“Żelazo” is Polish for “iron”—the root of Roger
Zelazny’s family name. A hard, unbending
substance, the name seems an appropriate metaphor for his persistent choice of
protagonists; picking up a Zelazny novel, the reader knows precisely who will
occupy the lead role. Zelazny’s first
novel, the 1966 This Immortal
(previously serialized as …And Call Me
Conrad), presented the first such hero and is the starting place of all the
author’s forays into the mythically fantastic.
Featuring the part-man, part-god Conrad, the book sets the benchmark for
every novel/protagonist that would come later in the author’s oeuvre. Multi-layered and featuring some of the strongest
writing he would produce, the novel is also amongst Zelazny’s best.
Scarred, diseased, mismatched eyes, and
walking with a limp, Conrad Nimikos is a rather atypical hero—larger-than-life
nonetheless. Possessing a past centuries
in length and awash with hazy facts, his present, unfortunately, is crystal
clear. Having been decimated in a three-day
nuclear war, Earth lies in ravages, its population under the control of an
alien group, the Vegans, who took control in the aftermath. An enlightened race, the Vegans have
transported the majority of humans to their home planet to live in peace and
safety. However, roughly 4 million
remain on Earth in pockets of land untouched by radiation, many mutated beyond
recognition. His job to oversee the
cultural treasures left unaffected by the war, Conrad is the Commissioner of
the Earthoffice Department of Arts, Monuments, and Archives. Asked one day to give an important Vegan a
tour of ancient Egypt and Greece, his pride is challenged: give respect to
Earth’s controllers or to defend her honor by eliminating the overseer? In classic Zelazny style, the road Conrad
chooses is his own.
For a first novel, This Immortal is written with surprising confidence and skill. The descriptions are deft and characters are
effectively sketched in a few words. But
Zelazny absolutely shines in dialogue.
Possessing the perfect balance between character voice and thoughts left
between the lines (Conrad’s conversations with Hasan are just brilliant), the
narrative is at most times a perfect economy of words—“One does not go to hell
to light a cigarette.” just one of many lines that say more than what’s written
on the surface.
Setting the bar for Zelazny’s fiction
(actually welding the bar in place), This
Immortal utilizes myth and heroism to backstop story. A small but specific selection of Greek gods,
anima, heroes and tropes motivate the narrative. But at no time does the feeling of “Hey, look
at me, I’m playing in Homer land!” take over the novel. Zelazny picks and chooses his motifs
carefully, allowing Earth’s situation and the backdrop of nuclear holocaust to
color the majority of setting and characters.
The result is a story that occupies the liminal space between myth and
reality and can thus be interpreted two ways—a credit to Zelazny’s handling of
the text.
At perhaps its most base level, however,
This Immortal is a book that puts
humanity on trial for its past deeds and attempts to determine whether our kind
is worthy of continued existence. The
preceding nuclear holocaust and the resulting wasteland affecting people in a
variety of manners, Zelazny handles the premise with aplomb, nothing morally
whitewashed. Conrad’s past and current
circumstances indeterminate, it’s in the tenor of his behavior and choices he
makes that his intrinsic value is presented.
Conrad is a gray hero for an imperfect world, and must be judged as
such. Which way the scales finally tip,
however, must be discovered in the reading.
Where problems start to creep into the
novel is with overt elements of the fantastic.
I am probably in the minority in saying this, but the battle scenes starring
mutant creatures simply do not fit what is otherwise a mature narrative. Duels featuring giant crocodiles with
multiple legs heavily contrast the commentary—direct and indirect—on humanity’s
stewardship of planet Earth. The setting
and premise sci-fi enough, adding such comic book scenes distracts from the
main conflict and feel only as though Zelazny threw in such puolp era tropes
just to spice up what is already an intriguing story. Certainly there are readers who enjoy Zelazny
precisely for this aspect of his writing, I simply appreciate more the sublime
handling of myth, for example the usage of Jason, satyrs, and the like. (Gene Wolfe and his Latro novels are a good example of the subtle usage of myth in
modern fiction.)
In the end, This Immortal is an accomplished debut from a writer who would go
on to redefine the usage of myth in speculative fiction. The writing startlingly accomplished for a
first novel, readers should expect a story containing dialogue that is adroit
and dexterous as can be, the tale equally engaging. Able to be understood along parallel lines:
the mythic and the realistic, Zelazny likewise shows a good handle on story base,
the tentative value of mankind seeping through it all despite the occasional
cartoonish scene. Conrad not the typical
storybook hero, he is nevertheless a man to be empathized as he carries out his
alien commission to the best of his human abilities. Maybe not a thousand faces, but he would go
on to be the hero of nearly every Zelazny story thereafter.
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