mme_hardy: White rose (Default)
[personal profile] mme_hardy
I am rereading The Worm Ouroboros and savoring it. I had forgotten the long mountain-climbing section entirely; I fear teen me must have skipped it.

In any case, Ursula Le Guin once wrote an essay, "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", essentially arguing that all fantasy protagonists should speak in an elevated, heroic style. She was particularly mean to a very recognizable Katherine Kurtz, with some side shots at Roger Zelazny. She quotes and praises Eddison as an example of what should be done.

At one point she quotes from Zelazny, "I could have told you that at Carcosa", and lays down the law that great heroes don't say "I told you so".

"Well," said Juss, "thy counsel hath been right once and saved us, for nine times that it hath been wrong, and my counsel saved thee from an evil end. If ill behap us, it shall be set down that it had from thy peevish will original."

Date: 2022-03-14 07:37 pm (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
I have seldom disagreed with anybody I admire as much as I do with LeGuin about that essay. Poor Katherine Kurtz's prose fails not because it isn't Eddison's -- as if anybody else's ever could be -- but because it's not entirely competent as what it is.

I've been very slowly revisiting The Worm Ourorbouros because David, after checking that I still liked Eddison, got me the Easton Press edition. My Ballantine paperbacks are falling apart, and the Easton edition encloses the nature of the book much better.

I had failed to notice that Juss said that! Perhaps he isn't a hero after all. Perhaps there are actually no heroes. Or the real ones are more like Lord Gro.

P.

Date: 2022-03-14 08:32 pm (UTC)
movingfinger: (Default)
From: [personal profile] movingfinger
The Project Gutenberg edition of The Worm Ourobouros came out January 2, 2022.

https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/67090

I don't think it does the dictionary stuff, but it may be less error-prone.

Date: 2022-03-14 08:47 pm (UTC)
movingfinger: (Default)
From: [personal profile] movingfinger
It also (just looked at the HTML first chapterish bit) does have at least some of the illustrations. Just reading that made me remember vividly how thoroughly fabulous the immortal Brandoch Daha is.

Date: 2022-03-15 02:43 am (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
It hadn't occurred to me, but it does seem possible.

I do agree that Eddison absolutely did see those three as heroes, but I never quite cottoned to them as I did to Gro.

Date: 2022-03-15 08:17 pm (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
He's a real person with real problems. I can't say that the grand trio has no problems, but they are at a different level, and at least sometimes they create them out of sheer, I don't know, exuberance, boredom, a frightening combination of the two?

P.

Date: 2022-03-15 11:46 pm (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
I KNOW, RIGHT? P.

Date: 2022-03-14 09:03 pm (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
It has all the illustrations! They are gorgeous.

Date: 2022-03-15 02:29 am (UTC)
conuly: (Default)
From: [personal profile] conuly
I have seldom disagreed with anybody I admire as much as I do with LeGuin about that essay.

A million times this.

Date: 2022-03-15 02:45 am (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
I still remember how startled and caught sorry I was after missing eagerly and absorbing so many other things she said in those essays.

Date: 2022-03-15 04:57 am (UTC)
cofax7: climbing on an abbey wall  (Default)
From: [personal profile] cofax7
I always felt bad about it, because I imprinted hard on the Deryni novels when I was a tween. Back when there wasn't all that much SFF to read anyway, esp. not cod-medieval fantasy with fabulous Catholic rituals.

Everyone gets to be wrong occasionally.

Date: 2022-03-15 08:19 pm (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
I felt at the time, though it seemed very unlike LeGuin (to the extent that I knew anything about her) to do this, that Katherine Kurtz was being used as a stalking horse for Zelazny, who could certainly have taken the rebuke far better.

P.

Date: 2022-03-15 10:24 pm (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
No, not that I know of; sorry to be unclear. It was just a feeling I had, something about her description of the general prose phenomenon.

P.

Date: 2022-03-16 03:58 am (UTC)
sara: S (Default)
From: [personal profile] sara
I'm finding this hilarious because I feel like Zelazny and LeGuin, of all the genre writers I read in my misspent youth, have held up the best.

I mean he could have put an actual woman somewhere in one of his novels and that would have been a big improvement, and My Complicated Relationship With the Kroebers and Their Works could be a book all by itself, but I still get a lot out of both of them.

Date: 2022-03-15 08:21 pm (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
I imprinted hard on them as a slightly older teenager, too! I knew the prose wasn't All That, but they really did grab me and not let go. Also, Kurtz got better as she went along.

Everyone certainly gets to be wrong occasionally, which includes both Ursula LeGuin and Katherine Kurtz.

P.

Date: 2022-03-15 07:39 am (UTC)
rachelmanija: (Default)
From: [personal profile] rachelmanija
It's a very enjoyable, well-written essay that I don't agree with at all, though there are some sub points that have a point. "I told you so" is either petty or very exasperated, and that Katherine Kurtz excerpt does indeed sound like a company board meeting. Zelazny, however, was doing exactly what he meant to be doing.

Date: 2022-03-15 08:23 pm (UTC)
pameladean: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pameladean
Looked at just as an example of an essay, it's really amazing, and it has a kind of sparkle on it. She seems to have felt very strongly about the issue and brought all her powers, even then really considerable, to bear.

Zelazny certainly was doing just as he meant to do, and I doubt LeGuin approved of that either, but I'd rather have read her reasons for that directly.

P.

Profile

mme_hardy: White rose (Default)
mme_hardy

December 2022

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

  • Style: Indil for Ciel by nornoriel

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 12th, 2025 01:56 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios