Quote of the Day

I often feel as if I am the only man who ever read ER Eddison’s brilliant, lucid, lavish, daring and overdecorated and work of post-Homeric pre-Tolkein epic wonder, THE WORM OUROBOROS.

I was fortunate enough to come across this quote from the esteemed Mr Pierce Oka:

 At least we are in the august company of such men as JRR Tolkien and  ER Eddison’s Editor (say that five times fast). We few, we happy few, we band of readers; For he to-day that reads this book with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, this book will gentle his condition; And gentlegeeks in England now-a-bed shall think themselves accurs’d they did not read, and hold their nerdhoods cheap, whiles any speaks, that read with us THE WORM OUROBOROS!

I have lauded the work before. Allow me to quote my praise from the Amazon.com page:

The Worm Ouroboros is a wonder; a charm; rich with delight

Mr. E.R.Eddison’s master-work, the Worm Ouroboros, is without peer; but the heady and voluptuous beauty of his rich prose, alas, shall find few readers able to admire it. In a word, this book is for the few to whom fantasy means phantasmagorical, noble, ornamental, awe-striking, wondrous. His book is all this, and is like no other. The main action of the book takes place on Mercury, where and Earthly visitor, in a dream, witnesses the titanic war between two mighty kingdoms of that planet. There were never villains so black and pure of quill as the tyrannous King Gorice XII of Carce and his crew. Lord Gro, his henchman, cannot rest from intrigue and treason; the Lords Corsus, Corund and Corinius are tipplers, drunks, gamblers, lechers, and yet stern fighting-men and deadly both on battle-field and sea-fight.

In contrast, the Lords Juss, Spitfire, Gouldry Blazsco and Brandoch Daha are great and noble in a way never seen these days, and rarely seen erenow. They are men of honor, bold in emprise, valiant and fierce as hawks, but well-spoken, gentlemen first and last. To climb the unclimbed mountain at the end of the world, or to wrestle unto death a King for possession of a kingdom, or to rescue a brother from the pale regions of the dead, were all one matter to them; they flinch at nothing. Great wars, opulent prose, women of beauty without compare, bold princes, splendor, horrors stirred up from the pit by unlawful grammery, treasons, escapes, sword-fights, beauties to pierce the heart, all are here in this book: but this book is not meant for all.

 

I enjoyed THE WORM OUROBOROS tremendously and reread it frequently, even to the point of naming my third born son after Lord Juss of Galing in Many-Mountained Demonland on the planet Mercury.