'The Last Enchantment' – Michael Moorcock

So my 'Elric Re-Read' is going about as well as you'd expect, given all the other stuff that is taking large chunks out of my reading time (no commute, working from home, all the usual bits and pieces). I'm not out of the game yet though so I thought I'd tackle it from a slightly different direction this time. I couldn't tell you what the first Moorcock book that I read was but I do know that 'The Last Enchantment' was the first Elric story that I came across, during a 'Library Lesson' in my first year of high school. I first read it in 'Elric at the End of Time' and am now reading it from the Del Rey collection, 'To Rescue Tanelorn' (which I have signed by the man himself, which is awesome).

I'd say that 'The Last Enchantment' was at least partly responsible for my reading now so lets go and take a look at it, shall we?

Siletah Slorg is a man on the run, for his life, from the Hungry Whisperers and in a situation like this, the man you absolutely want to run into is Elric of Melnibone. Elric isn't interested in helping though and leaves Slorg to his fate. Before he dies though, Slorg uses the last gift of his patron god to send Elric into a realm of Chaos. The gods of Chaos will happily send Elric back but first he must create something that the gods, with all their powers of creation, have never thought to create themselves. And it must be a joke and a paradox, all in one...

'The Last Enchantment' is all of fourteen pages long, in my edition, but as seems to be the case with Moorcock's shorter work, there is a lot to unpack here.

The opening pages are pure horror with a man running from monstrous beings that you never see, only hear. What they whisper though is no less horrifying now than it was when an eleven year old me read this story for the first time. The frantic pace and allusions to something hideous hook the reader right from the start; I knew what was coming and it was still incredibly easy to get into the flow of what was happening here and just go with it. This is dark fantasy from way before GRRM's ice zombies came down from the North and it does its job superbly.

And then the reader realises that Slorg isn't the main character in this piece at all; it's an Elric tale and despite his entrance, Elric's introductory description lets us know right away that Slorg may not get out of this alive after all. This is a really interesting approach given that we know that Elric is a reluctant hero at best, I guess that this time he just didn't fancy it? I think this is a timely reminder that Elric has a Melnibonean side that will influence his choices just as much as his human side. Whatever it is, Elric makes the wrong decision in leaving Slorg to his fate and that where we move on to the main part of the story.

Elric's forced move to the realm of Chaos is a bt of a jarring shift from from frantic horror to slightly familiar fantasy surroundings. There's nothing wrong with this but the pace shifts gear a little too abruptly and we're almost in cruising speed now which dampens the sense of urgency to Elric's predicament. And I think that's what bugs me about 'The Last Enchantment', there's no real urgency to the bits where the stakes are supposed to be high. Elric is just too clever for his own good here and a riddle that's supposed to be a big deal ends up being, well... not.

Moorcock's commentary on the restrictive nature of Chaos does throw a new light on the story and in that respect, 'The Last Enchantment' is well worth the read.as we get to see Chaos bought low by its greatest champion (another facet to the contradictory and 'heroic' nature of Elric). 'The Last Enchantment' doesn't leave a lot of room for this though so you have to grab it while it's there, which isn't for long.

'The Last Enchantment' was very much a story of two halves (on this re-read anyway). The first half grabs you right from the start and is a great narrative hook for the rest of the story. The second half tailed off a bit, for me, but on the whole, 'The Last Enchantment' isn't a bad read at all, giving rhe reader another insight into what makes Elric tick and maybe even hinting at who really holds the power in the conflict between men and gods...