HW: The Time Of The Hawklords

[Tim Gadd]

At 07:35 PM 5/2/00 GMT, Steve P wrote:

>On the Calvert v Moorcock feud I`m definitely on Bobs side.. however, I
>was really surprised at how badly written Hype is.. unless Bob was
>trying for a Mills & Boon style sales explosion.. in which case it
>literary genius.. :)

I don't remember 'Hype' being poorly written. I do remember that the style
was very basic, with no frills, and nothing to particularly recommend it,
but it's 15 years since I read it.

On the subject of the 'Calvert v. Moorcock' feud - every hostile comment I
can remember reading or hearing was from MM's side. I only had very
peripheral contact with either of them, but in the tapes MM sent me, he had
a couple of digs at Bob's 'foaming at the mouth' on various occaisions, and
so on; I remember him ending another interview with the entirely out of
context quip: "And sod Bob Calvert!", and on another occaision claiming that
Calvert had 'stolen' The Black Corridor, which is rather silly, considering
it's credited to Moorcock on the album. Having said that, if one of the
things that he was pissed off about is what I seem to remember it was, I can
imagine why he might have been poorly disposed towards RC. But the stuff,
after his death, about how he ought to have stuck to music just seemed a bit
grouchy to me. Plus I think Calvert's music was effective partly _because_
of its 'literary pretensions' - in the same sense that Moorcock's writing
was often effective because of its pop cultural and rock inclinations. With
a bit of hindsight, it's easy to see they were both actually working to
break down the barriers between the two forms, and it seems rather
ridiculous, from the perspective of 2000, to be griping at someone for
crossing genre or media boundaries. Perhaps he just meant that Calvert might
have been more successful if he'd had a narrower focus, but I dunno - he was
doing what he wanted. Maybe it's a bit hard to hold up some tangible memento
of 'The Kid from Silicon Gulch' noawadays, but that's just because we're
used to the conventions of Rock, which involve some physical,
mass-reproduced object. How many rock artists (or artists of any kind) have
produced work in so many different media and forms?  Rock music,
music/poetry combinations, music/comedy sketch, social documentation, the
novel, stand-up comedy, printed poetry, stage shows, and theatre. Am I
forgetting something?

>Now, I`d say Calvert was a better songwriter than Moorcock is an
>author... <cat, pigeons.....>

Well I think Moorcock's a very good writer indeed, but I suppose it depends
on what your criteria are. For instance, I'm in awe of the sheer pace at
which he writes - both in terms of the time it takes (or used to take) him
to finish a book (I think some of those early Eternal Champion books were
literally written in a couple of days), and by the _pace_ of the things. In
this era of horribly flabby 1200-page part-threes of some trilogy or other,
in which it's common to wade through 20 turgid pages of listening to
someone's interior monologue about military strategies, or the rich tableau
unfolding while someone has their horse shod, it's amazingly invigourating
to go back and read a 120 page novel, which hurtles along like a Ramones
song, and  still manages to feel 'epic'. He had an economy of narrative
style, which personally I'd like to see a lot more of in that genre.

I disagree on the latter Elric books being better. If anything, I think a
little of that fantasy flab was starting to creepinto them, and I didn't
enjoy the mellower approach at all. 'Stormbringer' stomps the later books,
AFAIC. But I mean, the guy turned the genre totally on its head with that
book when he was about 22. What do you do for an encore? :/  I don't mean
that 'Stormbringer' was outstanding because it was written in some rush of
youthful enthusiasm: I think it's a sophisticated book, with a lot of
thought behind it. In fact, I think Moorcock quite consciously set out to
invert the whole Arthurian myth-cycle, and drew not only on the more
well-known parts of the legend, but even on obscure medieval texts like the
French 'La Chanson de Roland' (which is where he got The Horn of Fate from.
It's even still called 'Oliphant'). I wrote an article on this once, which
I'll put up on my website if anyone wants to read it, rather tha bore
everyne with it here.

--
Tim Gadd
Hobart, Tasmania