Michael Moorcock, Behold the Man

This review originally appeared on the SFF Masterworks blog in July 2011.

 

Our Father which art in heaven...

He had been brought up, like most of his schoolfellows, paying a certain lip-service to the Christian religion.  Prayers in the mornings at school.  He had taken to saying two prayers at night.  One was the Lord's Prayer and the other went God bless Mummy, God bless Daddy, God bless my sisters and brothers and all the dear people that surround me, and God bless me.  Amen.  That had been taught to him by a woman who looked after him for a while when his mother was at work.  He had added to this a list of 'thank-yous' ('Thank you for a lovely day, thank you for getting the history questions right...') and 'sorrys' ('Sorry I was rude to Molly Turner, sorry I didn't own up to Mr Matson...').  He had been seventeen years old before he had been able to get to sleep without saying the ritual prayers and even then it had been his impatience to masturbate that had finally broken the habit.

Our Father which art in heaven... (p. 9)

Regardless of how one feels about the issue, the image of the Passion of the Christ strikes at the hearts of those who behold it in art, cinema, poetry, or even prose.  A Man (God?) hanging from the crossbeams, arms lashed in place with nails through the hands (wrists) and feet.  The agony on his face contrasted with the taunting or mournful crowd.  How could such a person endure that pain?  Why would he choose such a punishment, if such a thing could ever be "chosen" in the first place?  The Passion has left an indelible mark on European and some Asian and African cultures.  Ecce homo – behold the man, indeed.

Michael Moorcock in his 1969 short novel, Behold the Man, explores the psychological rationale that could lead to the imitation of the Passion.  Karl Glogauer, who time travels back to the Palestine of the Christ's ministry and execution, is beset with a range of issues ranging from his parents' divorce to the near-pathological association of his faults and desires with the symbolism of the cross.  Moorcock alternates between showing Glogauer in the "present" of Palestine and the "past" of mid-20th century England.  We experience his trials and tribulations, his struggles with women, his sinking into a sort of messiah-complex where he sees himself as reliving the agonies of the Passion, all in flashbacks that occur around the events in Palestine.

It would be easy to view this story as a simple denunciation of the faith people put in their religions.  After all, the Jesus of this story is not the Christ of Catholic/Orthodox Masses or Protestant worship services.  Glogauer is weak and possibly demented – could this be seen as a commentary on those who are devout?  While some might think this is so, evidence from the novel indicates something else is occurring.  Glogauer is a sympathetically-drawn character; one cannot help but to feel at least some pity on him as he struggles to deal with the neuroses that afflict him.  He is a dynamic character whose ultimate transformation causes the reader to consider not just him but the entire origins of the Christian faith.

Moorcock's story would not work without Jungian psychology being utilized to develop Glogauer's character.  He feels "real" because his foibles, his little triumphs, and his despairs are described so well that readers may find themselves being reminded of their own histories.  Add to this a narrative that flows almost seamlessly from the "past" and "present" and the story works because it does not get bogged down in the mechanics of the time travel or the nature of the conflicts within Glogauer.  While some perhaps would have loved more elaboration, such would only serve to weaken the story with unnecessary digressions; the story works toward an iconic moment and that moment is largely realized because there is no extraneous detail or explanation.

Yet this is not to say that there are times where things seem to be left unsaid a bit too much.  Glogauer's failed relationships with women seem at times to flow into one another without much differentiation between them.  While there is character development, at times, especially toward the end, he shifts too much toward his ultimate role without much in the way of plausible development.  Although it would, as I state above, weaken the narrative to develop the backstory much beyond what is presented here, the occasional transitionary stage during the Palestine scenes might have made the whole even stronger than what was achieved.

Despite these faults, Behold the Man ends with a powerful scene that is easily among Moorcock's best.  It is not a pathetic, wretched event that we witness, but rather a transformative one that serves to unite Glogauer's fears and obsessions into a moving commentary that makes this book a true masterwork of science fiction.  It does not matter if you believe in the Passion or whether you are skeptical that there was even a human named Jesus in the first place.  Behold the Man asks the reader to do precisely that and in the act of beholding, something occurs that makes this conclusion one of the more memorable ones.  Highly recommended.

Michael Moorcock, Gloriana

Originally posted in September 2010 at SFF Masterworks.

 Even after four centuries, the Elizabethan Age still carries magical memories for Anglo-Americans.  It was the age of Spenser (The Faerie Queene), Shakespeare (among others, A Midsummer Night's Dream), and Sidney (Astrophel and Stella).  In fact, it was Spenser's The Faerie Queene that gave Elizabeth I her nickname of Gloriana and it is Spenser's mixture of fairy tales, intrigue, and the golden age of the English Renaissance that has strongly influenced Michael Moorcock's 1978 novel, Gloriana; or the Unfulfill'd Queen.

