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A review by cartoonmicah
The Well at the World's End by Wiliam Morris, Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology by William Morris
3.0
Lewis and Tolkien both mentioned The Well At The World’s End often when discussing their own reading, so it was added to my reading list long ago. It’s quite the saga and very difficult to find a copy of in my experience, so the only attempt I ever made in the past was cut short by the exhaustion of reading lengthy medieval literature on a computer screen. After a length of years, I came back to make a fresh start. I found a Librevox recording of all for books of the novel and though some of the recordings were lacking, the otherwise inaccessible novel was a great gift from those readers.
Well was a sort of revival of medieval style written around the Sherlock Holmes era. Morris employs a lot of arcane language and really gets the storytelling and all the elements just right to make this feel much older. Or at least to the extent that someone in my position can be deceived, his work does the trick. He goes into far deeper detail than most of the older works, but he develops his story and language in a convincing way.
Ralph is the youngest of four princes of Upmeads, a tiny kingdom of rolling green pastures and easy living. When he and his older brothers decide to go out to the four points of the compass and explore the world in search of adventures, he draws the short straw and is destined to stay home with his dotting parents. But that doesn’t stop our young fool-hearty hero. Before the dust from his brothers’ steeds can settle, Ralph steals away to the south in the only direction left to him. From here, he begins a journey of seemingly random encounters in lands which become stranger as he travels on toward the edge of the world.
Ralph Of Upmeads has two things going for him. He is incredibly lucky (everyone always says he has the look of luck about him) and incredibly handsome (every women looks longingly upon him). Luckily for Ralph, every venture he takes on is impossible unless you’re a man whom every woman falls in love with. So Ralph meets new people haphazardly and tries to understand their governments and to whom he should be friend and to whom foe. He experiences democracies and anarchy, bandits and slavery and all sorts of morally nebulous sorcery, sometimes having strong opinions and sometimes seemingly passive in what he is told and experiencing. While he comes in contact with all sorts of moral dilemmas, Ralph is no Galahad. He rarely shows a strong moral opinion that is not emotionally based. He says he is unfamiliar with thralldom (human trafficking and slavery) in his home lands, but only shows opinions about it when it involves himself or his friends. When it involves anyone he cares for, he always attempts to do the more chivalrous thing. He acquires a slave in battle and befriends the wild forest man to both of their advantages, eventually freeing him and assisting him on his way. Even so, his chivalry seems to be based solely on what effects himself, his friends, and his beloved.
Love and lust reign heavily in this story. Every woman is in love with Ralph and he falls for a few beauties, some enchanted with a beauty that makes all men war for lust over her. Ralph fights men who are killing their best friends over her jealously guarded glances. I had a hard time as a reader figuring out if she was going to be an evil character because all hell broke loose around her everywhere she went. The state of her admirers and those who fled from her reminded me of the effects of the one ring in LOTR. Even so, this elfin sorceress is apparently benign in her motives and of course, she falls head over heels in love with ol’ Ralph. The one eternally lusted after finally fell for the hot new boy. Even so, nothing comes out as planned.
Ralph goes away a lucky foolish beauty and comes home an enchanted future King with a magical bride at his side. In the middle, he falls in love, experiences loss, visits about 15 different kingdoms, travels to the edge of the world across barren lands, and comes back through all of it, helping here and there to clean things up a bit. As he nears home, he finds the kingdoms nearby in disarray and the fallout is upsetting things at Upmeads.
I was a bit surprised by the levels of sexual tension in this story. It really puts the modern romance novel into perspective when you read a classical romance like this one. It feels like a fertility myth where a youthful beauty finds he is destined to greatness because of his physical form. Finding the perfect match in feminine beauty, he reaches mythical status when he risks perils to gain the blessings of the well at the world’s end. Now he has hundreds of years of life ahead of him, a glowing countenance, and a dim foresight of future events. He and his bride have used their insane beauty to become all the more rich and powerful and love-lived and fertile.
