| Author | Message | ||
     Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.149.238.109 |
Just discovered this Michael Moorcock essay from 1977. It raises a lot of interesting points, and clarifies a lot of the numinous problems I have had with 'heroic fiction'. http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/moorcock.html Thought it might be of interest to those who like to think about those sorts of things... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I've never read any Moorcock but find his very prolificness daunting... then again I thought the same about the bloke he paraphrases above and he's now one of my favourite authors after only four novels! What is the general consensus on Moorcock anyway? | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.149.238.109 |
I confess I haven't read any of his fiction. Not really sure where to start (although I see you can get old copies of New Worlds on eBay). | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.141 |
Thanks for this, Natt. Moorcock has always excoriated Tolkien and his ilk for subtly, unwittingly, eroding literature. I'll read this with interest. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.141 |
I've only read two of his novels one of which was awful, but the other (THE WINDS OF LIMBO) is evocative and wonderful for reasons I can't put my finger on. It's lingered with me for years and is one of the few books I've reread several times. | ||
| Clive (Clive) Username: Clive Registered: 10-2009 Posted From: 81.104.165.168 |
I've read a few. 'Mother London' is brilliant and a huge surprise. Anyone who just thinks of Moorcock as a bit of a hack pumping out endless fantasy etc should read it. Very recommended. 'Behold The Man' is a great little novella and the Jerry Cornelius books are great fun and well worth reading. His more fantasy stuff i've found it harder to get into though. I feel i should like Elric etc but it just doesn't click with me really. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.167.138 |
I'd recommend the following from Moorcock straight off: 'Mother London', as Clive says above. 'Byzantium Endures' and 'The Laughter Of Carthage', the first two Colonel Pyat novels, following the life story of an unreliable, possibly insane narrator from the Russian Revolution to the Second World War. Pyat's a deeply unpleasant character- racist, antisemitic and homophobic- but also rather pitiable as well. They are truly brilliant books, strange, dark, but genuinely compelling. I've not yet read the third and fourth novels, 'Jerusalem Commands' and 'The Vengeance Of Rome', but I really must. 'The Dancers At The End Of Time' trilogy ('An Alien Heat', 'The Hollow Lands' and 'The End Of All Songs') are among the funniest SF novels I've read, as well as the most intelligent. 'Fabulous Harbours' is a collection of linked stories and really rather good, blending genres with gay abandon... For the more straightforward SF/Fantasy stuff, I'd recommend: The Oswald Bastable trilogy aka 'The Nomad Of Time' ('The War Lord Of The Air', 'The Land Leviathan' and 'The Steel Tsar') Think H.G. Wells writing steampunk and parallel universe hijinks but with a deeply anarcho-syndicalist agenda. 'The Ice Schooner'. Standalone novel. Brilliant, bleak ending. The first Corum trilogy: 'The Knight/Queen/King Of The Swords.' The second Corum trilogy ain't bad either, but that'll do for now. This has been a public service announcement.  | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.222.103 |
Bet I'm the only person who's read THE WINDS OF LIMBO, including Moorcock. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.167.138 |
No, I've read it, Proto- funnily enough it was actually one of the few Moorcock books I didn't like! | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.222.103 |
So I'm the only one who liked it, including Moorcock. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.222.103 |
I liked the man whose flesh was burned off and replaced by synthetic skin. Transparent synthetic skin. Decades before HELLRAISER. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.167.138 |
Could be... mind you, I did enjoy the scene where a reporter's asking the main characters if they're going to vote to legalise tobacco, to be told they won't, because it's addictive and proven to be bad for the health- unlike marijuana, which everyone in the future smokes... Mind you- if marijuana was legal, who in the hell would actually want to smoke tobacco? The only real effect of it is that the first cigarette of the day gives you a very slight buzz. Not exactly cosmic. | ||
| Stephen Theaker (Stephen_theaker) Username: Stephen_theaker Registered: 12-2009 Posted From: 62.30.117.235 |
I'm a big fan of Moorcock - I've read 60 or 70 of his books. I'd enthusiastically endorse Simon's list, and add the Elric books. (Same as Simon, I haven't read the last two Pyat novels yet. They're brilliant, but draining.) Even the books he wrote in two or three days are worth a look, because he's always trying to do something interesting. I'm not a big fan though of the way his books always tend now to be bundled up into omnibuses - their short length let him get away with making them quite difficult. Packaged up in omnibuses, they can become long, difficult books. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
