Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1520750 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 338 pages

Synopsis
In the timeless city of Malacia, a place swathed in magic and on the brink of war, lives a young man named Perian de Chirolo - a free-spirit, a fearless lover - who embarks on a harrowing odyssey with dramatic consequences for himself and all Malacians. This is a gripping tale of wonder, lust and destiny.

Customer Reviews

Nice prose but did I miss something?
I just didn't get it. If there was some deep meaningful political message here about oppressed states and keeping the masses down I sort of saw it, but it didn't exactly impress me. Malacia seemed a really nice place to live, to be honest. It didn't have any of the problems that 1984 had for god's sake. The people all lived in an ideal italianate world, they chased the Turks off when they tried to invade - there's a lot of romancing (despite strict chaperonage) and all that seems to happen is that the main character gets pissed off when his girlfriend sleeps around.

I didn't get it. Nice prose though - but what was the point?

Exceedingly good
Aldiss has such a brilliant way with prose that I always find it amazing that he is not widely considered to be up there with the very greatest of modern English novelists.

This book is an immensely impressive intellectual achievement... which, of course, is a bit of a double-edged sword, because it unfortunately means that it keeps the reader at a distance to some extent.

The protagionist Perian de Chirolo has numerous interactions with various characters concerning various things, not always in a way that is motivated by plot. Not only does this sap the narrative momentum a bit, but it also threatens to exhaust the reader, who may struggle at times to identify the point that Aldiss is trying to make in that particular section. I know that I did.

But this is more of a confession of my shortcomings as a reader than a criticism of the book. I love the world Aldiss created here. Malacia is a great million year-old European city with a Renaissance feel, cursed never to change. Satyrs and winged people are offshoots of an evolutionary line in which humans developed from dinosaurs. Dinosaurs themselves are still around, though seemingly endangered. The Turks and their allies threaten the city walls, as they always have done. Bengtsohn's zahnoscope may prove to be a technological breakthrough that will revolutionise society in more ways than one.

Aldiss sensibly never bothers to explain too much about any of this, and explicitly makes the point in the book that fiction does not necessarily have to slavishly duplicate the logic of the real world. I contend that The Malacia Tapestry, set in an invented world though it is, deserves to be treated as seriously as any major historical novel. It has many of the features of a historical novel, but blends these with elements of mythology and science fiction, and in doing so casts a potent spell.

Aldiss is so adept at this type of thing (see also the Helliconia trilogy) that I really would love to see him write an out-and-out historical novel.

A rare jewel from seventies
Stagnant, decaying Renaissance milieu, forlorn sense of lost love, intrigues, oppression, what more could you ask of eerie city, teeming with life, under the red sun of unknown manifold. A haunting experience to read, deserves to be owned.