I study English literature and read too much. Concise reviews of the ridiculous miscellany of my reading choices. Sometimes also things I watch and listen to. But mostly read.
Sunday, 22 April 2018
The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison
So, I tried. Like, really, really hard. I got like 150 pages in and kept on telling myself that it would get better, but it just didn't and I was forced to give it up or die of boredom if I kept trying to read it. I'm still on my quest for good fantasy literature, and I had heard that this was an early and unusual fantasy, so I assumed I would love it. But it's so incredibly annoying, it's written in a really florid, faux-early modern style that seems like a bad knock-off of The Faerie Queene (in terms of the style, The Faerie Queene is about a thousand times more interesting). The names of the characters and places were silly and confusing, I kept getting tangled up in them, and there was actually very little to distinguish the characters at all. There are a lot of battles, feasting, and some rather boring sorcery and betrayal, and absolutely zero humour. The style irritated me unbearably, it is just so pretentious and bad, and doesn't convey any charm or atmosphere, except maybe the atmosphere of a bad 1950s epic movies set made out of cardboard. It's a lot like Lord of the Rings (which I really dislike), except with even more awful style and even more boring. Also, there's a frame narrative about some man called Lessingham, who then kind of vanishes. Maybe Eddison forgot about him? Apparently Eddison was a civil service who worked on the Board of Trade, and I just can't help feeling that it would have been much better if he had just stuck to his job.
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