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It just really sunk in that subterfuge is impossible in the Blazing World if all continuities are true and no bowdlerization is effectively possible. That's quite nice.
I don't know, I think the online criticism was better than the book, but I have read it twice through since I got a copy (someone did finally plunk down for it on my behalf) and some of the bits have got more reads than that. I just really like that people aren't criticizing, three fourths of the time, the pastiche so much as criticizing or lamenting the entire genre, mode, or body of work which Moore is mimicking. The rants against Shakespeare or the Beats are just weird to me. I'd think it would be much easier to criticise Moore's inability to rise to the glib and smooth humor of Wodehouse than to criticise Shakespeare for being unreadable. Mind, I mean proper critics, employed or self-styled, and not just fan criticism or commentary.
The Beat section wasn't particularly Kerouac, but it was the most readable and enjoyable, for my money, of the text bits. Followed by the Fanny Hill follow-up.
Tastes aside, I can't imagine trying to read this story and skipping sections. I loved how the reveals built on each other, especially how simple elements were introduced and then through literary confluence slowly transfigured into like six different things by the time they're done with. The Lovecraft/Burroughs connection spinning out of the Wodehouse/Lovecraft which in turn melded with the possible generational saga of Fu Manchu and Prof. Moriarty, with just a glimmer of beat-down Shadow and Doc Savage t'boot. The continual push of the Blazing World, of the oddity and extremity, the magicks, of the ultimate northern and southern climes as detailed in the past volumes, as well building to everything you'd ever hope for.
Alan Quatermain's remaining himself while Mina seems to've matured and developed as an immortal.
And, yes, it was nice to have a little less of the funny-rape and a bit more of the sensible proper sex, though the skewing to only sexualizing the women seemed a bit odd for Moore, who can usually be counted on to at least give a shot towards covering broader ground. The only real sexy Alan shot is the one where he's holding his lovely elephant gun at the reader, about to put one into Jimmy B. And that's not exactly the same thing, is it? Oh, well. |
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