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remcovanstraten's review
2.0
I abandoned this one.
Meek Harold Shea, looking for his fairy bride, first finds himself in Coleridge's Xanadu, alongside some quasi-comical sidekicks. How DeCamp and Pratt treat Xanadu is pretty racist and sexist - some of that will be inherent in the source poem, but the contemporary commentary, such as it is, doesn't make it better.
Then Shea and company get transported to the world of Orlando Furioso, where to the titular iron castle of the wizard Atlantes. At this point I started to leaf furiosoly through the book, whether there'd be any mention of Bradamante, the female knight at King Charlemagne's court. She does appear, 20 pages near the end: "The knight faulted down and Shea realized that 'he' was a handsome, brown-haired woman of show-girl size." Ah, well then.
I'm sure that DeCamp, writing his draft, found himself clever and funny, and that he and senior partner Pratt had a lot of fun writing these Harold Shea tales. I found their humour rather smug and self-congratulatory, and their protagonist pretty annoying. It's fine to do something with older source material, even to critique it - but it seems to me that DeCamp/Pratt don't really respect their sources, and are mostly out to show how clever and more refined they are. And with their 1940s attitudes, that really doesn't hold up - they have become the outmoded relics they mock.
Meek Harold Shea, looking for his fairy bride, first finds himself in Coleridge's Xanadu, alongside some quasi-comical sidekicks. How DeCamp and Pratt treat Xanadu is pretty racist and sexist - some of that will be inherent in the source poem, but the contemporary commentary, such as it is, doesn't make it better.
Then Shea and company get transported to the world of Orlando Furioso, where to the titular iron castle of the wizard Atlantes. At this point I started to leaf furiosoly through the book, whether there'd be any mention of Bradamante, the female knight at King Charlemagne's court. She does appear, 20 pages near the end: "The knight faulted down and Shea realized that 'he' was a handsome, brown-haired woman of show-girl size." Ah, well then.
I'm sure that DeCamp, writing his draft, found himself clever and funny, and that he and senior partner Pratt had a lot of fun writing these Harold Shea tales. I found their humour rather smug and self-congratulatory, and their protagonist pretty annoying. It's fine to do something with older source material, even to critique it - but it seems to me that DeCamp/Pratt don't really respect their sources, and are mostly out to show how clever and more refined they are. And with their 1940s attitudes, that really doesn't hold up - they have become the outmoded relics they mock.
chalicotherex's review
1.0
"Maybe the guy's a sadist. According to all the correlations, abnormal sex patterns should be common in this Moslem society where they keep all respectable women locked up. Besides his personality reminds me of that sadist we used as a case study—you know the one I mean—that real-estate fellow the SPCA got after."
Implying bestiality is a bit much. At any rate, it's outside of the spirit of Orlando Furioso. Also one of the psychologist heroes is called the Rubber Czech and he's Jar-Jar Binks-level stupid. And there's all that annoying, phoney not-quite-middle-english that people once used to signal Ye Olden Times.
Quite disappointed. Was really hoping someone in the twentieth century cared about Orlando Furioso, but apparently not. I doubt the authors read more than a synopsis of it (though there probably wasn't a good translation at the time).
It's a shame because I liked the premise: scientists/psychologists who travel to alternate realities based on works of literature. And there is one pretty good slam at the beginning: they want to learn more about the universe based on Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, but can't enter it for plot reasons, and opt instead for Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, whose universe operates on a similar logic because Spenser lifted all the best bits from it.
Quit less than half way in. Might return to it someday but I don't know.
Implying bestiality is a bit much. At any rate, it's outside of the spirit of Orlando Furioso. Also one of the psychologist heroes is called the Rubber Czech and he's Jar-Jar Binks-level stupid. And there's all that annoying, phoney not-quite-middle-english that people once used to signal Ye Olden Times.
Quite disappointed. Was really hoping someone in the twentieth century cared about Orlando Furioso, but apparently not. I doubt the authors read more than a synopsis of it (though there probably wasn't a good translation at the time).
It's a shame because I liked the premise: scientists/psychologists who travel to alternate realities based on works of literature. And there is one pretty good slam at the beginning: they want to learn more about the universe based on Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, but can't enter it for plot reasons, and opt instead for Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, whose universe operates on a similar logic because Spenser lifted all the best bits from it.
Quit less than half way in. Might return to it someday but I don't know.
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