Mistress of Mistresses

king wolf offers a first review of this work with the kind of arrogance that may put off a potential reader. However, its an arrogance that Eddison himself would doubtless admire. The review, for all its naked boasts, simply tells the truth. Eddison is brilliant with a brilliance that shines from many angles, and with a light that at once terrifies and appalls That Eddison is not studied at high levels of education, that he is barely read and marginalised, is a depressing condemnation of the literary world. I feel personally fortunate I was exposed to Eddison's work as a youth. Lucky old me.

It shouldn't even be necessary to point out that Eddison's books are the high point of twentieth century literature. It should go without saying that he is the best prose artist in the history of the English-language novel; his writing, and his dialogue in particular, are at least fifteen percent better than whichever lesser genius comes in second (Lord Dunsany, perhaps?). In a saner world, every college freshman would be expected to read his books, and to at least pretend to understand that the themes Eddison presents within them - the cycles of time, the duality of the godhead, human life lived as a work of conscious art - are the closest approach to Truth that are possible in fiction. (And they are only expressible in fantastic fiction, for we must come at these things indirectly and through the side door of Myth.) Eddison's novels are not mere works of fiction: above all else, they are works of esotericism. Mistress of Mistresses is the best esoteric novel ever written. The essential message of mysticism is contained in its very structure. But not one man in a thousand can hear the real message this book contains. The reason that Eddison is obscure and his infinite virtues remain almost unsung is, of course, because ours is a civilization, and indeed a world, so unrepentantly degenerate that it isn't capable of understanding his works. A typical professor presented with The Worm or Mistress of Mistresses is in the position of an ape given a laptop computer: the best he can do is to bang his head against it. For what Eddison brings us is truth, at both the spiritual and mundane levels, and truth is more than little men can bear. You, dear reader, are probably already a cut above, to even have taken time to find out that Eddison exists and to bother to read a review of his books. If you haven't read any of these works, you now have a great opportunity to evolve further away from the "common muck", as Eddison might call them, and perhaps later on, even agree with the tone and substance of this review. Or, you can do what the common muck will do: instead of attempting to rise to Eddison's level, resent the fact that he is simply smarter, better and more enlightened than you, or any other novelist you've ever come across. And most of all, of course, resent that he doesn't care if you know it. The chance, and the choice, are yours.

I read E.R. Eddison's books many years ago, but they are still vivid in my memory. I loved the way the author could write Elizabethan dialogue as if he had lunch with Shakespeare every day. The characters were so colorful, the scenes richly painted, and the strange, time-and-space-roving Lessingham had another life here in this other Europe, that seems to me now like something Tolkien might have wanted for his Fifth Age of Middle Earth. I yearned for years that someone would make a film or films of The Lord of the Rings. I grew old waiting, but then it happened. Maybe someday there will be a Worm Ouroboros or a Mistress of Mistresses. I know the language would have to be made more simple and most of the philosophy dumped, but to see Lord Gro, of Ouroboros, doomed always to be a traitor, come to his end, or that grand villain of Mistresses, the Vicar of Rerek take time out from his plotting to be 'a washing of his cursed dogs' in his casstle yard, would be a mad treat. Winston Chruchill once said that schoolboys should be allowed to study Latin as a reward, and Greek as a treat. Readers with imagination and an appreciation for language should be made lighter nad dizzy with the richness of Eddison's prose.

If you tire of Lord of the Rings or endless triologies then Mistress of Mistresses is for you. It is set in a fantasy world similar to 16th Century Europe. The book demands concentration, a knowledge of philosophy and poetry. But beware. It will send you off on a lifelong hunt into these fields. You may end up learning Ancient Greek or Latin. You will fall in love with the women and follow the heroes blindly. Read, enjoy and return to. Like a good wine it matures well.

This is a book of unearthly beauty. While I felt that Eddison's THE WORM OUROBOROS was somewhat on the light side, MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES captures the vision of romantic heroism, both in its peaks of joyful experience and its dark ambiguity. It is almost impossible to describe rapture in such a way as to actually evoke it in the reader---Eddison does this not once but several times. Yet looming behind the pleasures of flesh and spirit is a wintry grandeur, a coldness of sheer height and a thanatosis that makes one shiver. The book begins and ends with death and the plot is standard. There is no character development---the characters are (sometimes literally) archetypes. It is not really a story. It is a vision---a painting that one would gaze at for hours. The value of this book lies in the strength of that vision and the beauty with which it is portrayed.