This interview was a shock. I’d kind of imagined Moorcock as simultaneously living in multiple personas in multiple planes, many of them degenerate and decadent. I’m having a hard time picturing him in a single locality in a place as prosaic as Texas.
These days Moorcock lives in Texas, in the town of Bastrop, just outside Austin. It’s always a risk to meet one’s heroes, and a small Texas town seemed an inhospitable spot for a writer who, throughout all his multifarious work, has retained a specifically English sensibility. Mummery, the knowingly named central character of Mother London (who shares much biographical information with his creator), says "London is my mother, source of most of my ambivalences and most of my loyalties." I wondered if I would find a writer in exile, or adrift.
Instead, I discover Moorcock with his feet up in the den of a charming Victorian house, surrounded by books, cats and a clutter of antique furniture. He is tall, impressively bearded, though less Falstaffian than some of his publicity photos. Why did he and his wife move to Texas? "We’d lived in England for 15 years, and Linda was sick of it. She used to get shit all the time just for being American. I didn’t want to live somewhere that was an enclave of the British abroad. I thought: where am I going to get the most experience and hear what people really think?"
I started reading Moorcock with the Elric stories, but for those of you with an appreciation of blasphemy, you must read his Behold the Man. Nothing I’ve ever written is even close to the contemptuous sacrilege in that story. I loved it.
Can we be sure this is the Moorcock of this universe, and not one who has jumped here from another one? “Ours” might be sitting in London laughing his head off that no one knows the truth.
Yeah, if I had to name ten SF books that most influenced/impressed me, Behold the Man would definitely be in there.
I had no idea he was still alive, actually.
re @3:
I just recently bought a “graphic novel” of the first book of the Elric series. Moorcock was asked if he liked the illustrations, and said he liked it a lot. He didn’t participate at all, but seriously approved of their rendering of his novel. The artists were asked if they intended to do all 5 of the series. They replied they’ve only contracted the first 4 but are looking forward to doing the 5th as well. Moorcock did not object and said he was willing if they had the energy to do so.
TL;DR: yes, Moorcock is definitely still walking the Earth. Only Corum is multiplanar.
I knew this because Aron and me really want to move to the Austin area, and Bastrop seemed charming. Moorcock (also a fan)and the Undertaker live there. Aron could give him some competition.
I’ve always assumed he still haunted Ladbroke Grove
Who said his Texas home isn’t merely one of his many multiversial abodes?
***
I thought this book rather Meeish: I prefer by far the Dancers at the End of Time series
I first read “Behold the Man” when I was in high school. I think the right expression for my reaction is “gob-smacked.” It was startling that anyone dared write anything so dismissively and casually blasphemous. (Philip José Farmer was still sublimating his Christ obsession by über-cautiously pussyfooting about and requiring his readers to figure out the identity of the character he called X. This was years before Jesus on Mars.) I recall being naughtily delighted at Moorcock’s effrontery and simultaneously a little offended. A weird feeling. The “offended” part went away.
I read Behold the Man early in my recovery from Catholicism.
It creeped the hell out of me.
It’s been more than 40 years, maybe I should read it again.
He’s been here for some time too. He was already here when I moved there in ’97. Met him a few times at bookstores in Austin. Cool dude.
While I served in the U.S. Navy during the ’70s Michael Moorcock was on a short list of Science Fiction authors that I collected. At one time I owned his entire bibliography.
About 10 years ago I drastically culled my library and sold a great deal of my collected SF, including nearly all of my Moorcock books. I only kept my Mayflower edition of Behold The Man.
I still think I made the right choice.
Somehow, I’m not surprised that someone who wrote material for Hawkwind ended up in Texas.
As for his books, I was more partial to the two Corum triologies.
I always used to say that if I were Osama Bin Ladin and I wanted to make sure I never got caught, I would shave my beard and move to New York . Michael Moorcock moving to Bastrop is roughly analogous. Bastrop is where people who think Killeen is too Liberal live.
I hadn’t realized he was still in Texas. For some reason I always think of him as moving from place to place. Can’t imagine why.
Yeah, I read Elric. And Corum. And Dorian Hawkmoon. And Behold the Man. And pretty much everything else. Some of the more recent things I’ve read were a little talky.
Yeah, the “multiverse” has become a foundational idea, but what he really did was pick up on some subtexts (or maybe not so sub) in Fritz Leiber (maybe or maybe not consciously) and point modern heroic fantasy in an entirely new direction. (He said at one point that he started writing the Elric stories as a reaction against Tolkien.) He paved the way for people like Glen Cook and Steven Erikson. I call it “fantasy noir.” Hail to the anti-hero.
What’s wrong with Texas?
I mean I live in Texas, and not even near Austin (which isn’t really Texas anyway, but a bit of CA that got misplaced).
ask Don Mcleroy.
Yes I heard about it shortly after he moved. Something to do with his asthma from what I remember in Locus.