Michael Moorcock, the Elric Series, and the End of Fantasy Fiction as Advertising

To start with, let me say that when I assess an author, that my assessment could be wrong. Further, I haven't read a great deal of what most contemporary authors consider to be the really important contemporary literature. Most of my reading has been in American Gothic, science fiction, or fantasy, with a great deal of Bible and Gnostic Codex and mythology reading.

In other words, let us take an author like David Foster Wallace. David Foster Wallace has an Ivy League Master's degree in some kind of mathematics, and he wrote in his free time, and was eventually published. Wallace really exemplifies the current true post-modern literature in every way. He has a very even-handed, calculated, and simple prose style. His plotting is simple and effective. His characters are very finely-sketched, but they are also portrayed with a very even hand.

Wallace has a love of irony, and uses footnotes in his fiction, generally to scurrilous academic works that ought to have some people thrown out of academia. He is going to go in the history books, and he is a fabulous writer. He is also a very sort of urbane and mundane sort of writer. That is what post-modern writing is generally supposed to be as an art form.

It is also a form of writing that I can read with some interest, but that form of writing isn't even close to my greatest interest, and it is a form of writing I have no intention or inclination to write at any time in my life. Further, from the time when the concept of "writing," entered my life, I never did have any such inclination to write such a form of writing.

Michael Moorcock's writing is more along the lines of the kind of work I'm interested in writing. He started out publishing short stories in a counter-culture pulp-science fiction magazine of some quality called, "Weird Tales," and has been published back to at least the mid-1960's, if I'm remembering correctly. To me, Moorcock is one of the masters of the post-modern short story, and further, he is the first fantasy fiction writer who wrote fantasy fiction not to idealize some idol-figure, but to critique social problems, and further, to tell a good story. He remains one of the few fantasy fiction writers who has ever written that kind of fantasy fiction to this day.

I have "Elric, Stealer of Souls," on my Christmas list, and again, we will see how my Christmas funds hold out. I am about 100% sure that the original short stories concerning the character of Elric and the realm of Melnibone will be 100% better than the Elric of Melnibone novel and its series that I have already read, but we will have to wait and see. To my eye, even though in Moorcock's writing we are in this gauzy, twilit world of near total madness, a nightmare world, and a world of dream images, I would assess that Moorcock is just as post-modern and worthy of historical note as David Foster Wallace. I say this even though two forms of writing could not be more diametrically opposed.

I haven't read the original short-stories yet, but when I start we'll visit that territory, but let us just plunk down with the novella "Elric of Melnibone,"and not without some healthy fear in our hearts. Elric is an anti-hero, and he is the sickest, most hideous anti-hero in any fiction I have ever read. The book "Elric of Melnibone," would be unreadable if the character of Elric was not handled with kid gloves and proper discretion. You would imagine from the description that Elric is some kind of mad-dog character, but that is precisely the opposite of Elric. Elric can be summed up as a character pretty well in two words: total anemia.

Let me re-visit my conversations with my friend D. about anti-heroes, which were very influential on me. I process ideas very slowly, but today I'd be inclined to agree that I would rather center a story on a character that is deeply flawed in some way, but is still heroic. A character who is still a virtuous character. However, even considering that, I cite Elric and the strange psychedelic world he hails from as a key influence on my writing.

The other thing about the Elric works I've read is that by and large this is a character-driven situation, rather than a speculative one, and that is also a rarety in fantasy fiction. In this case, the character driving the short bus into the pits of doom is Elric, and even in the first novella, at around 90 pages or so, we are pleading by around page 45, "Elric, take your big black sword and impale yourself on it, because we would all be a whole lot better off."

I'll describe the character to you, and then we might just analyze what the character means to me a little. Elric is the rightful heir of a dying Empire called Melnibone. The Melnibone have lost themselves, and it seems that at one time they were a god-like race who enjoyed playing with the weaker members of the world of Melnibone like child's toys. Elric is an albino, and he can only stay alive with the aid of massive quantities of medicines.