Originally published in 1978 and revised in 2004, Gloriana perhaps may best be considered as a novel that was written to be a sort of dialogue with Spenser's epic poem.  Both Spenser and Moorcock present idealized forms of Queen Elizabeth I, but whereas Spenser's work primarily reads as a paean to the peace and prosperity of 1590s England, Moorcock's work is much more complex, both with its titular character and with its depiction of life in an alt-world Earth.

Gloriana opens with the Queen Gloriana ruling the vast empire of Albion, which stretches across most of Eurasia and is now expanding into the newly-discovered lands of Virginia, named after her.  Despite having had several lovers and illegitimate children, she is, like the real Queen Elizabeth I, unmarried and it is this and the matter of controlling her vast empire around which the action of the novel revolves.  The ruler of Arabia wants Gloriana to become his, so he in turn can plunge that pacific realm into a cleansing bout of war and destruction.  A courtier of his solicits the aid of Captain Arturus Quire to help him subvert Gloriana to this end.  Quire in turn is locked in a political battle with the old councilor Montfallcon, who had earlier served Gloriana's father Hern and who seeks to preserve her from becoming the despotic ruler Hern had become by the end of his reign.

Although at first glance the central plot seems to be that of political machinations, Gloriana is much more than the summation of its plot.  Moorcock here perhaps has written his best prose, with Quire in particular standing out.  Some readers familiar with Mervyn Peake's villainous Steerpike (Moorcock did dedicate this novel to the late Peake and his wife Maeve, both of whom Moorcock had befriended in his youth) will see traces of that ambitious character and his thirst for power and prestige in how Quire comports himself around Gloriana's other courtiers, especially Montfallcon.  But there is another trait in common with Peake's Gormenghast novels, that of utilizing atmospheric effects to intensify what is occurring in several important scenes.  Passages such as the one below, taken from Quire's first meeting with the Arabian courtier, are representative of how Moorcock imbues his scenes with vivid descriptions:

Quire nods.  He clears his throat.  Along the gallery now comes a scrawny, snag-tooth villain wearing leggings of rabbit fur, a torn quilted doublet, a horsehide cap pulled down about his ears.  He wears a sword from the guard of which some of the rust has been inexpertly scratched.  His gait is unsteady not so much form drink as, it would seem, from some natural indisposition.  His skin is blue, showing that he has just come in from the night, but his eyes burn.  "Captain Quire?"  It is as if he has been summoned, as if he anticipates some epiurean wickedness. (p. 18)

It is this combination of memorable description with intriguing characters such as the aforementioned Quire and Montfallcon, among others, that make Gloriana a gripping novel.  However, there is much more to this novel than just memorable characters and detailed, interesting descriptions.  It is Gloriana herself and her um, "interesting" situation that makes this novel worthy of debate thirty-two years after its initial publication.  Moorcock is not content to have Gloriana reign contentedly over her vast, peaceful realm.  Rather, he introduces questions of sexual politics to this story that are controversial for many.  Gloriana has a sexual dysfunction; she cannot orgasm, no matter how hard she tries with both clandestine lovers and with inanimate objects.  This sexual dysfunction plays a major role in the book, as it is the flaw through which Quire manages to arrange his machinations and against which Montfallcon rails, increasingly strident, throughout the novel.  The original ending (printed as an "alternate" Ch. 34 in my 2004 edition) is very disturbing for some, who saw it as a glorification of a heinous act, while Moorcock insists that it is more symbolic of a larger issue of sexualization of Self and of Gloriana's politics around which the novel revolves.  It certainly is a provocative scene, one that forces the reader to reconsider what she may have thought the novel to be about, but it certainly does not make it easy for the reviewer to discuss without straying from the realm of reviewing and into the world of literary critique.  Speaking solely for myself, the revised scene works better, as it clarifies Moorcock's intents without lessening the shocking realization contained within that concluding chapter.

Gloriana is much more than a simple fairy-tale rendition of an idealized Queen Elizabeth I and her court and world.  It is a well-written, engaging tale that will remind some readers of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast.  Quire, Montfallcon, and Gloriana's characters are vivid, well-drawn, and they serve to drive the novel forward at a quick yet not too rapid pace.  Gloriana is much more than what it appears on the surface, as Moorcock's exploration of sexual politics and how intimately connected a ruler's personality can be with his/her realm make this a novel that will linger in the reader's thoughts long after the book is closed.  It is not without its controversies, as certain events could easily be read as a glorification of certain atrocities; ironic, considering the efforts Moorcock has done to combat those interpretations of the novel.  It certainly is one of Moorcock's best-written efforts and its depth is much greater than the norm for novels of this sort.  Gloriana is a "masterwork" in its prose, characterization, and thematic content and it will continue to be a moving work decades from now.

