18 Responses to "My love-hate relationship with M. John Harrison"
“There is such a thing as too surreal, and prose that is too perfect for it’s own good”
That is so true, and I’ve read some books over the years that only drifted over into that area at the very end and they did it put such a taint on the book that I couldn’t help but be disappointed. Jonathan Carroll’s “Ghost in Love” and “The Brief History of the Dead” by Keith Brockmeier come to mind. Neither are as surreal as you describe “Viriconium” to be, but they were just enough that I felt it took the entire story off track.
The only Harrison I’ve read was a short story a year or so ago in some ‘Best Of the Year…” collection and I found myself confused and frustrated and wondering what the appeal was. However, as a short story lover I am loathe to judge any writer on just one story. Even my favorites write a story now and then that just doesn’t connect with me. But it did make me reluctant to try his bigger works.
It is interesting how some books do for us just what you describe. I have books that I reread every few years. Despite their familiarity, the passion for them remains. Others that I was blown away with at the time turn out to be ‘just okay’ on a second or subsequent reading. One thing I believe that shows is just how potentially powerful the written word is–it can strike us in the most profound ways, but sometimes only during a certain window of time, maybe just when we needed it to.
That is a risk I find with book blogging. Especially when I am over the moon about something. I wait anxiously for the reviews of those friends who I know will read the same book and then have to deal with my own feelings when they feel it didn’t quite measure up. I’m going through that right now.
In the end I strive to be as honest as I can with my own experience with a book and leave it at that. This review of yours is a perfect example of the kind of honesty I am talking about. Well done!
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Dear Redhead,
i am currently struggling with viriconium, and have experienced some of the same frustrations that you have expressed.
i tend to write differently to men and to women — would you mind letting me know which gender you are?
sincerely, doug hogan (male)
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Dear Durrell,
your point about the late decadent tradition was extremely helpful. i am currently struggling with viriconium, and your insight has helped me understand what harrison is doing.
thanks!!
doug hogan
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I just recently found a used copy of The Pastel City myself on the recommendation of some correspondents; based on my appreciation of Clark Ashton Smith and Jack Vance.
I have to say I’m having trouble getting into it and I appreciate your comment about feeling “saddened and manipulated”, that very much echoes my sensations; which I can’t say I ever had with Smith or Vance.
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I just Finished the cycle of stories. My collection seemed to have a few that you didn’t cite and probably altered my experience of them. I love the dream like nature of the texts, but had a hard time following the language sometimes. I actually loved how it was soaringly pretentious-feeling..the promptly earthy and sentimental. The themes of time, fantasy and plots the the world contains, all failing, playing themselves out, really pulled me in and held me. The repeated symbols and actions and the plot doing the same: the princess trying to make an assassin become tegues-Cromis, him fighting it, she resigned to it failing him taking up the mantel in his own broken way..lots of levels. I had images etched in my mind, like those from Gormenghast. They are weird, dreamlike and will never leave.
I’ll have to re read it in a few years and see if it’s crap.
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Excellent review. I wonder if you read “A Storm of Wings” as well.
It took me a few months to read through Viriconium. The larger narratives like The Pastel City and A Storm of Wings are relatively easy because there’s a plot I could hold onto without drowning in the verbiage. The shorter pieces took me much longer to read through due to the confusion about plot, characters and setting.
I’m not generally a slow reader and I found myself avoiding the book when I hit the difficult sections. I have the Fantasy Masterworks edition from the UK.
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1 | Shara @ Calico Reaction
June 4, 2011 at 10:08 am
Interesting post! I’ve run into this very issue of beautiful prose strangling everything else in the story, and for me, it’s a put off. I’ve often wondered how others could rave about such books, and it seems that you, too, are wondering the same thing. About this book, anyway.
Have you read anything else by this author? If so, what was your experience?
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Redhead
June 5, 2011 at 11:59 am
Shara, I’ve also read Light and Nova Swing, which take place in the same world (but not the Viriconium world). I should probably give one of them a try again, see what I think. I recall them being easier to read, although still uber-surreal.
maybe the pretty language wasn’t a put off when i was younger? maybe then I had the patience for it? It’s kinda like Modern Art: what’s the diff between artistic and throwing paint at a canvas while drunk?
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