Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Dancers at the end of time

Began to read michael moorcock's dancers at the end of time, because earl aubec is a series of short stories. I wanted a single, long engaging story, and the dancers at the end of time is really good. In fact, its the most delightful book I've ever read. Had to use that word, you will udnerstand why if you read the book. The book portrays a very decadent world in wonderful, disgusting detail. Couldn't resist.
This is from the prologue

the cycle of our earth (indeed, our universe, if the truth be known) was nearing its end and the human race had at last ceased to take itself seriously. Having inherited millenia of scientific and technological knowledge it used its wisdom to indulge its richest fantasies, to play immense imaginative games, to relax and create beautiful monstrosities. After all, there was little else left to do. An earlier age might have been horried at what it would have judged a waste of resources, an appaling extravagance in the uses of which materials and energies were put. To say the least, the inhabitants of an earlier age would have seen the inhabitants of this world as 'decadent' or 'amoral'. Even if the inhabitants of were not conscious of the fact that they lived at the end of time some unconscious knowledge informed their attitudes and made them lose interest in ideals, creeds, philosophies and the conflicts to which such things give rise. they found pleasurein paradox, aesthetics and baroque qit; if they had a philosophy, then it was a philosophy of taste, of sensuality. Most of the emotions had atrophied, meant little to them. They had rivalry without jealousy, affection without lust, malie without rage, kindness without pity. Their schemes - often grandiose and perverse - were pursued without obsession and left uncomplemented without regret, for death was rare and life might cease only when Earth herself died.

Almost an ideal world...
and some moorcockisms.

Carrie Joan, She kept her boiler going
Carrie Joan, she filled it full with wine
Carrie Joan didn't stop her rowing
she had to get to Brooklyn by a quarter-past nine!

and a charachter comments on this poem
"'... I thought it was to do with sex.' She frowned. 'Or animals.' She smiled. 'Or Both'"

and virtue as the inhabitants of that world understand it - with some preplexity as the concept is alien to them
"if you have the impulse to do something - you do the exact opposite. You want to be a man, so you become a woman. You wish to fly somewhere, so you go underground. You wish to drink, but instead you emit fluid."

and a charachter's name is Liam Ty Pam $12.51 Caesar Lloyd George Zatopek Finsbury Ronnie Michaleangleo Yurio Ipou 4578 Rew United.

"What is particularly interesting about the truth? Very little when it comes down to it, as we all know"

The list of famous lovers - contorted by the long sweep of history
"... Gorgon and Queen Elezabeth. romeo and Julius Caesar. Windermere and LAdy OScar. Hitler and Moussolini. Fred and Louella. Ojiba and Obija. Sero and Fidsekalak...."

"love was always ludicrous"

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