No exactamente lo que me esperaba… Moorcock apelando a sus obsesiones de siempre (la infancia de entreguerras, el arquetipo del hermano traidor, el Orden como fuerza represora frente al Caos como libertad creadora) pero escritas como si Dickens hubiera vivido la Revolución Rusa.

Para el Coronel Pyat, Moorcock vuelve a jugar la carta de la provocación, al igual que en "Gloriana", cediendo el papel protagonista a un personaje amoral y sin escrúpulos. Pyat es un personaje que no se detiene ante nada, pero, al estar narrada en primera persona, la novela se convierte en una ventana abierta a sus contradicciones. Un xenófobo, un cocainómano, un cobarde capaz de cambiar de bando cada vez que se encuentra ante la mínima dificultad, y que se auto justifica a cada paso. Quizás la creación de Pyat sea la aportación más original y destacable de "Bizancio Perdura" a la literatura moorcockiana. ¿Pero qué más se puede esperar de los siguientes tres volúmenes?

I'm not sure quite how to review this book, but I'll take a deep breath and give it a shot. So. Michael Moorcock is one of my favorite sci-fi and fantasy/sword-and-sorcery authors of all time. He was also important to Gary Gygax, who included him on the Appendix N list of authors and works who helped inspire the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. BUT . . . this isn't a work of fantasy, exactly, nor sci-fi exactly (although versions of our Unreliable Narrator protagonist, "Colonel Pyat," have appeared in sci-fi/fantasy works by Moorcock), nor is it exactly historical fiction. It somewhat defies genre, by design. The work has been compared to the work of James Joyce, particularly Ulysses, and I can see that comparison, and even more so, Colonel Pyat resembles Ulysses himself, Odysseus, in that he is a liar and a scoundrel, telling his own story from his own point of view, but it is left to the reader to decide what they think are lies and truth, if those terms have any meaning, here. Pyat is an anti-hero (as is typical of Moorcock) - he is a terrible person, a rabid anti-Semite (though half Jewish himself, which he takes pains to deny), a liar and a turncoat who switches sides as it is convenient, a drug addict (particuarly cocaine) . . . not someone to admire or emulate, and his terrible views are verifiably the opposite of Moorcock's own. Pyat was allegedly born in Ukraine on January 1st, 1900, and he in some ways is a personification of the 20th century's worst aspects, especially the strife of Eastern Europe and central Eurasia, in this volume. I should note that this book is not truly, formally part of Appendix N, which was compiled in the late 1970s (this book was first published in 1981). The title refers to the ideals to which Pyat claims to cling, an Eastern Orthodox Christian faith and a Greek Roman imperialism which had passed the torch of empire to the Slavs, particularly Russia before the revolution. He sees this idealized Eastern Europe as the bulwark of civilization against the "savagery" he perceives is Orientals (not just Asians, but Semites, including Arabs and Muslims of all sorts) and Africans (he is a racist who apparently views black people as subhuman) - the second volume is entitled The Laughter of Carthage, referring to what Pyat sees as the symbolic antithesis of civilization (Carthage was a city founded by Semites in North Africa, that rivaled Ancient Greece and Rome, and so stands as the symbol of evil against the Byzantium used as a symbol of civilization that has passed from Greece to Rome to Russia). This book is dense and Byzantine (if you'll forgive the turn of phrase), and hard to follow at times with Pyat's rambling and ranting and outright lies about himself (though what that means in a fictional narrative . . .?), and harder to read with Pyat's racist views. Sadly, he is in many ways a fitting personification of the first 3 quarters of the 20th century, with all its horrors, and really, this book is mostly about his life up through the Russian revolution, so worse is yet to come . . .

pyat is probably the most inhabited "unreliable narrator" voice I have ever encountered. I love his confused rants about slavic blood and socialism and The Jews. I love his obvious lies, his tall tales about heroic deeds, or how some lowly scum without his purity of vision ruined his plans at the last moment, and that's why you never read about his brilliant death ray atop st George's cathedral in the history books. I love his mental and emotional fragility; you can imagine an old pyat in his shop in Westminster, weathered and diseased, collecting bile and hurt all day at work from young people who laugh at his racist conspiratorial pamphlets, then going home and scribbling out furious recollections of his youthful importance - his coke fueled sexual escapades and no less coke fueled tromps through the war torn sundered Russian Empire. he is a living, breathing figure, and moorcock understands how he thinks on a deep level. I won't go into current geopolitical implications of pyat's stances here except to say that this is an illuminating book for a set of views that is more widely held than any of us would like to admit. I can't wait to see what this sick freak gets up to next!!!!

"Unreliable narrator" novels are nothing new, but rarely has an unreliable narrator been as venal, monstrous, pathetic, treacherous, or steeped in self-loathing as Colonel Pyat. Not all readers will be able to stomach the life story of this bullshitter who's long since drunk his own kool-aid and seems overly anxious to persuade the reader he isn't Jewish... but those who can won't be able to look away. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2013/01/13/the-king-of-the-frauds/

Jack Isidore of Seville, CA* as played in the film adaptation by Rade Serbedzija, telling the story of the Russian Revolution from the barstool next to you, with lots of antisemetic rants and flights of nostalgic fancy. Doesn't sound too interesting, but actually weirdly fascinating. There are three sequels. But I need a break.

*See Philip K. Dick's Confessions of a Crap Artist