Reviews for Time and the Gods

The average rating for Time and the Gods based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-01-22 00:00:00 Noah Lepage Lord Dunsany is one of the most remarkable authors to have ever lived. If not in the way he wrote his prose, then in the way he lived his life as an adventure. And from this sense of adventure he developed a most remarkable perspective on the universe and fantasy. From this perspective he wrote a new mythology full of childish wonder, simplicity and also beauty. There is an aesthetic of delight to be found in Time and the Gods and it is this aesthetic which is so very appealing to read. "And as a child stares at the bare walls of a narrow hut, so the gods looked listlessly upon the worlds saying: 'Will no new thing be?'" What makes Dunsany's work so brilliant here is the way he so simply writes about deities and therefore religion while writing a new mythology. He does not mean to make such brilliant observations and yet he does. There is an ignorance that is refreshingly brilliant in his writing, something new and yet something very old. "It were better to be birds and have no air to fly in, than to be gods having neither prayers no worship." It is often raised as a theological question: why does God demand obedience of humanity? Or prayers and worship. To me Dunsany in this one simple line breaks down all kinds of intellectual sensibility and shows a distinct reasoning for why God demands obedience. I do not mean to say that it is foolish reasoning, but that merely it is a thoughtful one: God and gods are well godly. And to be godly is to be worthy of worship - not merely to be powerful entities. "'We be seductive gods, having a particular remembrance for little prayers.' But the baboons leered fiercely at the Yozis and would have none of them for gods." Again this quote reinforces the idea of what it is to be a god: to be worthy of worship. The Yozis mentioned in the particular section here however seek out this worship and reveal in this mythology that they are not so powerful as gods for they must actively push for people to worship, worship, worship and end up turning to baboons in the end for desperate prayers. "...because he knew that thrice in every hour in some dark chamber Death and Famine met to speak two words together, 'The End.'" "...in a narrower world Ord walked round and round, now seeing little, and his soul still wandered searching for some gods and finding none." "'Curse not the gods.' And I said to him: 'Wherefore should I not curse Those who have stolen my sacred places in the night, and trodden down the gardens of my childhood?'" Not only is Dunsany someone capable of great insight but also of great poetry as shown in the above quotes. And for this alone he deserves to remain known as a great writer.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-09-13 00:00:00 chika okwesa Time and the Gods is probably one of the most metal things I have ever read. If I make a prog rock concept album, I have my source material: "Then Slid went backward growing and summoned together the waves of a whole sea and sent them singing full in Tintaggon's face. Then from Tintaggon's marble front the sea fell backwards crying on to a broken shore, and ripple by ripple straggled back to Slid saying: 'Tintaggon stands.'" -The Coming of the Sea. "And far away Trogool upon the utter Rim turned a page that was numbered six in a cipher that none might read. And as the golden ball went through the sky to gleam on lands and cities, there came the Fog towards it, stooping as he walked with his dark brown cloak about him, and behind him slunk the night." -The Legend of the Dawn "There in Pegana lay the gods asleep, and in a corner lay the Power of the gods alone on the floor, a thing wrought of black rock and four words graven upon it, whereof I might not give thee any clue, if even I should find it - four words of which none knoweth. Some say they tell of the opening of a flower towards dawn, and others say they concern earthquakes among hills, and others that they tell of the death of fishes, and others that the words be these: Power, Knowledge, Forgetting, and another word that not the gods themselves may ever guess." -When the Gods Slept