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1572

Posted 2/19/2008 4:45 PM (GMT -4)

I don't think you can think of it as any concrete place, its Eddison's homage to all the literature of the fantastic he loves--mostly stuff I'm admittedly unfamiliar with beyond norse sagas and Shakespeare. It's not a ground-up world-building fantasy a la Tolkien, I don't think his readership expected that kind of logic (or he himself cared about it). Mercury and Lessingham are just an excuse--and a very thin one--to have us suspend disbelief. I suspect a later author would have just called the world something else, not bothered with Lessingham, and maybe veneered over a couple of the earthly references, but Eddison just isn't writing in that tradition--I'm not sure if it really existed until Tolkien (and even he, in the Hobbit, references earthly things in a somewhat similar way).

I think many pre-Tolkien writers of fantasy didn't take the 'reality' of their worlds as seriously, I think they understood their audiences weren't asking to believe the world itself was real, and that unreality is probably a part of how they understood fantastic tales to function. Post-Tolkien sees the rise of the world builders, 'serious' fantasy with rules and more rigid expectations.

billwardwriter.com

Nik
Adept

Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 735

Posted 2/19/2008 4:58 PM (GMT -4)

Bill, for the first time ever (I think) I'm going to disagree with you. William Morris was writing before Eddison, and he was the first to set a fantasy work in an entirely invented world. Dunsany was pre-Tolkien, and he also did this. Tolkien referenced earthly things because Middle-earth is a pre-history of our own world.

Eddison clearly indicates that this story is taking place on another planet, but that's the extent of its extra-terrestrialness. Given what writing came before Eddison (Morris), and during (Dunsany), Lessingham and the Mercury setting are not needed as thin excuses for readers to suspend disbelief. It doesn't make sense to me. In fact, it seems pointless.

What I'm trying to say is: I will fight E. R. Eddison. I don't want to see any more excuses for this guy. I will get some smelling salts, a heater, and a defibrillator, and I will throw down with his corpse until he changes the setting to Earth. I don't think that's asking too much.

Nathan Jerpe
Neophyte

Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 192

Posted 2/19/2008 5:30 PM (GMT -4)

This has been bothering me too. Nik, you may be right from a historical context, but when I look at the words that Eddison has written down, it really does seem like he dropped in Lessingham, Mercury, etc. for the purposes of belief suspension, nothing more.

What did Mercury signify to the ancients? Maybe there is a clue there.

And maybe this'll all become clearer as we continue. I suppose there's the whole theme of a giant worm eating its tail too, which I haven't figured out yet either.

http://roguelikefiction.com

Bill Ward
Biblioholic

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1572

Posted 2/19/2008 5:43 PM (GMT -4)

I don't know enough about Morris to debate that, but I know a bit about Dunsany, even though of course he was writing in invented worlds, he wasn't a rigorously consistent world builder either. I'm not saying nobody used logic for world building prior to Tolkien (Burroughs did with Mars--it was consistent), I'm just saying Eddison is part of a 'fairy tale' tradition where fantasy wasn't seen as something that had that sort of stricture about it.

The audience of that day didn't pick up a fantasy book up and think 'how will this compare to Tolkien's vivid and full world?' they thought 'how does this relate to Mallory or Spenser or Milton or Ovid?' I just think the standards and expectations were different, so what appear as big flaws to us may have been tiny flaws or, more likely, knowing winks to Eddison's intended audience.

And changing the setting to earth has another whole set of inconsistencies and sloppinesses: such as if this is earth, when did it happen? In some prehistoric age--then why the renaissance poetry lifted directly from the source? A faerie Mercury is just as easy to accept as a faerie earth, actually maybe a bit easier--he isn't trying to pretend it could ever be a real place or time.

billwardwriter.com

James Enge
Maker

Date Joined Jan 2006
Total Posts : 197

Posted 2/19/2008 5:47 PM (GMT -4)

I see Eddison's Mercury as just a never-never-land. where he can make up the geography, history, ethnography, etc. to suit himself. His next books are set in an actual (?) never-never-land, Zimiamvia (which is mentioned somewhere in these chapters, I think). But I don't think they're really better for it.

Gro and Corund were as interesting as ever, but my favorite line in this stretch was Brandoch Daha's explanation of why he cut off the mantichore's tail: "'Twas handiest to my sword, and it disliked me to see it wagging."

Speaking of epic battles, I want a front row seat to the Nik/Eddison throwdown. Methinks it be fain to prove a wrastling of mickle might and heroicke temper.

Bill Ward
Biblioholic

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1572

Posted 2/19/2008 5:48 PM (GMT -4)

Nathan Bedford Jerpe said...

What did Mercury signify to the ancients? Maybe there is a clue there.

That's probably true. I know Mercury was a god of commerce, but little beyond that. Mercurial means erratic. I wonder if astrology wouldn't be the 'discipline' to consult for this, as Eddison has mentioned it before.

Nathan Bedford Jerpe said...
And maybe this'll all become clearer as we continue. I suppose there's the whole theme of a giant worm eating its tail too, which I haven't figured out yet either.