More Moorcock Cover Art, with 100% more Stalin!

Every good fantasy needs a robotic Stalin to scare away the Cossacks, no?

Best American 2008 cover, Michael Moorcock writing a book on Mervyn Peake

This cover art image was just posted on Ecstatic Days by Ann VanderMeer, co-editor of the upcoming Best American Fantasy 2008. I loved the first edition and am highly eager to read the second volume.


The second news item (and no, it's not just to please Matt Staggs, who hosted the announcement yesterday ;)) is the news (with excerpt!) of a forthcoming book by Michael Moorcock on British writer Mervyn Peake and his wife, Maeve, called Lovers: Mervyn and Maeve Peake. A Personal Memoir. I'm looking forward to reading this non-fiction piece (which also contains information added by the Peake children), even though there is no announced release date.

An Interview with Michael Moorcock

Below you can read an interview I did with one of the greatest fantasy writers today. I hope you will enjoy reading it, and if not yet, read Michael Moorcock's books.

Q: You first became an editor at the age of 16 with Tarzan Adventures and recently with the online Fantastic Metropolis. How would you compare your experiences doing that and what influence, if any, did your editorial work have on your approach toward writing?

A: Not a lot of difference, really. Generally speaking, my editing work has involved some kind of enthusiasm. I got the Tarzan job because people there liked what I did in my fanzine Burroughsiana. I got my next job, on Sexton Blake, because the editor liked what I'd said in another fanzine (Book Collectors News). I learned a lot at every job and I was involved with making changes on Tarzan, Sexton Blake and New Worlds. I was able to promote a kind of fiction I liked through all these jobs and that's what I was able to do on Fantastic Metropolis, promoting authors like Zoran Zivkovic, Alan Wall and Steve Ayelet. I think my approach to writing had something to do with my editorial work. Editing, at least the way I did it, is a bit like being a teacher, a bit like being a therapist, a bit like being a theatrical promotor. As with my reviewing, I only involve myself with people I feel enthusiastic about. They are not necessarily writers who write like me -- in fact I tend to admire writers who can do things I can't do. And they're a pretty varied lot, though they do tend to share a visionary aspect.
About my only editing jobs which didn't involve much enthusiasm were editing for the Liberal Party policy magazing Current Topics and Golden Nugget, a 'men's' magazine, both in the 60s.


Q: Jeff VanderMeer and R. Scott Bakker recently had articles on the relationship between politics and fantasy published in Cheryl Morgan's Emerald City. What are your thoughts about the relationship between our political (or perhaps social will work just as fine here) world and the telling of a fantasy or SF story? Can one ever remain apolitical in writing, or does 'politics' involve something intrinsic to human life and understanding?

A: It depends on the nature of the story. None of the Jerry Cornelius stories are apolitical, of course. I've written some intensely political fiction, including my non-fantasy novel King of the City. The Pyat books are political, though ironic. Some forms are better for dealing with politics than others. Classic sf can do it very well, of course. But classic sf tends to generalise, which is why I came up with Jerry Cornelius, who could deal with specifics, including contemporary political figures. I found that generic fantasy is the same, you can at best generalise about politics (in the Hawkmoon stories I did some satire, reflecting the politics of the day and in the current Elric stories I do my best to make them as relevant to modern times as possible) but ultimately the medium is the message and you can't do that much with genre. You have to create your own forms to suit your own attitudes. I've worked for political parties and have been closely involved with politics most of my life. I still write some political journalism. Genre, sadly, will always involve a fair amount of generalisation.


Q: Your work has, at various times, been labeled as "New Wave" or "New Weird." What are your thoughts about these labels and how would you sum up in a concise fashion what you write for those people who are unfamiliar with your work?

A: I've always loathed labels. When we were doing New Worlds I studiously refused to let anyone call us a movement, though many tried. All that is literary politics, which I've never wanted to play (though some politics is always involved in promoting new writers). I was amazed when Mike Harrison, who had always shared my dislike of labels, suddenly started promoting the 'New Weird' label. It's not like him to play politics. But I suppose we can all get stuck for a definition sometimes. They can help us move forward but the problem is that definitions/labels then have to be defended and debated. I saw enough crap when people were discussing what was and what wasn't sf to prefer not to label what I do or, indeed, label what I believe. My own politics is a mix. I'm a person of the left who writes mostly, at the moment, for right-wing journals and newspapers like The Spectator and The Telegraph. I'm an anarcho-syndicalist who believes in keeping the British House of Lords (unelected upper house) unreformed. What label exists for that mix? Movements always go backwards and forwards, even when they are pretending just to go forwards. 'New' ? 'Old' ?
What are you doing when you're creating a new form on one hand and going back to a pre-modern form, as it were, on the other? Labels simply add to the confusion.


