Michael Moorcock: The Vengeance of Rome (2006)

Edition: Jonathan Cape, 2006
Review number: 1313

After twenty-five years, the final volume of the Pyat Quartet has now at last appeared; it has spent almost all that time listed at the front of Moorcock's publications as "in preparation". The quartet as a whole must rank as one of the most ambitious novel series of the period, as well as one of the most slowly written; not content with being a historical narrative of the first half of the twentieth century, Moorcock has immersed himself in the repellent personality of Maxim Pyat and produced a study of how such a person appears to themselves while making it clear how others perceive them at the same time.

The story of The Vengeance of Rome takes Pyat from a fugitive in Morocco - the ending of the previous volume - to friendship with Mussolini in Fascist Italy, and then close links with the Nazi hierarchy in thirties Germany (extremely close in some cases), through imprisonment in the camp at Dachau to eventually meeting the young Moorcock while running a second hand clothes shop near Notting Hill in the sixties.

Like many historical novels, a lot of the fascination in this series lies in the way in which Pyat's story is threaded into the major events of the time. Though the most obvious counterpart to the quartet may seem to be George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series, the tone here is much more serious, and Pyat's character and role in history are both far more ambiguous. At the heart of the whole series, and emphasised particularly in this final novel, is the conflict between Pyat's anti-Semitism and his appearance: being constantly taken for a Jew is not a good thing in thirties Italy and Germany.

The conceit of the series is that the novels are in fact memoirs edited together by Moorcock from Pyat's papers and memories of conversations the two of them had. There is an introductory page, which suggests that the main task of the (fictional) editorial hand has had to try to harmonise conflicting accounts. One of the usual characteristics of Moorcock's fantasy genre writing is that he positively revels in incompatible versions of stories; this is particularly clear in the recent Second Ether trilogy, each of which treats incompatibility in a different way. So this is a somewhat ironic statement, one of many in The Vengeance of Rome of various different kinds.

One of the most interesting of these, because it reveals a lot about the character and the author's attitude to him, occurs when Pyat is interrogated by the SS about his career as an inventor: "I invented it all", he says, apparently without realising what this suggests about his history; and yet Moorcock also states in the introduction that he found corroborating evidence for many of the incidents that initially seemed most fabulous; this is clearly a deliberate contradiction. The reader, of course, knows that this is fiction, but it is being presented as true as any memoirs - with hints like this that it is at the very least, significantly embellished.

Moorcock fans may have wished to see the quartet completed more quickly, but there are obvious reasons why the novels would be difficult to write (and those obvious reasons may not of course have affected the author, no matter how strongly the novels may suggest them). These are the requirements of historical research and the repellent personality of Pyat already mentioned, together with the difficulty of writing from the point of view of an individual whose opinions in almost every subject seem to be diametrically opposed to those of the author. (Moorcock's own views can be read in the essays in The Opium General, for example, or on his website, Moorcock's Miscellany - currently down after attacks by hackers, an event that is itself something of a commentary on his views.)

It is possible to see the Pyat quartet as a sustained attack on racism. Indeed, the idea that an anti-Semite is so unable to see that Jewish people are just as human as he is leads him to be unable to perceive his own Jewishness is a barbed comment on the stupidity of such a view. But there is much more to it than that, and ranks as Moorcock's literary masterpiece, as The Dancers at the End of Time is its equivalent in the science fiction genre.

Michael Moorcock: Byzantium Endures (1981)

Edition: Fontana, 1982
Review number: 1173

The creation of Maxim Pyatniski, or Colonel Pyat, is Moorcock's supreme piece of literary artistry. Many writers, even some of the best, find it hard to write a convincing, three dimensional character who has a different voice from their own. In Pyat, Moorcock's aim seems to be a narrator who is the diametrical opposite of himself in as many ways as possible. The one thing he is unable to do is to make him admirable or sympathetic - he is rabidly anti-Semitic, self-aggrandizing, foolish, vain, cocaine-addicted (and that is just what comes across in his own autobiographical narrative).

Byzantium Endures is the first of four lengthy novels, which means that it is possible to pursue Pyat's repellent personality at great length through the twentieth century. Myself, I find that a relatively small quantity of this goes a long way, despite the fascinating backgrounds (in this case, Russia just before the Communist revolution and during the subsequent civil war). This feeling was exacerbated by not having read the series in the correct order, as I purchased them as I found them in bookshops, and so there weren't really any surprises by the time I worked back to the first of them. By warned - the impact of Byzantium Endures is drastically reduced by doing this. Even taking this into account, I think that some of Moorcock's less ambitious writing is more successful, and certainly more congenial.

Michael Moorcock: Jerusalem Commands (1992)

Edition: Phoenix, 1996
Review number: 905

The third Pyat novel is largely set in North Africa, where he travels, in the guise of Hollywood star Max Peters, to make a film on location in Egypt. It is a real exhibition of Moorcock's talent as well as a superb evocation of twenties life.

As the series progresses, the extent to which Pyat's memoirs are fantasy becomes more apparent. The unpleasantness of his views and his total self-centredness have never been in doubt, but continue to be underlined. He manages to proceed from one self-wrought disaster to another, but still remains convinced that all his visions will come true, that he only fails through the treachery of others and the determination of the Jews to destroy him. (One thing which isn't quite clear, deliberately, is how much the attitudes of the old man writing his memoirs in Notting Hill in the mid seventies are imputed to his twenty five year old self, as though nothing has changed.)

Though Flashman remains the clearest influence, in this particular novel T.E. Lawrence is clearly a reference point. In the section on Pyat's captivity and degradation at the hands of the man who insists that he be called "God", de Sade is also important. As before in this set of novels, though, Moorcock distils something different from his influences, creating a powerful historical narrative and character study.

Michael Moorcock: The Laughter of Carthage (1984)

Edition: Phoenix, 1994
Review number: 887

The second of the Pyat novels - centred around a minor character who originally appeared in the Cornelius Quartet - takes his story from his escape from the collapsing Russia of the civil war which followed the 1917 revolution to a new life in the States. He is as unpleasant a character as ever, definite proof (if any were needed) that the narrators of novels do not have to reflect the views of the author. In this novel, Pyat becomes involved with the Klu Klux Klan, and this is just an extension of his racist views from his earlier condemnation of Jews and Turks. The racism of our past is easily forgotten; it can be seen in the writers who have survived - Kipling, Buchan and Haggard, and to a greater extent two of the most popular twentieth century authors of all, Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie - but is even clearer in those who have now basically been forgotten or whose politics have been overshadowed by what they did (such as film director D.W. Griffith).

It is relatively easy to see why Moorcock wanted to write about Pyat despite his lack of sympathy with the kind of views he would give the character. It can be very difficult for those who would be called liberals to understand the way that people like Pyat think, and Moorcock has certainly managed to give an insight into the paranoid world of conspiracy theories these people often espouse. (The title refers to this; Carthage is Pyat's term for the "decadent" Eastern and African influences which in his view were at this time constantly trying to bring down the virtuous white civilization.) Ironically, while constantly bemoaning the way in which most people have been hoodwinked into thinking these conspiracies non-existent, Pyat is constantly being the innocent dupe - assuming his memoirs to be honest - of others who use him to front fraudulent schemes.

The von Bek novels, particularly The City in the Autumn Stars, demonstrated that Moorcock had the ability to write great historical novels as well as atmospheric fantasy. In the Pyat series, this talent is fully realised. In The Laughter of Carthage, we have a meticulously researched insight into the past. There may be similarities to Flashman, but these are mainly because of the antiheroic central character; this series is stronger, more hard hitting.