The essay above is interesting but I seem to detect a certain lack of a sense of humour and, dare I say, bitterness toward a whole slew of popular authors whom Moorcock doesn't believe deserve their success because they don't happen to agree with his somewhat naive political views. He's inspired me to move 'The Stars My Destination' to near the top of my 'to be read' pile though... | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I think the Moorcock essay is typical of Mike - stimulating and frustrating by turns. Like (but not as often or as badly as) Colin Wilson, he sometimes lets his enthusiasm sweep away accuracy. Thus Starship Troopers was puiblished not in Astounding but F&SF - it had originally been written for Scribners, who puiblished Heinlein's novels as juveniles but rejected that one. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.167.138 |
He's overly dismissive of Lovecraft and perhaps of horror generally. Then again, I don't think Loveraft was ever really writing a 'literature of ideas', nor did he claim to be. Hi Stepehen- I don't see Moorcock's cricitisms of Rand, Heinlein, et al as humourless or bitter, merely critical. Nor do I see how Moorcock's politics are naive; he's arguing from a resolutely anarchist perespective, but it's well thought out. Maybe it's just that leftist politics are automatically equated with naivete? | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Mike Moorcock at his best is one of the best living writers in the world, in my opinion... The 'Starship Stormtroopers' essay referred to above does tend to overstate the case, but it's always better to overstate than understate, isn't it? And it was written for some Anarchist journal, so it's bound to be spun that way. I don't really believe that Robert Henlein was 'right-wing'. I'm more in agreement with Brian Aldiss' judgment of him as a 'rugged individualist' and that's not really the same thing at all. Heinlein was anti-Liberal and anti-Socialist, true, but many Libertarians and Anarchists are anti-Liberal and anti-Socialist. But none of this really matters. Moorcock always gets the pot stirring and that's important for its own sake... As for his own works I would recommend Gloriana as a very good fantasy novel; also The City in the Autumn Stars, despite the fact it was (supposedly) heavily cut by order of the publisher. Although I agree with Simon Bestwick that Fabulous Harbours is definitely worth reading, it is actually part of a trilogy that includes Blood and The War Amongst the Angels -- all are good. As for the four 'Pyat' novels... They are sublime masterpieces. At least one of them should have won the Booker Prize. This is one of the finest novel sequences published in English in the past 50 years (only in my opinion -- but I am extremely well read (also in my opinion)) And yet... 'The Dancers at the End of Time' sequence might well be his finest work of all. I don't just mean the first three novels, but also the Legends From the End of Time story collection and the final novel Constant Fire (also rather confusingly called A Messiah at the End of Time and The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming)... Not only are they funny and intelligent, they also have a deeply disturbing question underlying them -- the fact that if both eternal consciousness and eternal oblivion are equally terrible to contemplate (which they are) what is the best we can hope for in this universe? In the fifth part of that sequence (Constant Fire) the Fireclown from The Winds of Limbo makes a reappearance and gets mocked mercilessly, which is exactly what he deserves. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Hi Simon, I'm something of a realist libertarian socialist and have always found pure anarchism resolutely naive, bitter and tending toward nihilism in that it negates the reality of human nature whereas leftism strives to harness the positive/cooperative qualities of humanity while putting controls on the negative/selfish. I may not agree with all their political/religious views but I find Heinlein, Asimov, Tolkien, Lewis (and no doubt Wells) and many more of the authors dismissed as reactionary by Moorcock to be, first and foremost, decent human beings striving in their own distinctive ways to make the world a better, more all-inclusive place... This has decided my next two reads (after Blatty's Exorcist/Legion double) - 'The Stars My Destination' & Dostoevsky's 'The Devils'! | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
Well, I'm a pro-entrepreneur anti-Socialist Libertarian and I also agree that pure Anarchism is "resolutely naive". That's absolutely true. But it's still vastly better than C.S. Lewis's jam-for-tea vicar-bouncing Christian bollocks. I wrote about my own politics a few days ago here: http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=2535&highlight=rhys&page=39 (Not that there's any reason why this should interest you at all...) | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
