Subject: Roderick MacLeish: Prince Ombra

From: [email-masked] (Dani Zweig)
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 1994 22:19:07 GMT

I first saw Roderick MacLeish's "Prince Ombra" on a library bookshelf over
a decade ago:  I gathered from the cover that it was a reworking of "eternal
hero is reborn to refight his eternal battle with eternal evil" admixed
with fuzzy mysticism, and spent several years passing it over in favor of
more promising fare, in which category I included the Matthew Looney books.
A couple of weeks ago, though, I was in a bookstore that was having a quarter-
price sale, and Christina, who was also there, told me that for the kind
of book it was (i.e., my interpretation of the cover was substantially
correct), it was surprisingly good.  So I got it.  And it was.  Deft writing
redeems what would otherwise be a hopelessly fuzzy premise, and the author
doesn't belabor that premise in such a way as to often provoke a cynical 
reaction.

What makes the book work is that the battleground for this round of the
eternal battle is extremely limited:  A nine-year-old boy will or will not
have the strength to overcome a particularly nasty self-doubt; town gossip
will destroy a girl or it won't; a couple will overcome its misunderstings
or not.  Only in the background do we see that the ups and downs of this
battle are reflected in the strength or weakness of world peace and that
adverse local shifts in public opinion or private attitudes are accompanied
by heightened international tensions and the danger of war:  If the story
ends with a little boy accidentally killed, nobody will ever make the
connection between that incident and the global darkness that will follow.

The premise is still fuzzier and more...pompous...than I care for.  It's
hard not to cringe at "His seven brains, which radiate all the world's sin
and grief, existed as conceptions of themselves.... Ombra's seventh brain,
in which the fury of the cosmos is stored, brightened in the choleric
anticipation of battle."  But by focusing on an extremely small stage,
MacLeish reaps several benefits.  He retains his mythological back-story
without having to contend with mythologized or larger-than-life characters;
he offers a new and accessible story, rather than yet another reworking;
and he makes an effective moral about the scope of the batle against evil.

The book is still what its cover suggests it is -- fuzzy, mystical, and at
the same time much closer to mainstream fiction than to the mainstream of
fantasy -- but those for whom this is not a serious impediment will find
that it does a good job at being what it is.

%A MacLeish, Roderick
%T Prince Ombra
%I Tor
%C New York
%D 1982 (recently reissued in trade pb)
%G ISBN 0-812-54550
%P 379pp
%O $3.50 

-----
Dani Zweig
[email-masked] 

   "You have the reputation of being one of the nicest guys in the field.
    We both know you're a hyena on its hind legs.  How have you fooled
    everyone?"  "By keeping my mouth shut when I read garbage" -- Gene Wolfe