Quote:
Originally Posted by Alfirin
I understand that on a certain level, the "life is a chess game" concept may have some appeal to some, but taking it to the level of, at the end of the game, putting all the same pieces back on the board and starting the game all over again leaves me flat.
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Quite understandable. It's sort of interesting as a twist of convention, but that's it. What I liked about TWO wasn't the plot but, as I said above, the characters and, horribile dictu, the writing.
I've got to add a disclaimer here: I haven't yet read TWO in the original, only in two German translations, one of which was in more or less modern literary German while the other tried to reproduce Eddison's artificial archaism, but of these two I preferred the latter. I got the impression that E. uses archaism successfully to create a certain atmosphere both lofty and remote - e.g. calling a crocodile a
crokindrell takes us back to a time where a crocodile wasn't to be seen in every zoo and made into handbags, but a mythical beast of the same order as a manticore or a hippogryff. But I withhold final judgment of his prose until I've read him in his own language (praise be to Project Gutenberg!).
One thing I dislike about the book is how he uses Demon, Goblin, Imp etc. as mere names for various humanoid races which don't seem to differ that much. When I hear
Demon I expect to see a being of the under- or otherworld, not just a handsome heroic humanoid with decorative horns slapped on.