panguitch's Full Review: Lord Dunsany - The Gods of Pegana
"In the mists before the Beginning, Fate and Chance cast lots to decide whose the Game should be . . ."
The Gods of Pegana
Lord Dunsany, 1905
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, the 18th Lord Dunsany, wrote stories as various and fantastic as his name. Best known for his romantic fairy stories, like The King of Elfland's Daughter, he also wrote plays and poetry. His first published book, The Gods of Pegana, is the outlining of an invented mythology, presented in several dozen very brief sketches.
Each of these relates an aspect of Pegana's creation story or describes the character and role of one of the gods. The motifs are at times distinctly removed from the Christian tradition, with elements like the slumbering supreme being Mana-Yood-Sushai, who will awaken when Skarl ceases his drumming, and whose awakening brings The End of the gods and of the world.
Later sections depict mankind's relation to this mythology, principally through the foibles and vanity of several prophets and priests. These are often appointed by a humanity that hungers for mysteries, and are plagued by the god Mung, who makes the sign of death. Though feared, Mung is characterized with ambivalence, as the punisher of hubris and as a granter of mercy. Mung denies death to Yun-Ilara, a prophet who defies him but later repents when Time, the hound of Sish, wears at him: "O Mung, most dearly to be desired! thy gift of Death is the heritage of Man, with ease and rest and silence and returning to the Earth. . . . When the other gods forsake him a man hath only Mung."
It is interesting that Dunsany found more success and critical acceptance for his fantasies than did Tolkien, although I have no idea whether the differences in time (early versus mid-twentieth century), place (Ireland versus England), or class (aristocrat versus Oxford don) can explain this. In any case, The Gods of Pegana lacks the distinct majesty of Tolkien's mythology (e.g. the "Ainulindale" and "Valaquenta" of the Silmarillion). It is less full, less rooted, and less fruitful. It is a reverie, as opposed to a rigorous construction.
The whole of The Gods of Pegana can be read in little over an hour, and though its fancies may entertain, and certain follies or aphorisms may resonate, the book leaves little impact, and is certainly less important than The King of Elfland's Daughter. It is like a stage without a play, imaginatively set but empty of drama.
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