The Well At The World’s End somehow manages to meld the worlds of Middleearth and Narnia with those of the soap opera and modern romance novels. And it does all of this in an epically long saga that feels haphazard and uneven, using language most people could not comprehend. I liked it well enough in most parts., but I doubt you would.
Well was a sort of revival of medieval style written around the Sherlock Holmes era. Morris employs a lot of arcane language and really gets the storytelling and all the elements just right to make this feel much older. Or at least to the extent that someone in my position can be deceived, his work does the trick. He goes into far deeper detail than most of the older works, but he develops his story and language in a convincing way.
Ralph is the youngest of four princes of Upmeads, a tiny kingdom of rolling green pastures and easy living. When he and his older brothers decide to go out to the four points of the compass and explore the world in search of adventures, he draws the short straw and is destined to stay home with his dotting parents. But that doesn’t stop our young fool-hearty hero. Before the dust from his brothers’ steeds can settle, Ralph steals away to the south in the only direction left to him. From here, he begins a journey of seemingly random encounters in lands which become stranger as he travels on toward the edge of the world.
Ralph Of Upmeads has two things going for him. He is incredibly lucky (everyone always says he has the look of luck about him) and incredibly handsome (every women looks longingly upon him). Luckily for Ralph, every venture he takes on is impossible unless you’re a man whom every woman falls in love with. So Ralph meets new people haphazardly and tries to understand their governments and to whom he should be friend and to whom foe. He experiences democracies and anarchy, bandits and slavery and all sorts of morally nebulous sorcery, sometimes having strong opinions and sometimes seemingly passive in what he is told and experiencing. While he comes in contact with all sorts of moral dilemmas, Ralph is no Galahad. He rarely shows a strong moral opinion that is not emotionally based. He says he is unfamiliar with thralldom (human trafficking and slavery) in his home lands, but only shows opinions about it when it involves himself or his friends. When it involves anyone he cares for, he always attempts to do the more chivalrous thing. He acquires a slave in battle and befriends the wild forest man to both of their advantages, eventually freeing him and assisting him on his way. Even so, his chivalry seems to be based solely on what effects himself, his friends, and his beloved.
Love and lust reign heavily in this story. Every woman is in love with Ralph and he falls for a few beauties, some enchanted with a beauty that makes all men war for lust over her. Ralph fights men who are killing their best friends over her jealously guarded glances. I had a hard time as a reader figuring out if she was going to be an evil character because all hell broke loose around her everywhere she went. The state of her admirers and those who fled from her reminded me of the effects of the one ring in LOTR. Even so, this elfin sorceress is apparently benign in her motives and of course, she falls head over heels in love with ol’ Ralph. The one eternally lusted after finally fell for the hot new boy. Even so, nothing comes out as planned.
Ralph goes away a lucky foolish beauty and comes home an enchanted future King with a magical bride at his side. In the middle, he falls in love, experiences loss, visits about 15 different kingdoms, travels to the edge of the world across barren lands, and comes back through all of it, helping here and there to clean things up a bit. As he nears home, he finds the kingdoms nearby in disarray and the fallout is upsetting things at Upmeads.
I was a bit surprised by the levels of sexual tension in this story. It really puts the modern romance novel into perspective when you read a classical romance like this one. It feels like a fertility myth where a youthful beauty finds he is destined to greatness because of his physical form. Finding the perfect match in feminine beauty, he reaches mythical status when he risks perils to gain the blessings of the well at the world’s end. Now he has hundreds of years of life ahead of him, a glowing countenance, and a dim foresight of future events. He and his bride have used their insane beauty to become all the more rich and powerful and love-lived and fertile.
The Well At The World’s End somehow manages to meld the worlds of Middleearth and Narnia with those of the soap opera and modern romance novels. And it does all of this in an epically long saga that feels haphazard and uneven, using language most people could not comprehend. I liked it well enough in most parts., but I doubt you would.