Urth Net
completed version - Donaldson, Moorcock etc
(by error I have sent unfinished message)
This is the completed version -
Dear Jeff,
I didn' t write that the heroes (or anti-heroes) - Covenant and Elric - were repulsive to me. I wrote that the books were (their authors writing style). I don't remember to be shocked by the "rape scene" from Donaldson (I was not a teen), but I remember an intense dislike of how the book was written.
I glanced at the "Elric". I have to admit that this time (after many years) my dislike was much less, I was just bored.
I'll try to explain. There is no doubt that Moorcock is quite an erudite. But I don't like how he uses his erudition. To me it is like a badly done theatric background - the pieces of this and that squeezed into some rough picture.
It is told that Elrik is in some way antagonist to the heroes of Tolkien. To Conan, that you mention, as well.
But Tolkien used his knowledge of history, folklore, languages to create depth, what is most impressive in his "Lord of the Rings" is more than 10000 years of history subtly influencing the present.
Howard was young and while his knowledge of history, geography etc is sometimes ridiculous, his books thrive with vital energy, that is completely absent in Moorcock's...
My impression was that Moorcock simply borrows the elements
for his story.
- Melnibone looks (from the point of view of history
and background) as Numenor in the "Lord of the Rings".
- Its labirynth is borrowed from the stories about Atlantis.
- Master torturer in Elric story - hybrid of torture device
from "In the penal colony" by Kafka:
1 quoted line
an elaborate torture and
execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin in a script before letting him die (Wiki) and some stories about Chinese torture.
- The idea that the (future) villain is an Albino is also an n-th reuse of similar ideas (great literary villain - Uriah Heep by Dickens, there were many villains of that type afterwards - recent - Malfoys in Potter stories)
- It seems that he uses some provocative symbolism without any real need (his "pulsing cavern" reminds very much an anatomic description of human or animal colon), I think it is also borrowed from medieval symbolism (bowels of the devil), but used clumsily.
- Gold-plated ships - it is just not practical.
Of course my remarks are subjective, I think it is bad (artless) use of interesting sources - that his sources are more interesting than the result.
All the best
Sergei Soloviev