We're not that far removed politically... For me the order would run: morality of action-liberty of thought and expression-a fair society that cares for all. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"I may not agree with all their political/religious views but I find Heinlein, Asimov, Tolkien, Lewis (and no doubt Wells) and many more of the authors dismissed as reactionary by Moorcock..." Am I misreading this, Stephen? Mike doesn't include Wells among the reactionaries. On another point, Jenny and I once went to see Mike read from one of the Pyat books, and were rewarded by a brilliant dramatic coup that was part of the reading. I won't spoil it in case he's still doing it. | ||
| Rhysaurus (Rhysaurus) Username: Rhysaurus Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 212.219.233.223 |
I'm intrigued by that, Ramsey! Somebody in the audience dressed as Pyat who heckled? I can't imagine what else it might have been... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I mentioned Wells because I've been reading a lot about his political views recently having been intrigued by Robert Heinlein's praise of him as a fellow libertarian. In 'Job' the main character Alex comes from a christian universe where all imaginative fiction has been outlawed and it is a criminal offence to read or own any... he reminisces about his discovery as a teenager of Wells' 'Men Like Gods' and furtive reading of it in an old disused attic, how it fired his imagination while making him feel enormously guilty - a brilliant allegory of masturbation that ties in with what happens to Alex later and is typical of the novel's anarchic christian-baiting humour. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.146.242.226 |
I'm interested, Stephen, in where you'd draw the line between 'libertarian socialism' and 'anarchism'. Given that they were pretty much the same thing until the invention of 'state socialism', what do you see the differences as being? I'd tend to think that the people who were 'realistic' were those who had given up on state solutions to the problems of society, as, apart from a brief period in the 1950s and 60s, the state has been almost totally hostile to anything even vaguely progressive. Surely a realist is one who realises that there is absolutely no hope of progressive change coming from our central government. No party offers it, no party wants to offer it. I also don't understand why you characterise anarchism as nihilistic. It seems quite the reverse to believe that grassroots voluntary efforts and organisations: co-operatives, trades unions, friendly societies, housing associations, church groups, charities can be as effective as central state government. In fact, to believe that human beings have the ingenuity, good humour and strength to solve their problems without forcing each other to comply with rules made up using force seems (although you can argue it's naive) as far from nihilistic and bitter as you can get. | ||
| Nathaniel Tapley (Natt) Username: Natt Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 78.146.242.226 |
I disagree with the way Moorcock characterises 'Stranger In A Strange Land', as it seems to not fit any traditional rugged individualist formula. It seems more generally anti-authoritarian (and, although hostile to most communal efforts is particularly hostile to state-directed communal enterprises). Indeed, the voluntary association around Valentine is a source of strength to him and those around him. I think there's something in the way he analyses 'rugged individualism' as instinctively hostile to a lot of good things in human nature: compromise, a desire to work with others, but I wonder if prose fiction is the best way to explore these. Not all fiction, by any means, but a significant proportion of it since we began telling stories, is about extraordinary people doing something extraordinary. If we take Moorcock's analysis to its logical extreme, isn't the act of selecting an individual protagonist to tell a story about regressive by his terms? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"I'm intrigued by that, Ramsey! Somebody in the audience dressed as Pyat who heckled? I can't imagine what else it might have been..." You have it, Rhys. Because Mike isn't fond of reading his own stuff aloud, he had an actor play Pyat and then sat in the audience and questioned him. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Nathaniel, I guess what I mean is that I temper my libertarian socialism with moral realism unlike some of the more extreme proponents of anarchy. A personal definition of morality would run something like this: Any destructive action that was taken for anything other than entirely pragmatic reasons of survival is wrong and unnatural. Any destructive action taken for mistaken or misguided reasons of apparent survival that was actually driven by intellectual prejudice, whether designed or as a knee-jerk reaction, is illogical and unnatural. For this to work sound judgement of what constitutes an evil action is necessary. Sound judgement is knowing the difference between pragmatism and genuinely evil actions. Evil is conscious destruction for no purpose or for entertainment or due to intellectually contrived prejudice. True morality - by which libertarianism and socialism should always be judged - is conscious sympathetic aid, if possible, or empathy and understanding, if not, for no purpose other than that it comes naturally and feels the right thing to do. Or something like that lol... Must read me some Moorcock when I get a chance and Rhys's suggestions above would appear as good a place to start as any! | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.181.161 |
