Viriconium

[ezchaos]

This collection of novellas and short stories by M. John Harrison was recently released in the US. I picked it up in the fall, but am now just starting it again after an aborted first try.
I'm curious as to your thoughts on these stories. I've seen the Viriconium stories cited as some of the best classic fantasy around by authors and members on this board.

 

[Lowlander]

I read the British edition, published by Gollancz in their Fantasy masterworks series. It hast the following content :

-2 short novels (Pastel City and Storm of Wings)
-1 novella (In Viriconium)
-7 short stories (Viriconium Knights, Lords of Misrule, Strange Great Sins, Dancer from the Dance, Luck in the Head, Lamia & Lord Cromis, Young Man's Journey to Vir.)

For me this was a very strange/mixed reading experience.
I really liked the first novel (Pastel City). It's written in the early Michael Moorcock tradition : short, fierce, pulpish, dark, powerful. The second novel (Storm of Wings) is one of the most difficult/incomprehensible books I ever read. Compared to this novel Gene Wolfe writes kindergarten stories. The long novella (In Viriconium) is very well written, rather poor on plot but easy to read compared to Storm of Wings.

The same mixed feeling I had with the stories : I thought 2 of them were wonderful, 3 okay and I really hated the last two. So like you can see : a mixed bag.

It must be said Harrison himself is very negative nowadays of his first novel The Pastel City. He considers this book to a minor effort, best to be forgotten. Ironically it is still the most popular of his Viriconium stories.
Harrison is of course just like Michael Moorcock very critical about the state of modern fantasy fiction.

He's by no account a jolly fellow but his influence on many modern British science/fantasy writers like Mieville, Swainston, KJ Bishop etc... is considerable.

 

[Brys]

I personally think it's one of the best fantasy series ever written. Harrison's prose and imagination are almost unmatched (Peake comes just ahead in prose, Vandermeer in imagination). Sometimes the characters or the plot seems a little lacking, but those moments are rare. I also like how he manages to subvert traditional fantasy stories so well - particularly evident in the Pastel City and A Storm of Wings.
My favourite of them though was the short story Viriconium Knights.

 

[Sean Wright]

I recently read In Viriconuim, buying the UK Fantasy Masterworks collection by Gollanzc, mainly because my own work has been compared in some respects to Harrison. I was intrigued, having never read him before. Here's what I had to say in my official review at the Sean Wright site.

 

[Lowlander]

For those who want more M. John Harrison : his best short fiction has been collected in a Gollancz paperback : Things that Never Happen.

Bought it myself recently but since I read a review saying none of the 24 stories have anything resembling a happy ending I'am waiting for a moment in my life when I want to subject myself to an endless stream of gloom and doom.

BTW mr. Wright, I read some interesting reviews about your own novel (Jaarfindor). Looks weird, but that's the kind of story I like so I've put it on my to read list.

 

[Sean Wright]

For those who want more M. John Harrison : his best short fiction has been collected in a Gollancz paperback : Things that Never Happen.

Bought it myself recently but since I read a review saying none of the 24 stories have anything resembling a happy ending I'am waiting for a moment in my life when I want to subject myself to an endless stream of gloom and doom.

BTW mr. Wright, I read some interesting reviews about your own novel (Jaarfindor). Looks weird, but that's the kind of story I like so I've put it on my to read list.

Hi Lowlander - good stuff. I hope you enjoy it.

 

[Rob B]

I've got this on my increasingly growing TO READ Pile. When I get a chance to dive into it, well that is another story.

 

[Pug]

I recently read In Viriconuim, buying the UK Fantasy Masterworks collection by Gollanzc, mainly becuase my own work has been compared in some respects to Harrison. I was intrigued, having never read him before. Here's what I had to say in my official review at the Sean Wright site.

So you liked it?

Nice review. I think I'll have to spend a bit more time at your blog and also see if my library has your book.

 

[Murrin]

All the way through, left me thinking there was something I was missing. Beautiful, but perplexing. Its biggest fault in my eyes was that The Pastel City and A Storm of Wings both seemed to drag a little toward the end. In Viriconium was definately the best story in the collection. A Young Man's Journey To Viriconium was completely lost on me, and yet, as with all Harrison's work, I get the sense it was somehow brilliant.

I'm currently working my way, slowly, through the stories in his collection Things That Never Happen.

 

[Sean Wright]

So you liked it?

Nice review. I think I'll have to spend a bit more time at your blog and also see if my library has your book.

Hi Pug - thanks. And you welcome to sepnd at much time there as you like. Except don't forget to come back to SFF World, ill ya?

 

[JohnH]

This collection of novellas and short stories by M. John Harrison was recently released in the US. I picked it up in the fall, but am now just starting it again after an aborted first try.
I'm curious as to your thoughts on these stories. I've seen the Viriconium stories cited as some of the best classic fantasy around by authors and members on this board.

"Best classic fantasy"? Really? Interesting. Not my take at all. Good at times. Definitely. Harrison is a great lyricist, for lack of a better term, when it comes to words. But not exactly a great storyteller by my take.

Perhaps my take is skewed. I read the first work after having cut my teeth on Tanith Lee and Michael Moorcock and even some early Storm Constantine and so really didn't see what was so significant or stunningly unique of his work. Except that there was an underlying, almost desperate, attempt to show what a different and unique. Oddly, or maybe not, I see this in the latter works more than the two earliest.

