Book Review: Gloriana

Michael Moorcock
1978
Awards: Campbell
Rating: ★ – – – –

WARNING: SPOILER AND TRIGGER ALERT

Michael Moorcock says that Gloriana is not an alternate history. But it is, nevertheless, a sort of an alternate-history-like story inspired by the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England. It is about a global empire called Albion which is managed from an island country in Europe; is experiencing a golden age of politics, science, and economics; and is ruled by a strong-willed, six-foot-tall, auburn-haired, unmarried queen.

The novel starts out well. The entire first chapter is a fantastic, sweeping introduction to the geography of Albion’s capital city and, simultaneously, to all of the main characters. Starting from the palace at the top of the hill, with its splendid chambers and secret warrens, the point of view swoops out to the gardens, and then down to the river and the city center itself, with its shops and pubs and whorehouses. As the viewpoint moves from one location to another, so does the focus of the narration transfer smoothly from one character to another. Moorcock uses very long run-on sentences in this chapter, which contribute to the sense that you are watching a long, slow, arcing crane shot over the entire city.

After this impressive start, unfortunately, the book goes largely downhill. The main problem is a generally dull plot line punctuated by moments of disturbingly romanticized sexual oppression and violence. And none of this is helped any by the bad poetry and tiresome pageants that are interspersed throughout the story.

One of the main characters (although arguably not the main character) is, of course, Gloriana herself. She is much like Elizabeth I not only in her size and other physical characteristics, but also in her sense of justice, intelligence, and strength of will. She rules over a gigantic worldwide empire that includes parts of Africa, Europe, and the New World (called here "Virginia").

Gloriana’s only flaw (at least in the opinion of her ladies in waiting, advisers, and subjects) is that she isn’t married and doesn’t ever seem likely to be. Her councillors scheme to marry her off to various politically appropriate suitors, but she dodges them all.

She is, in fact, deeply frustrated by the lack of romantic love in her life. She has had many lovers, but she has never met a person, either man or woman, who actually can—to be blunt about it, since Moorcock isn't—bring her to orgasm. So she puts on a strong exterior, all the while feeling discouraged and lonely. She collects a whole population of sexual play-people (dwarves, ape-men, geishas, etc.) who live in secret compartments of the palace, kept there as a personal brothel. She experiments with them enthusiastically, and they give her a sort of solace, but never what she is really aiming for.
   
We are supposed to be sad for Gloriana, and we’re supposed to believe that the people in her harem all love her and are happy to be cooped up all their lives just waiting for her to need them, hoping that they can fulfill their queen. But the truth is that they are, essentially, her sexual slaves.

And the whole premise of an otherwise successful woman who will only be truly complete if she can find a lover to satisfy her is extremely trite--not to mention just a teensy bit sexist.

As for the plot that plays out this premise: there are a few bright and even funny spots, but it is, on the whole, lackluster.

Albion is in a seemingly effortless golden age of economic boom, justice, and scientific discovery. And Gloriana’s reign is full of pomp, with frequent masques, balls, and jousts to entertain her subjects and her (somewhat decadent) nobility.

But there is a seedy underbelly to Albion’s magnificence. Gloriana’s devoted chief adviser, Lord Chancellor Mountfallcon, doesn’t want to see Albion descend again into the days of bloody tyranny that they experienced under Gloriana’s father. So Mountfallcon has taken it upon himself to manage all the dirty work needed to maintain the current peace, and to protect her from it. He, in turn, employs a thug named Quire (a stereotypically-correct, long-mustachioed, swarthy gent, of course) to actually do the dirty deeds that need doing. Quire commits endless acts of murder and espionage under Montfallcon’s direction, in service to the queen but without her knowledge.

For example, towards the start of the book, the king of Poland and the caliph of Arabia are both coming to woo the queen. Neither one is a good choice politically, so Mountfallcon tells Quire to make sure that the two royals arrive at court at the same time, so neither one will perceive the other as having an advantage. The Polish king is a day or two ahead of the caliph, so Quire connives to delay him by wrecking his entire naval convoy on a sandbar, rescuing the king himself at the last minute.