Some of my fave Moorcock books: Dancers at the End of Time (IIRC this features a H.G. Wells cameo) The History of the Runestaff Behold the Man The first Corum trilogy Kane of Old Mars trilogy Stephen, The Stars My Destination is brilliant. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.247 |
Any destructive action that was taken for anything other than entirely pragmatic reasons of survival is wrong and unnatural. Any destructive action taken for mistaken or misguided reasons of apparent survival that was actually driven by intellectual prejudice, whether designed or as a knee-jerk reaction, is illogical and unnatural. For this to work sound judgement of what constitutes an evil action is necessary. Sound judgement is knowing the difference between pragmatism and genuinely evil actions. Evil is conscious destruction for no purpose or for entertainment or due to intellectually contrived prejudice. True morality - by which libertarianism and socialism should always be judged - is conscious sympathetic aid, if possible, or empathy and understanding, if not, for no purpose other than that it comes naturally and feels the right thing to do. This morality still allows one starving country to invade another in order to plunder its resources for its own resources-starving individuals, even when entirely unprovoked. Which I'm not entirely against, mind... if I'm in the resources-starved country, and the resources-rich country is not sharing... what is a resources-starved country to do?... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I think that would constitute a destructive action on both sides - one by refusing to share with their neighbours, the other by giving in to resentment and striking back - and we all know that two wrongs don't make a right. Personally I am against the idea of violent revolution in all circumstances and agree with Isaac Asimov that "violence is the last resort of the incompetent". John Hume, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi & Jesus Christ would be my historical heroes while I feel nothing but sympathy and sorrow for Marie Antoinette & The Romanovs... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.243.247 |
I think that would constitute a destructive action on both sides - one by refusing to share with their neighbours, the other by giving in to resentment and striking back - and we all know that two wrongs don't make a right. But I'm only discussing the resources-poor country, whose neighbors won't share with it - as good as you are, one would be beyond naive to assume others ever will be - reality throughout history bears this out. And how do you feed starving citizens on "Two wrongs don't make a right"? You won't have to worry about that, because you'll be starving as well... and morality is a luxury of the satiated.... It took a war and horrendous bloodshed to end the Nazis and American slavery, just to name two. Horrible pointless wars did a lot of horrible pointless things as well - but those two, it takes more than a Jesus Christ and a Ghandi to solve. Peaceful resistance actually solving problems, is a luxury of the dead-and-gone. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Craig, we know with hindsight that the Second World War & the American Civil War were "just" wars in that they each defeated a monstrous evil but we would be fools to say that the political forces in charge at those times went into those wars on purely moral grounds... a little further examination of the historical facts will show that the real motivation was a mixture of fear of being invaded and economic pressures. The real villains (rather than the madmen), as highlighted by Heinlein in his monumental novel 'Methuselah's Children' (1941) & Charlie Chaplin in 'The Great Dictator', were the cowardly powers that be of the West that appeased every crime against humanity that Hitler's forces inflicted during the 1930s until they felt the Nazis literally nipping at their toes. If the Third Reich had stayed in mainland Europe and never invaded Russia (as political realists were urging Hitler to do) the ruling class in Britain would have come to an "understanding" with Hitler in exactly the same way Vichy France did. And if Japan had never committed the most long drawn out kamikaze suicide in history by bombing Pearl Harbor then the good old US of A most likely would have stayed well out of it as well. We must never lose sight of basic truth and morality by obfuscation of the facts after the fact. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
What I'm trying to say is that those Wars should never have had to be fought in the first place and the fact that they were only proves the blinkered cowardice and incompetence of the political world order that prevailed at those times - and sadly still does for the most part. That's where a system of worldwide socialism tempered by libertarian ideals and controlled by moral realism comes in... for me anyway. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.8.224 |
