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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Elric

15:02 / 03.10.07

I've been reading Fritz Leiber's Fahhrd and the Gray Mouser stories lately and am in the mood for more S&S, a genre that I'm not very familiar with. I know about Elric chiefly through Elrod, in Cerebus. That caricature makes me a wee bit reluctant to give Moorcock's original a chance, but what do other people think? How does Elric hold up? How does it compare to Leiber (whom I'm loving)? Any other suggestions? I'm probably going to read The Worm Ouroboros soon.

15:23 / 03.10.07

Elric isn't as outwardly lighthearted as Fafhrd & the Mouser; he does a lot of Brooding over his Awful Fate and his Malignant Doom.

When I read the books as an adolescent, I took that stuff at face value: re-reading it now, it's pretty obvious that Moorcock is taking the piss out of the whole Lonely Man Of Destiny thing so beloved of high-fantasy writers, especially Moorcock's bete noire Tolkien. He keeps surrounding Elric with easy-going, likable supporting characters whom Elric, being a chilly, arrogant asshole, proceeds to treat like shit, by way of driving home the point.

But there's weird gods and dark powers and unspeakable beasts galore; the nasty pulp roots of the genre are never far from Moorcock's surfaces, and he does do a fine line in hallucinatory, fevered prose—perhaps because he wrote many of the Elric books in weekend-long benders whilst necking vast quantities of drugs.

15:40 / 03.10.07

...In other words, what more could you possibly want?

A heavy metal anthem? Gotcha covered.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

16:09 / 03.10.07

I always liked the general idea behind moorcock's stories (read more of some of the other guys than Elric though) - but the writing itself was pretty blah for me. almost more like it's a hasty summary of a story, or something, in places.

there are notable exceptions. I think my favorite stuff was the less heroic weirdness in War Amongst the Angels, with gypsy camps and stagecoach bandits and oddly detailed romances between secondary characters, in between the usual "and then four zillion years and a bunch of character development passed in one sentence" stuff, and with all the great multiverse, alternate reality weirdness. and angels. cool weird alien angels.

16:56 / 03.10.07

I know about Elric chiefly through Elrod, in Cerebus.

Does Cerebus himself flavor your feelings about Conan? Since his earth-pigginess himself started as a Conan parody.

The really fun thing about the Elric books, besides all the high-flighted stuff that makes them so easy to parody (or to commemorate forever with electric guitars and vocoders), is the way they sort of plug in to Moorcock's personal mythology, which is as much an exploration of a Campbellian structuralist writing exercise (create hero with this list of qualities: * obsessed with larger-than-real nemesis, * linked intimately with dangerous semi-conscious weapon, * accompanied by friend who knows more than ze tells and who may be aware of the characters' status as characters-in-a-story) as it is a psychedelic trip into a "world" or "reality."

It's not about something like Middle Earth or the DC Universe as much as it is about writing and how stories are made.

You'll never read Moby Dick the same either.

17:10 / 03.10.07

Sounds good. I'll probably pick up the first volume as soon as I come across it. I've had no luck finding any Moorcock whatsoever in the used book stores round here. I might have to try online.

And I know it's unfair to judge him by Elrod. But it's just that Elrod is sucha vivid character in my mind, it might be hard to separate the two at first.

17:55 / 03.10.07

Oh, Elrod is a vivid character. But he's not Elric: he's Foghorn Leghorn. Once you get that straight, it'll be smooth sailing.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

18:24 / 03.10.07

Yeah, Elrod is Elric in look only. The Sim character has as much relation to Elric as Bugs Bunny to a rabbit.

I loved Elric when I was a pasty kid that nobody understood in high school, hated Elric when I was in my I've-outgrown-D&D phase, and now I really appreciate Elric as a sophisticated joke that Michael Moorcock played on the entire fantasy genre that nobody got at the time.

If you haven't read the End of Time books yet, don't -- they're best enjoyed after you've worked through a lot of Elric and other Eternal Champion material, and then the Jerry Cornelius stuff. The End of Time books are kind of Moorcock's summation of his whole fantasy argument, and are really brilliant. But if you read them too early they're just incoherent.

I'd also advise you to read a little Elric at a time spaced apart. Reading too much Elric too fast is like reading Elmore Leonard novels back-to-back -- it's all basically the same book with different adjectives, but quite enjoyable if you let them exist with a bit of distance between each one.

19:48 / 03.10.07

I was too young to get the joke when I read Elric so it just went in straight up. when I caught what MattS describes so very well I got a bit annoyed. Later I read Hawkmoon which weirdly enough did better by me.

Now I'm of a mind to try it again and see.

