Some 30 years ago I bought, at random, the Durdane Trilogy by
Jack Vance (The Anome, The Brave Free Men and The Asutra). I had never heard of
Vance but this work opened the doors for me of a long string of marvelous worlds
and unforgettable characters. Above all, it allowed me to enjoy a prose so poetic the likes of which I had never
seen before, at least in this field of fantasy fiction. The Durdane trilogy moved
me, the saga of a small group of ordinary people that finds the way to save
their planet from an alien invasion. It carries the same message of “The Lord
of the Rings” but in a much more compact manner, in less arcane prose, with
characters who are more like us. I still re-read this trilogy once a year
because it reaffirms my faith in the power of perseverance. I count his main
character, Gastel Etzwane, as one of my favorite heroes.
After this find I started acquiring other works by Vance: “The
Cadwal Chronicles”, “The Dying Earth”, “Big Planet”, “To Live Forever”, “Alastor”….
Vance wrote about 60 novels of this type, most of which are out of print,
although there is a set of his complete works available for $2,500 (!).Many of
his novels can be found through the secondary markets, www.amazon.com .
What is superb about Vance? His prose. It is tasty, inimitable.
Read his introduction to “Throy”, the third book of “The Cadwal Trilogy”: “Halfway along the Perseid Arm, near the edge
of the Gaean Reach, a capricious swirl of galactic gravitation has caught up
ten thousand stars and sent them streaming off at a veer, with a curl and a
flourish at the tip. This strand of stars is Mircea’s Wisp”.
Pretty elegant, isn’t it?
Everything about his work is elegant. His wish was to be an
anthropologist in distant worlds. His novels deal with conflicts and solutions
in far-away stars where magic and technology co-exist in harmony, always with
nostalgic references about mother earth. In “Big Planet” he describes a village
where lords and servants exchange roles, each on having moments of power and
moments of humble work. In another planet his main character travels to a city
where the hotel has five entrances. The traveler can choose one, depending on
his/her social status but the hotel is the same one, all doors converging to
the same registration. In “The Dying Earth” Vance gives us Cugel, a memorable
and creative rogue who seems taken out of the Spanish picaresque literature,
such as Lazarillo de Tormes, or a Till
Eulenspiegel type of character.
The constant theme of his work is the triumph of perseverance.
His influence on the great science fiction writers has been great. George
Martin, the author of “Game of Thrones” had him as one of his idols.
Jack Vance has just died, at 96. His devout readers, such as I,
had the hope that he would live forever. However, if we are to believe Ray Bradbury,
who said that we die when we stop doing what we have doing, Vance had died already
a few years ago. He was essentially blind and did not write. For all practical
purposes he was not Jack Vance but his sweet memory, as he sat against the
dying sun, to feel the marine breeze, in the terrace of his California, Tiburon
home, surrounded by the memory of his characters.
Jack and Norma Vance, 1997
But what a memory, what a presence he leaves behind! His work is
ambrosia for the intellect. The elegance of his
prose has been described as that
of Fabergé eggs, his sense of humor, his acute observations about human nature, will delight us and those who come after us.
See you in Durdane, Jack!
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