But - and I'm just working through the logic here, Stephen, in this suddenly interesting little debate - you're being unclear. So the U.S. stayed out, as did others, until it got to be too "hot" for them - isn't that how it's supposed to be, under your system? If they had jumped in earlier, would have that been preferred? Also, if they had not jumped in at all, wouldn't hugely disastrous things have occurred that we'd be living through right now? The moral to draw there is: when there's a war, maybe there's a 1 in 10 chance it could get out of hand, but jump in always anyway, because that 1 in 10 will be a BITCH if it is. The highest morality of a country is: survive. If it gets to a point where they can't survive, they need to go out and get what it takes, whatever it takes, to survive. If another country is coming in and trying to take what you have, because it needs to survive, and you're not willing to give it to them, then you better fight then off and kill them, so they don't make your survival perilous. When a rat comes into your house, you kill it, or learn to live with it. If a rat is guarding the food supply, you kill it to get the food supply, or you starve to death. These are the basics. All systems of ethics and morality are shells going miles deep, until it reaches this kernal-sized, but impossible to eradicate, core.... | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
My attempt at a definition of morality is very much an ongoing work, Craig, that needs fine tuning down to that irreducible core. I agree that justifiable violence can be forced upon the individual in a situation of self defence but the question of dog-eat-dog survival is where things get tricky and I am attempting to deal with that. Feel free to suggest any amendments or additions and, who knows, we may end up with something that actually works in all scenarios. I think this may be good to be going on with: morally realistic libertarian socialism recognises the realities of individual survival, tempered by the wisdom to judge when violence is unavoidable, and advocates the putting in place of a fair system of worldwide social structures that allow personal freedom within moral parameters and nip in the bud any groups attempts to get one up on their neighbours before they've even begun. What ya think? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
We need to negate the possibility of dog-eat-dog survival situations arising in the first place by ever fairer and more regulated cooperation between individuals with the very concept of countries and states eventually becoming redundant. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.218.39 |
To decide that the political left or the political right is correct seems to me as silly as announcing which is the healthy end of a manic depressive's emotional spectrum: flaming ruby or doleful sapphire. Let's crack open the left/right puzzle box and what a hundred years of flags and shouting was really about. It seems to me that one’s place on the left/right political spectrum is determined by how much one likes human beings as they are. On the far left: feeble imaginations threatened by excellence, an inability to accept unpalatable truths about human nature or acknowledge technological progress as anything other than a dangerous illusion. On the far right: fear of the flesh, grandiose theories of purity and destiny, an inability to cope with complex social problems, and a frightening lack of empathy. At their purest, the Left and Right are about infinite acceptance of our human state or infinite transcendence of it. Neither of these can be wholly correct, surely?  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.189.184 |
Proto, no time to go into this, but your statement reminds me of a comment made by a character in a David Edgar play: "When one person says two and two is four and another says two and two is nine, the balanced and fair view is that two and two is six." | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.156.233.165 |
Marijuana use has been linked with schizophrenia, and many think it as dangerous as tobacco. I like Moorcock, but have oddly never read him. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.156.233.165 |
Proto - those sound like the descriptions of tarot cards, which is very interesting. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.250.76 |
Stephen - yes to both. I do believe that "moralities" are fluid, and so it looks like I was just stating, essentially, nothing at all. If someone is running at you with a gun, and you have one, you shoot him; if someone is walking towards you, without a gun, and you have one, you don't shoot him. To kill, is the must in one; to do no harm, the exact opposite, in the other. Two different worlds of ethics and morality. And there are many more. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.141 |
Joel, sure, established truths shouldn't be contaminated with mere opinion. Tony, what Tarot cards? | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Craig, I believe a single definition of an all-inclusive morality is possible. It just needs to be as finely tuned as possible in the scenarios it encompasses (all of human experience no less!)and as broad as possible in its wording so that we avoid getting bogged down in the mental trap of dogma! |