Q: Do you hold to the adage that if one wants to understand a society, she or he ought to look at the literature being produced by that society? And if you do believe this, what do you think would be revealed to a hypothetical future reader reading through 20th century works from the US and the UK respectively?

A: I am inclined to agree with that. Indeed, I moved to Texas because I didn't want to live in a familiar environment. There's not much difference between NE USA and Britain or France. Texas, as they say, is a different country. The literature produced in Texas certainly helps me understand her better. We used to write in NW fiction which we assumed demonstrated our culture to the future. We also tried to write fiction which demonstrated the future we were trying to describe. My fiction will reveal to the future reader probably much that I am unconscious of, which is why I'm inclined to trust instinct rather than any tendency to rational speculation. I dumped rationalisations from much of the fiction I wrote and published precisely because I knew those rationalisations were the least revealing aspect of visionary work. I don't know -- what does Blake reveal to us, other than that he was the greatest visionary of his time. We can argue with his rationalisations, such as they were, but we can't 'argue' with his vision. Does that make sense?

Q: You moved to Texas in the 1990s. What, if anything, about American/Southern society did you learn while living there that you did not know before? What were your general and specific impressions of the people there? Is 'the future' (socially, politically) on display in the US, or is it to be found elsewhere now?

A: I think I had to learn about the roots of American politics by moving to Texas, which was what I'd hoped to do. I know I understand more about the nature of both right and left libertarianism than I did, how the Constitution creates more fundamentalists than the Bible (thank God). I've learned not to judge people as 'backward' because they live according to the Old Testament, as most Europeans do. I understand more about the nature of American radicalism and its rejection of European radicalism (increasingly, these days). I think American radicalism was held back by its adoption of European models. I'm not sure 'the future' isn't anywhere you decide to look. I once thought I'd found it in Los Angeles. At another time I found it in London. Currently, I think I've found it in Paris. 'The future' is as complex and as varied as he present, in other words. We find metaphores which do the best job possible. A good image, in other words, is worth any amount of speculation. People find my 60s fiction 'relevant' to the present, just as we find much of Dick's fiction relevant to our present. Again, Dick was far more accurate about the future than most of the writers telling us how the future would be in Analog, say. Indeed, all the Galaxy writers (if you can make a group of people like Bester and Pohl who didn't usually publish with Campbell) who concentrated more on modern social issues seem to have been a lot more accurate about our present. Is that a fair answer? I was romantic about Texas and I suppose part of its attraction was that I saw a certain aspect of the future -- a multicultural future -- here, when I stood behind a bunch of kids at Astroworld and heard them talking in a mixture of black, Spanish and regular American. It was that language which brought me here and which I sought to reproduce in a form and a music of my own in Blood, Michael Moorcock's Multiverse (DC comic) and The War Amongst the Angels. Musical subtleties...

Q: To what degree would you say risk goes with being a writer, both in the professional and personal sense?

A: You have to take all the risks you can, both with your lifestyle and with your work, to be the best writer you can be. Writers can easily rationalise their need for security and build themselves a coffin. If you get too secure, it's time to move on.
Sometimes life does it for you. Sometimes you have to take a conscious risk. I try to take risks in my life and work. They usually improve the work if not my finances.

Q: In recent years, there have been many stories, both in print magazines and on online journals, extolling the 'resurgence' of fantasy. What do you think accounts for this belief and is it necessarily a 'good' or 'bad' thing?

A: You'll probably have guessed my answer to this one by now. It's both good and bad. And it isn't either. It's the zeitgeist, innit? People used to find their romance (many still do) in historical fiction. Increasingly, they've found it in fantasy. Scott wrote fantasy which pretended to be about a past reality. It's good escapism. Tolkien wrote fantasy which was frankly invented. It might say something for our development that we are prepared to accept frank invention over pretended authenticity. It's all part of what we sometimes call the post-modernist sensibility.
A knowingness which also gives us metafiction and its associated forms.
A resurgence? Maybe. What did we have instead of 'fantasy' in, say, the 15th century? And how wholly did we believe in, say, the Gods of Olympus when their stories were the latest being told? I must say the insistence of religious fundamentalists in modern times suggests that people are having to try harder than ever before to believe in the supernatural. Whether escapist fantasy is 'good' or 'bad' depends on the main uses to which it's being put by the individual. Another thing we were fond of saying at NW was 'context defines'...