Wild guess: the whole cycle repeats itself at the end of the book. In the back of my head I keep thinking of the circularity of Ouroboros as meaning these people never stop fighting and struggling with one another--and if they story literally repeated itself that would be a pretty good way of showing it.

billwardwriter.com

Bill Ward
Biblioholic

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1572

Posted 2/19/2008 5:54 PM (GMT -4)

James Enge said...

Speaking of epic battles, I want a front row seat to the Nik/Eddison throwdown. Methinks it be fain to prove a wrastling of mickle might and heroicke temper.

lol, until Nik sticks his fingers up Eddison's nose!

billwardwriter.com

Nik
Adept

Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 735

Posted 2/19/2008 5:59 PM (GMT -4)

You all make very good points. I'd say I'm more curious than annoyed as to why he set this on a Mercury that might as well be Earth. But fear not: tickets go on sale for the wrastling match today! And I'm not opposed to using the fingers-in-the-nose trick. I'm scrappy like that.

On a side note: I read "Mightier than the Sword," Bill, and "Brother Solsun and Sister Luna," James, this week. I thoroughly enjoyed them both. I mean, they're no Eddison, but they're still very good....

Bill Ward
Biblioholic

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1572

Posted 2/19/2008 7:01 PM (GMT -4)

Thanks Nik, you'll notice I avoided Mercury as a setting ;)

billwardwriter.com

James Enge
Maker

Date Joined Jan 2006
Total Posts : 197

Posted 2/20/2008 12:31 AM (GMT -4)

Thanks, Nik! I guess "Brother Solson..." might have been set on Eddison's Mercury, since (as we know) it has a moon and other earthlike features.

If Juss became a vampire, would he acquire something like a personality?

I was thinking about Mercury... the Romans identified their Mercury with Germanic Woden/Odin (e.g. English Wednesday vs. French Mercredi). And Woden recruited heroes of a certain status to Valhalla where they could fight and kill each other and feast and have fun until the end of time. Which sounds kind of familiar. Is the story set on Mercury because it's Woden's world?

Bill Ward
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Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1572

Posted 2/20/2008 1:18 AM (GMT -4)

Ooh, good deduction James.

billwardwriter.com

Nik
Adept

Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 735

Posted 2/20/2008 1:26 AM (GMT -4)

Juss will always be boring. Good thing we got Daha.

I like the connection to Valhalla, although these guys seem to be a bit stressed to be living the good after-life. But, then again, maybe the hazards of adventure are heaven to them.

Bill Ward
Biblioholic

Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 1572

Posted 2/20/2008 2:15 AM (GMT -4)

Nik said...

I like the connection to Valhalla, although these guys seem to be a bit stressed to be living the good after-life. But, then again, maybe the hazards of adventure are heaven to them.

Actually, I think I recall reading something about Eddison's philosophy of life, and I think that may be accurate.

billwardwriter.com

James Enge
Maker

Date Joined Jan 2006
Total Posts : 197

Posted 2/20/2008 9:18 PM (GMT -4)

Manticores are in!

www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080220.jpg

Sort of!

Nik
Adept

Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 735

Posted 2/20/2008 9:45 PM (GMT -4)

That's good--laughed out loud. Thanks, James.

Nathan Jerpe
Neophyte

Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 192

Posted 2/21/2008 3:40 PM (GMT -4)

James Enge said...
I was thinking about Mercury... the Romans identified their Mercury with Germanic Woden/Odin (e.g. English Wednesday vs. French Mercredi). And Woden recruited heroes of a certain status to Valhalla where they could fight and kill each other and feast and have fun until the end of time. Which sounds kind of familiar. Is the story set on Mercury because it's Woden's world?

Thanks James, this is good stuff. The fight with the manticore exemplifies this; horrific though it was, shortly thereafter they were able to just heal up and go onto the next ordeal. A device to keep the journey going, maybe, but also a way to glorify the conflict.

In Chapter XII I noticed some of the first mentions of the Gods. Plural, I noticed, as if we are dealing with a pantheon here, a religiosity that is decidedly pre-Christian.

http://roguelikefiction.com

Nathan Jerpe
Neophyte

Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 192

Posted 2/21/2008 3:42 PM (GMT -4)

Incidentally James, how do Eddison's other books measure up to this one?

Ouroboros is approaching five-star caliber in my opinion.

http://roguelikefiction.com

James Enge
Maker

Date Joined Jan 2006
Total Posts : 197

Posted 2/21/2008 8:10 PM (GMT -4)

Hey Nathan: Thanks for the kind words. I may be the wrong person to ask about the Zimiamvia books; I really couldn't get into them. I did read most of them (although I'm pretty sure I never finished The Mezentian Gate), but the problem I had is that they are mostly about ERE's personal philosophy of Manly Manliness (as represented by Zeus/Lessingham) and Womanly Womanliness (as represented by Aphrodite/Mary/Every-woman-in-all-the-books) and less and less about anything like telling a story. I seem to remember that A Fish Dinner in Memison was kind of interesting, with a plotline concerning Mezentius & co. in Zimiamvia and another about Lessingham chasing his future wife on Earth. But Lessingham is the Mary-Sue-to-end-all-Mary-Sues and I can't read about him without pretty rapidly reaching toxic levels of boredom.

ERE wrote a Viking novel, Styrbiorn the Strong, which I've never read but which sounds kind of interesting. Have any of you guys seen that one?