Anyhow as a reader of Howard and Leiber at a young age Moorcock's work was interesting but less of an emotional investment for me. Then I found Tanith Lee's work and was addicted.

13:06 / 04.10.07

One question about the "joke": is the satire apparent at all on the surface, or is this more like Frank Miller's All-Star Batman & Robin where it just seems bad unless you give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it's so bad it must be satire?

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

13:22 / 04.10.07

A bit between the two, really -- it's kewl when you're a kid, and well-written in a purple-prose sort of way if you read it straight, but if you know the genre conventions and how much Moorcock is toying with them, it's also kind of funny.

I'd wouldn't apply "bad" even if you were reading it totally straight, though -- even on a straight read it shatters a lot of fantasy genre conventions in interesting ways.

13:35 / 04.10.07

All right, excellent. I shall be seeking out a copy of the first book shortly.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

13:42 / 04.10.07

Fair warning: it might lose a bit of impact jumping in from Leiber as compared to say, going straight from Conan to Elric, as Leiber is already playing with the genre in some entertaining ways.

13:46 / 04.10.07

...even on a straight read it shatters a lot of fantasy genre conventions in interesting ways.

Starting with its arse-up inversion of the Conan archetype; rather than being an uncouth barbarian making his way through a decadent "civilized" society and triumphing by strength and cunning, Elric is a louche sophisticate and an aristocrat, scion of a race that once ruled the world, moving among people he considers little more than savages... and getting his ass kicked as often as not.

20:13 / 12.10.07

All right, the first collected volume came in the mail today. I'll probably read some Conan first, as I've never read any before, but I'll be getting to this soonish.

22:27 / 13.10.07

The initial Elric stories have never really appealed to me. They're just about the only Moorcock that doesn't, actually. But starting with Elric at the End of Time I really dig'em. Revenge of the Rose, the recent The Dreamthief's Daughter trilogy, his appearances in the Blood trilogy, all have an Elric I enjoy... and I realized, it wasn't the Elric character I didn't like, but the set pieces. The technical frame used by Moorcock to parody, satire, or detourne sword and sorcery tropes simply put me off.

And you don't actually need to know anything about him, coming in blind, to enjoy any of those later books (later published, anyway, as Elric at the End of Time was writ contemporous to the original set). Weird, incestuous, albino asshole who never has enough drugs, laments better times gone which he also lamented when they were there, who likes and loathes smacking people with a big black magicky sword for all the wrong reasons. Moorcock usually sums that up as soon as he introduces him, in each work.

05:39 / 14.10.07

When I read the books as an adolescent, I took that stuff at face value: re-reading it now, it's pretty obvious that Moorcock is taking the piss out of the whole Lonely Man Of Destiny thing so beloved of high-fantasy writers, especially Moorcock's bete noire Tolkien. He keeps surrounding Elric with easy-going, likable supporting characters whom Elric, being a chilly, arrogant asshole, proceeds to treat like shit, by way of driving home the point.

...

Bloody Chiclitz

19:00 / 28.10.07

I finally remembered what my old screen name was! I post as Dusto, these days, but figured I'd give Bloody Chiclitz one last post before I retire it for good.

Anyway, I finished the first Elric book. It was good fun. Though there were a few moments that were funny even though I wasn't sure that Moorccock was trying to be funny. "I don't understand what this 'guilt' is, Elric." I'll be reading the next one shortly, after a palate cleansing with Gormenghast.

09:15 / 29.10.07

I'm just amazed to hear that someone lives in a place where second-hand Michael Moorcock books are difficult to find.

I swear I've been into shops in this country where unwanted Moorock has consumed the SF/Fantasy section entirely and started encroaching into general fiction... whilst the poor proprietor huddles in the backroom burning remaindered copies of "The Mad God's Amulet" for warmth, possibly.

09:43 / 29.10.07

I can remember maybe ten years ago, shelves and shelves of battered Moorcock secondhands at shop after shop, but now? What happened to them all? Why are they replaced with Goodkind and Modesitt Jr. paperbacks?

09:56 / 29.10.07

Maybe at a certain point they just decided 'fuck it' and threw them on the fire.

I have definitely seem less recently, but then maybe that's because I've mainly only been frequenting shops in London, where books which are either old or good are in short supply.

I remember the speciality SF bookshop in Hay-On-Wye used to have a massive wall-sized bookcase absolutely crammed with Moorcock... I looked through the whole bloody lot and still couldn't find a copy of 'The English Assassin'. Aah, a youth well spent.

11:00 / 29.10.07

I actually did find a couple Elric titles (both included in the big collection I bought) at a used bookstore right near my house in Brooklyn, but the bookstore even closer to me and all the big Manhattan used bookstores were all out of Moorcock.