That said, if you were to use this book as a guide to fantasy literature, you would come away with a pretty solid reading list--for beginners, at least. Since this book isn't intended on being a deep dive, it mostly stays within the realm of authors that long-time fantasy fans will already be familiar with. You will have heard of Ursula K. Le Guin, Fritz Leiber, and Mervyn Peake. Given his predilections, it does not come as a surprise at all that Moorcock is a big proponent of M. John Harrison.
As I was reading, I did find myself wishing that Moorcock ranged into stranger territories and unearthed a few more obscure gems, but I suspect part of the goal was to highlight what is readily available. Moorcock praises the contributions of women to the fantasy genre, but his subject remains focused on a kind of Great Men of Fantasy, for the most part.
The book also contains Moorcock's infamous "Epic Pooh," his polemic against J. R. R. Tolkien. (C. S. Lewis gets a few shots as well.) Moorcock's ire is palpable, but it feels too personal to reflect any true deficiencies in Tolkien's writing. One of the issues I have with Wizardry and Wild Romance is that it relies on extensive quotes from the texts in question to "prove" the merit or lack thereof in the books under discussion; the problem is that it isn't always clear what we're supposed to take away from the quotes used. When taken out of their native context, writerly rigor and sloppy execution aren't always apparent. To be frank, this chapter feels like a wonderful example of Harold Bloom's theory of "the anxiety of influence"; the most startling thing about it is that Moorcock laid it so bare before the reading public.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike Tolkien or Lewis, many of them quite reasonable, in fact, but I don't think the critique that they are "too Christian and too middle-class" is as damning in my mind as it is in Moorcock's. Interestingly, Moorcock actually seems to prefigure a certain kind of science fiction and fantasy commentator all too common in the current moment: the earnest left-wing critic who is angry that the social politics of a piece do not fit their progressive model of what is just and good. This sort of critic operates under the impression that their particular nexus of class and taste, almost always expressed as a hybrid of working-class consciousness and claims of residing among the rarefied intelligentsia, has access to unassailable social and political truths. It's a claim that never holds water. Personally, I think it's worthwhile to try to understand other points of view without interjecting too much of the idiosyncratic self into the effort--especially when it comes to the kinds of dreams and fantasies that take shape in genre fiction. You would think that Moorcock, with his emphasis on fantasy as a window into the psychology of the individual, would take just such a broader view.
Interesting tangents do emerge here and there throughout Wizardry and Wild Romance. Moorcock mostly approves of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, but he doesn't care much for Conan comics and he loathes the Conan movies. Fair enough. Moorcock was also onto the tension between the "grimdark" and "squeecore" tendencies in fantasy long before the current Twitter fracases over them, though he terms these competing poles "brute vs. cute," which I like much better than the accepted modern terminology. Moorcock also comes close to stating outright that John Norman's Gor books should be banned; we read one for an episode of Bad Books for Bad People, and it was awful indeed, but I disagree with Moorcock's assertion that those novels are "dangerous." They're just dopey and cannot harm you.
Perhaps the most interesting bit is Moorcock's implication that authors whose influences are too near the surface, too detectible and traceable, aren't disciplined or talented enough--or at least not in love enough with language--are letting the side down. This is a striking facet of the work as a whole, especially since Moorcock quickly glosses over his own debt to Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword!
Though I found much to disagree with in Wizardry and Wild Romance, I don't regret reading it in the least. It's the kind of book that makes you rethink your assumptions, always a healthy thing.