Quire is actually quite brilliant at this sort of thing. But, eventually, Quire asks Mountfallcon for a bit of recognition of his talents, and Mountfallcon responds by demeaning him and revealing his disgust at Quire’s work. Quire quickly turns against Mountfallcon and the queen, and vows revenge.

Quire then rapidly manages to murder, prison, kidnap, or embroil in scandal most of the key members of Gloriana’s court. The happiness and optimism of the people of Albion degenerate into suspicion and discontent. The nobles descend into increased debauchery. And, to top it all off, Quire works his way into the queen’s inner circle and makes her fall in love with him; she takes him with her everywhere she goes and will listen to no one’s counsel but his.

Events reach a terrible low as Albion hovers on the brink of war with both the Tatars and a disaffected segment of Albion’s nobility, and all of the queen’s formerly trusted advisers are either crazy, discredited, missing, or dead. It seems like it will take a miracle—or at least something really, really drastic—to get Albion and its queen back on their feet again. And, of course, something drastic does happen.

~~~

In Gloriana, Moorcock writes with an authentically ornate style; it is dotted with the flourishes and rococo embellishments that are entirely appropriate to the Elizabethan-esque setting he has created. And individual scenes in the book can occasionally be quite entertaining, such as the shipwreck of the Polish king’s convoy.

But the novel overall has big problems.

The least of these are its tiresome plot, verse, and pomp. The nobles in Gloriana’s court are forced to participate in a seemingly endless string of seasonal pageants. The descriptions of clothing, jewels, colors, materials, and heraldry at these events are overwrought, and the poetry the nobles have to recite at them is eminently skippable.

The most insurmountable of the book's issues are, of course, its chauvinistic treatment of the queen and its disturbing treatment of power imbalances in sexual relationships.

I talked earlier of the queen’s “problem,” in which the people around her and, more importantly, the queen herself feel that she is an incomplete person without a lover to fully satisfy her. Must a lover be the only answer? Must she always feel like less of a person than others because of her sexual issues? Must it negate all of the strength and success she has in other areas of her life?

And the sexual relationships in this book are intended to be romantic and erotic and possibly funny. But if you consider the power imbalances of the people involved, almost all of these relationships come off as disturbing instead. The queen herself, of course, gets her jollies from a personal seraglio kept for that purpose. But she is not the only one to have sex servants; many of her courtiers keep boys, girls, and madwomen for their pleasure. And when these servants are actively resistant or obviously upset by their situations, their distress is largely treated with amusement.

By far the worst handling of a sexual relationship is in the very last chapter, when Quire rapes the queen. A rape is, of course, bad enough by itself. But, of all things, during the incident, the queen at last achieves the climax she has been searching for her whole life. She is, at last, “cured” by rape. And then, after it is over, she decides to marry him.

Moorcock got so much grief for this chapter after the book was first published in 1978 that he rewrote it so that instead of Quire raping Gloriana, he just attempts to rape her, and she is able to fend him off. And yet still somehow, during her defense of her body, she has a climax that is not strictly sexual but more sort of spiritual—and at last she is, again, “cured.” The rewrite just comes across as a confused, awkward cover up; and it certainly doesn’t change all of the less direct sexual violence throughout the rest of the book.

It’s a little strange to me that all of these criticisms echo my criticisms of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. Martin, too, uses tiresomely endless descriptions of banners and heraldry. Martin’s plots, too, rely almost entirely on amoral scheming and power grabs. And Martin, too, uses a lot of rape and other sexual violence in his writing, often in an offhanded or seemingly amused way. (Interestingly, there is also an oft-referred-to tower in Gloriana called “Bran’s Tower.”) It makes me wonder if Martin, whose Game of Thrones came out eighteen years after Gloriana, has been delivering a bit of an homage to Moorcock.