The real kicker in the novella is when Elric meets the demon-sword, Stormbringer. Now, Elric can stay alive by the power of his great black blade and without all of his "meds," but he can only continue to keep the sword if he allows himself to be directed by its will, and also, he must slay person after person, beneficial or malignant, in order to keep the sword and keep himself alive. The problem is, if we read the cues, Elric would rather not be alive in the first place. Acts of horrible atrocity cause Elric to stifle a yawn, love is meaningless, and Elric's life is really neither here nor there, even to himself.

Elric's foil is his cousin Yrkoon. Yrkoon would be the next rightful heir to the throne of Melnibone. Yrkoon is a total idiot-barbarian, the exact mad-dog you might have expected Elric to turn out to be from my first description. In the end, my judgment of both Elric and Yrkoon is something along these lines: "I don't really want to live, but I'm taking everything else down with me." Yrkoon rampages against everything in sight, and Elric stifles a yawn and chases him around purposelessly. In the end, I think both characters live on to destroy not just themselves, but the entire world of Melnibone.

This kind of setup in terms of character makes for incredibly intense reading. These aren't stories to just pick up for a lazy afternoon, and I imagine that Moorcock was suffering horribly psychologically while he was writing them. However, as it turns out, Moorcock is alive and well today, runs an official website concerning his writing, and there is a possible bid for a movie concerning Elric, although I can't imagine that going over so well, most people not being mature enough to face that kind of absolute degradation and corruption.

Just when you think Elric can't get any more degraded - he does! - and it is a real sucker-punch. However, the themes are very well-handled, and this is not explicit material. It is very mature. It is too mature for most adults, but it is not explicit.

Another interesting thing to note is that Moorcock despises bigotry. He has repeatedly made statements in the past, and even currently at his blog from time to time, about how much of his fiction was written to send-up the barbaric bigotry present in mainstream fantasy fiction. I am sure he is of the "liberal flavor," politically, but as I may have said in another article, I think Moorcock exemplifies what is good about liberalism, rather than that other flavor that needs to be stayed away from. Moorcock is also most certainly an incredible radical, and all I can say is that his writing deserves some real attention from people other than me, in spite of the controversial nature of the topics treated in his fiction.

Another note is that this kind of psychology does exist, and it is called a "micro-suicide." You have an individual who is not openly suicidal, but is involved in self-destructive behavior, and is incredibly malignant to everyone they come into contact with. There are different versions of the basic mentality, but the basic principle of the mentality is the same: "I'm not satisfied with self-destruction, I'm also taking you with me."

Now, think of this. It would seem that Elric is an apathetic character. He cares for no one and for nothing. He doesn't even care for himself. However, if we really think about the character, and I think this was intended, he is an antipathic character. In other words, beneath Elric's demure and anemic character, he hates everything that exists, including himself, and will destroy everything he can as well as himself before the drama is over.

We've had some humor today, and some horror today, and we've got my cross-blog started today with an inital post that concerns some of my psycho-spiritual ideas that will get added to from time to time. Right now I am going to need some nap time, as I have a few things to take care of today in the outside world, and I can't simply sleep the entire day away. We will see how things pan out, because I have a loose-end to tie up with some of my writing process suggestions, some comic book talk I'd like to do, and also some talk about some of the other writers in that ordered list post.

The ordered list explanations will go on for months before I get anywhere near complete with the entire list, and I've already thought of one more book to add, which I'm making a note of on a notecard so I don't forget. However, I'm thinking I may take another few days break before I come back to either of the blogs.

I like to do a lot of internalizing, and I do too much of it, which is why I'm doing a blog at all. However, even with my boundless energy for much of the time, and even though I'm ignoring the reaction of the outside world to what I've said, this takes a great deal out of me and I may take a break. Don't start worrying unless it's been over a month since I've posted, or blogspot cleans me out.

If I do decide to close this blog entirely and stop blogging for a period, which I often do, then I'll make a post so you know I'm alive and well and just hanging back for some time. Well, hope we can feel a bit stimulated, and then when I'm ready I'll add more, and you read what you're ready for at my free sites. "As you like it!"