Eddison-Tolkien-Zelazny: The Sweet Spot

I am currently engaged in something of a strange literary enterprise in that I am daily listening to an unabridged (and utterly fantastic, by the way) Audible audiobook of The Worm Ouroboros by ER Eddison on my way to and from work, but reading The Chronicles of Amber by Zelazny at night. (These are both re-reads after many years, although I don't know if I ever finished Ouroboros when I encountered it long ago.) 

It is hard to imagine two more stylistically different literary works, for all that they are in content oddly similar (both being, in the end, fun adolescent fantasy romps which unashamedly lionise an old fashioned, 'Boy's Own Adventure Story' aesthetic - and both, oddly enough, commencing with a short framing 'real world' narrative which has no bearing on the actual story). Ouroboros is written in a wonderfully self-conscious pastiche of early modern English in which there are absolutely no visible seams: the verisimilitude is total. Viz:

When the King was come into his high seat, with Corund and Corinius on his left and right in honour of their great deeds of arms, and La Fireez facing him in the high seat on the lower bench, the thralls made haste to set forth dishes of pickled grigs and oysters in the shell, and whilks, snails, and cockles fried in olive oil and swimming in red and white hippocras. And the feasters delayed not to fall to on these dainties, while the cupbearer bore round a mighty bowl of beaten gold filled with sparkling wine the hue of the yellow sapphire, and furnished with six golden ladles resting their handles in six half- moon shaped nicks in the rim of that great bowl. Each guest when the bowl was brought to him must brim his goblet with the ladle, and drink unto the glory of Witchland and the rulers thereof. 

Somewhat greenly looked Corinius on the Prince, and whispering Heming, Corund's son, in the ear, who sat next him, he said, "True it is that La Fireez is the showiest of men in all that belongeth to gear and costly array. Mark with what ridiculous excess he affecteth Demonland in the great store of jewels he flaunteth, and with what an apish insolence he sitteth at the board. Yet this lobcock liveth only by our sufferance, and I see he hath not forgot to bring with him to Witchland the price of our hand withheld from twisting of his neck." 

Now were borne round dishes of carp, pilchards, and lobsters, and thereafter store enow of meats: a fat kid roasted whole and garnished with peas on a spacious silver charger, kid pasties, plates of neats' tongues and sweetbreads, sucking rabbits in jellies, hedgehogs baked in their skins, hogs' haslets, carbonadoes, chitterlings, and dormouse pies. These and other luscious meats were borne round continually by thralls who moved silent on bare feet; and merry waxed the talk as the edge of hunger became blunted a little, and the cockles of men's hearts were warmed with wine. 

"What news in Witchland?" asked La Fireez. 

"I have heard nought newer," said the King, "than the slaying of Gaslark." And the King recounted the battle in the night, setting forth as in a frank and open honesty every particular of numbers, times, and comings and goings; save that none might have guessed from his tale that any of Demonland had part or interest in that battle. 

La Fireez said, "Strange it is that he should so attack you. An enemy might smell some cause behind it." 

"Our greatness," said Corinius, looking haughtily at him, "is a lamp whereat other moths than he have been burnt. I count it no strange matter at all." 

Prezmyra said, "Strange indeed, were it any but Gaslark. But sure with him no wild sudden fancy were too light but it should chariot him like thistle-down to storm heaven itself."

This can be contrasted with Zelazny's hardboiled prose, in which no matter the occasion or context everybody sounds like they hail from the Midwestern USA circa 1971. Here we find the main character, Corwin, having a conversation with a camp follower in a pseudo-Arthurian setting:

'Let's have another glass of wine.'

'It'll go to my head.'

'Good.'

I poured them.

'We are all going to die,' she said.

'Eventually.'

'I mean here, soon, fighting this thing.'

'Why do you say that?'

'It's too strong.'

'Then why stick around?'

'I've no place else to go. That's why I asked you about Cabra.'

'And why you came here tonight?'

'No. I came to see what you were like.'

'I am an athlete who is breaking training. Were you born around here?'

'Yes. In the wood.'

'Why'd you pick up with these guys?'

'Why not? It's better than getting pig shit on my heels every day.'

Nobody can question Zelazny's storytelling power, his pacing, or his skill for deploying dialogue, but this, my friends, is the precise opposite of verisimilitude: demigods and medieval camp followers would not talk like they hail from the late 20th century USA - and certainly wouldn't sound as though they had just stepped out of an afternoon TV mystery movie, as these two do. Don't get me wrong: I love the Amber books, but Zelazny was very much a storyteller first and a worldbuilder a far distant second. His settings never strike the reader as plausible worlds in their own right, but as mere backdrops for the plot. 

We can think of Zelazny and Eddison as being two poles on a spectrum in fantasy literature - the former strongly emphasising the telling of a good story at the expense of detail, and the latter lovingly and almost obsessively painting a picture of a fully realised and inhabited world. I like both; I have a hard time accepting that Eddison's is not by far the greater achievement, but it is hard to find a more entertaining series in the fantasy canon than the first five Amber books. 

One of the reasons why I think Tolkien still stands supreme in the genre is that his work strikes almost the perfect middle between these two extremes. He is a thousand times more accessible than Eddison (one can hardly imagine a Peter Jackson blockbuster version of The Worm Ouroboros) but a thousand times weightier than Zelazny. Hence, for example:

'Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!' 

A cold voice answered: 'Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn! He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.' 

A sword rang as it was drawn. 'Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.' 

'Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!' 

Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. 'But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.' The winged creature screamed at her, but the Ringwraith made no answer, and was silent, as if in sudden doubt.

Nobody could accuse these people as sounding like they are from 1970s Illinois, but at the same time the prose is perfectly digestible and understandable to a reasonably well-read adolescent - as most people reading this blog can probably attest. Tolkien presents with a totally coherent world, so real and so complete that it feels as though it exists, but in a way which still allows us to easily access it - there is no requirement, as there is with Eddison, to spend a while getting one's ear in before one can easily parse the ornate prose. 

What lessons lie here for the D&D DM? Only that every single RPG session I have ever been involved with has, more or less, followed the Zelaznyian mode in the way in which the participants have approached the subject of realism. I feel a sense of regret about this, while recognising the strong biases, incentives and preferences that lead things in that direction. I would love to one day be involved in a campaign in which people invested the time and energy in creating a setting and an experience of Eddisonian depth (if not of subject matter and substance) - but I would more than settle for a Tolkienian one.