Well, that about wraps it up for Poughkeepsie

[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."

Comments

[mme_hardy]

Poor Lord Gro! Do you think he's Jewish-coded? I've been asking myself that on this reread. I'm reading on Kindle, but being frustrated when half my long-presses on words (of course) give back no reply, and I've spotted OCR errors, although not as many as you'd think. My Ballantine is falling apart, too.

I absolutely think Eddison thinks Juss, Bluzco, and so on are heroes. They're just cranky squabbling backbiting heroes, much more Greek than Victorian.

[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.

[mme_hardy]

Aha! No, the dictionary stuff will have to be handled as my husband handled Patrick O'Brian, with the Oxford Dictionary of English on the floor beside the bed.

[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.

[mme_hardy]

Wielding his sword as lightly as though it were a willow wand!

[mme_hardy]

And messing up everybody's lives by insisting on sleeping with Supernatural Lady. And everybody goes "well, that sure is a thing to think about" and goes on with the quest.

[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.

[mme_hardy]

Gro runs away with the novel, and I can't tell you why. Maybe it's because his emotions are much more complicated than the protagonists' ?

[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.

[mme_hardy]

I would definitely not let Brandoch Daha look after my child, or my cat.

[pameladean]

I KNOW, RIGHT? P.