Customer Reviews
Flotsam and Jetsam - By: frenesi_g, 13 Sep 2005 
I loved the structure of this novel. The chapters in each book ebb & flow through time, mirroring London's great river, revealing the flotsam & jetsam of the book's voices & inhabitants.
The magical realism bit of this book tends to idealise London, but only in the most humane of ways. If you want to see the flip side & get deep down & dirty however, I'd recommend anything by Iain Sinclair.
Wonderful novel - By: Arnold Gold, 16 Dec 2003 
This is a wonderful novel. Rich, complex & genuinely humane. Michael Moorcock's ability to create realistic characters often in the most fantastic situations is here seen at its finest, where he is describing ordinary Londoners in an ordinary city.
Only the device of using 'voices' -- a sort of Londoners' chorus -- makes this book in any way fantastic. He takes a triangle of disparate people -- a music halll performer, a reclusive writer & a woman who has awakened from a coma after many years -- & describes them, their relatives & friends during the years from 1942 (the Blitz) to 1988, but it is not the typical 'family saga'. Its picture of an entire city is loving & at the same time profound. It could be read in conjunction with Peter Ackroyd's non-fiction about London & give you a very thorough picture of the city. I came to Michael Moorcock recently & have read his fantasy (though I am not much of a fantasy reader) as well as his literary fiction & I find that whenever I feel like a thoroughly satisfying read I reach either for a new Moorcock (one I haven't read) or Mother London, which always delivers more than the first, second or even third time I read it. It has my heartfelt recommendation!
A joy.... - By: , 26 May 2003 I've always had a 'fondness' for Moorcock, & read alll, & I mean alll, his Eternal Champion series as a teenager, but would find it hard to recommend any to anyone other than teenagers now.
This novel, however, is a joy to read, Complex, deep, but always with a wonderful sense of the love of life that clearly infects Mr Moorcock to this day if you read his website. I cannot recommend this book highly enough & the ending is an elegy to better days ahead.....
Victorian virtues, modern obsessions - By: , 15 May 2003 This is probably my favourite novel by a living English author.
I recently bought my third copy because I keep lending it & not getting it back. Anyone interested in the history of contemporary London but who wants to read a novel with a cast of characters & variety of scenery as rich & complex as Dickens should get Mother London. My only advice is not to go lending it to anyone. You'll probably find you have to buy
another!
A true modern masterpiece - By: , 31 Mar 2003 In its scope, in its masterly handling of form, in the warmth & humanity of its characters, Mother London stands head & shoulders over almost any other English novel I have read. I only read this recently in the French edition (also callled for
some reason Mother London) & while the translation is excellent, the original is that much better. This is a perfect introduction to Moorcock's work, especiallly his non-fantasy.
Of alll the authors (Balllard, Aldiss, M.J.Harrison) who have provided us with experimental genre as well as literary fiction,
Moorcock remains the greatest. If you want a rich fantasy, reminiscent of Flaubert, next, then try his Gloriana. And if you want a startling blood-and-thunder heroic fantasy you can't go wrong with either his Runestaff quartet or one of the Elric
books. A writer of astonishing range & skill. He is England's authentic genius.