I thought the "Viriconium" collection was a nice and timely reprint and was glad to add it to my library as I didn't have all the works presented in this new volume. But Harrison's style just borders, if not passes over into, over-affectation to the point of sheer self-indulgence. Detracting to say the least of what otherwise could have been some really great work. The prose a bit too contrived -- like the guy who grows a goatee and wears all black to show how serious he is while sitting in the coffee house reading something oh-so-profound. Apparently Viriconium from the sounds of it.

 

[Sean Wright]

"Best classic fantasy"? Really? Interesting. Not my take at all. Good at times. Definitely. Harrison is a great lyricist, for lack of a better term, when it comes to words. But not exactly a great storyteller by my take.

Perhaps my take is skewed. I read the first work after having cut my teeth on Tanith Lee and Michael Moorcock and even some early Storm Constantine and so really didn't see what was so significant or stunningly unique of his work. Except that there was an underlying, almost desperate, attempt to show what a different and unique. Oddly, or maybe not, I see this in the latter works more than the two earliest.

I thought the "Viriconium" collection was a nice and timely reprint and was glad to add it to my library as I didn't have all the works presented in this new volume. But Harrison's style just borders, if not passes over into, over-affectation to the point of sheer self-indulgence. Detracting to say the least of what otherwise could have been some really great work. The prose a bit too contrived -- like the guy who grows a goatee and wears all black to show how serious he is while sitting in the coffee house reading something oh-so-profound. Apparently Viriconium from the sounds of it.

Not a fan, then, John?

 

[JohnH]

I wouldn't say that at all. In fact if Harrison ever were to continue writing in this vein and setting I would definitely be buying and reading. But I would not put him in the apparent lofty heights of the fantasy Olympus that others apparently do. He's a good writer with a deft imagination but my shelves hold dozens and dozens of authors that fit in that category.

 

[Brys]

Dozens - possibly, once I've read a bit more. At the moment, the only authors I rate on a level with Harrison in writing terms are Mervyn Peake, Italo Calvino, Jeff Vandermeer and Clark Ashton Smith (and possibly Mieville, at his best). Harrison overall as an author I find very impressive, but I don't rate him at the top in storytelling ability or characterisation, though he's demonstrated that he can be that good. This is all based on Viriconium (in fantasy) though, and my opinion may change after reading the Course of the Heart.

The only other Harrison novel I've read is the Centauri Device and I was pretty disappointed by it - the writing wasn't great, the imagination was present, but not to the same extent, the plot wasn't any better than usual in Viriconium, and the characters weren't as well developed. Harrison has said himself that this was by far his worst novel though, but it seems remarkably traditional compared to his Viriconium sequence, especially considering they were written at similar times.

 

[ezchaos]

Thanks all for the replies. The only Harrison I've read is Light. It was pretty good sf, but didn't blow me away. Right now, I'm only part way through The Pastel City. Like Light, it's good but not earth shattering. To be fair, however, I should probably finish reading it first.

 

[Luke_B]

I liked Light so my taste my differ from your's, but I'll offer my take on Viriconium anyways.

Basically, the whole series is a deconstructs the notion of escapist fantasy set in mapped secondary worlds. Harrison’s big blah is that escapism is futile (and impossible) because the impulse for diversion is a symptom of reality.

The Pastel City has dated really badly, and reads as a hack hybrid of Moorcock's Elric and Vance's Dying Earth. It gets interesting with a A Storm of Wings, however, but you have to have read The Pastel City to get it, because it is almost exactly the same story, only this time told through both human and alien eyes. In Viriconium is the best, as Harrison begins to breakdown the boundaries between Viriconium and the real world, and it's at this point that Viriconium becomes a transcendent and unique reading experience. The short fiction continues in this vein until in "A Young Man's Journey to Viriconium" the reader can nolonger reach Viriconium.

The city often changes names and the chronology is purposefully skewed with characters that are supposed to have died earlier reappearing at later times in subsequent stories. Whether you like the book really comes down to whether you're willing to play Harrison's game or not. But as almost everybody on this thread has testified to, Harrison writes beautifully, and Viriconium is considered an important work in the fantasy canon, and therefore worth reading for that reason alone for anybody with a interest in the genre.

 

[FicusFan]

I have the Gollancz edition, and got about half-way through and gave up, which I don't usually do. But it was boring, and looking ahead it seemed to be just more of the same. I liked the first story, and couple of the shorter ones, but it seemed to me the book was mostly filler. He had an interesting setting, and some good characters, but the story-telling was poor and he spent most of the book trying to show how adept he was at being a literary writer.

He may very well have had a point to his work. But if it fails to engage and maintain interest then it really doesn't matter how important his point, the whole package is a failure, and for me it was. I also didn't like Light, so he is not on my list of authors to follow.

 

[kron]

I've read only Viriconium and can tell that it is mostly impressions, not plot lines or characters. It appealed to a fan of My Dying Bride The colours of the environment were so vivid to me that at some points I was stunned. Doom... doom is the plot and any vivisection of characters or lines is useless here.

 

[Sean Wright]

I've read only Viriconium and can tell that it is mostly impressions, not plot lines or characters. It appealed to a fan of My Dying Bride The colours of the environment were so vivid to me that at some points I was stunned. Doom... doom is the plot and any vivisection of characters or lines is useless here.

I agree with your analysis as far as a sense of impending doom is concerned, but NO plot lines or characters is a rather all-encompassing statement. I've recently reviews In Viriconium and my opinion of that particular story differs somewhat. That particular story was certainly not "mostly impressions."

 

[kron]

Hmm, my mistake, sorry. I have read The Pastel City It was so long ago... The aforesaid my oppinion is for The Pastel City