Q: Do you think that fantasy books must deal with some theme to truly be great? Should there be themes at all, and if so, what themes would you say you tried to convey with his works?

A: Ultimately it's the author's talent which defines greatness. What would be trivial in some hands can be great in others. Frequently the author has no clear idea of their own talents. Great themes can become trivial in the wrong hands. Triviality can become great in the hands, say, of a Proust.

Q: An oft-overlooked dimension about fantasy is the addressing of gender issues. To what degree would you say fantasy works reflect prevailing social attitudes about gender? Also, is there any truth, in your opinion, to the notion that while female authors can write convincing male characters, male authors have a much more difficult time in writing a convincing female character?

A: Well, of course, as a supporter of feminism and a convinced 'Dworkinista', I'd like to see more work dealing with gender issues. Again, it depends on the talent of the individual author. Flaubert wasn't too bad at writing a convincing female characters. It depends on the form, too. Leigh Brackett, working in a genre she loved, tended to produce strong males and stereotypical strong females, rather the same as the male writers she was most influenced by. I would reckon if we read mostly Jane Austen, we'll be inclined to write good female characters. If we read mostly Robert E. Howard, we would be good at writing adolescent male characters. Temperament must surely have a great deal to do with it. My favourite writers when I was a small child were Louisa May Alcott and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Another favourite was Richmal Crompton, a woman, who wrote about a 'bad' small boy called William, with whom I identified. These days, although I'm currently reading a lot of Balzac, as well as Dumas and Scott, I always 'default' to Elizabeth Bowen, though I've never knowlingly read any of her supernatural fiction. It's her social fiction which I love. I'm as convinced by her men as I am by Angus Wilson's women.

Q: What are some of the projects that you have on tap?

A: I seem to be writing a comedy provisionally called The Sedentary Jew, about a man who's cursed to remain in the same city for eternity (London, of course). I'm doing text for a bunch of Mervyn Peake drawings previously unpublished, a mixture of little stories and nonsense verse, which will first be published in French in Paris. I'm writing a memoir of the Peakes, whom I knew from a boy. I'm doing a bunch of miscellaneous novellas and short stories.

Q: Is it likely that we will see you working with some other authors? If it is, who with?

A: The only collaborations I have in mind at the moment are with artists (such as Walter Simonson on the Elric graphic novel). I collaborated with Storm
Constantine on Silverheart and she's doing a new one Dragonskin, which is mostly her. The title's mine... No other collaborations, except with artists, on the books.


Q: Who are some of the writers that you are reading today?

A: Alan Wall. Iain Sinclair. Steve Beard. Apart from some of those already mentioned.
I'm reading Proust for the second time. Reading off and on Balzac's A Harlot High and Low, which I'm not enjoying much, though I love Balzac. I just finished a Simenon Maigret novel. Much enjoyed Walter Mosley's sf novel The Wave and today bought his new 'straight' novel Fortunate Son, which I haven't started yet. Reading Adam Gopnik's autobiographical Paris to the Moon. Steve Beard's Meat Puppet Cabaret (his best so far). Bought Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris today.

Q: What do you believe are the major influences for this thing we call 'Fantasy' today?

A: Well, Monkeybrain recently reprinted my revised book on the subject, Wizardry and Wild Romance. I take it back to Amadis of Gaul, I suppose. Walter Scott.
The Gothic writers. Frank Baum. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Lord Dunsany. Cabell. Weird Tales writers. I've argued that Tolkien borrowed American models as much as English (or 'Nordic') which could explain the popularity of that sequence in the USA. In an interview he did in NW, he was worrying about whether or not he should join the SFWA... I don't like the way we these days separate 'literary' (British) imaginative fiction from 'pulp' (American) imaginative fiction.
There are as many examples of both in both literatures. Tolkien, of course, has had a huge influence on modern generic fantasy, though not much on me. I liked Poul Anderson's Broken Sword a lot more. These days, we're talking about probably the most successful single genre in the bookstores. Must be huge variety of influences on those.

Q: If you were to own several monkeys and/or midgets, how many would you own, and what would you name them?

A: Well, it's not legal to own midgets, so it would have to be monkeys. And they're hard to housetrain. I guess it would be one monkey, as long as he didn't annoy my cats, and I guess I'd have to call him Mikey...

Thank you again for this interview you did for wotmania.com. We all wish you success with your work.