Byzantium Endures

Title: Byzantium Endures
Author: Michael Moorcock
Published: 1994 by Phoenix Paperbacks, originally in 1981 (?)
Genre: Historical fiction
Pages: 404


Hoo boy, and that was just the first of four! I bought this book for £ 2,50 from a used book store in Notting Hill, London, back in 2003. And it took me this long to finally read it. Now, I have the rest of the series as well (The Laughter of Carthage, Jerusalem Commands and The Vengeance of Rome (well ok, the last one is still in the mail, I should have it next week!)), which all together tell the story of Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski. A man so full of himself -and cocaine- I'm expecting him to explode by book 3.

Seriously, though. For the first 40, 50 pages I was thinking that if something doesn't happen soon in this book, it's going back on the shelf. But then, around page 60, I was properly sucked in. So properly, into the mind of a narcissistic, charming genius that again, I ended up reading his story and more or less mad rantings long into the night. It was like... a holiday. In someone else. Not a nice someone, but someone I found myself at times sympathizing with or even pitying. Or just disgusted by him.

Pyat was born on the 1st January 1900 in Kiev, Ukraine, a fatherless child, apparent genius. I say apparent, since I'm not convinced he actually is one, rather than a very convincing and lucky bastard. Relatives, looking to mould him for their own uses, pay for his education. Byzantium Endures takes the reader from Kiev to Odessa's warmth, to St. Petersburg just before the October Revolution, and all around Ukraine during the Civil War. History is seen though his eyes, and thankfully, at least for me, he doesn't give a rat's patootie about politics. As a guest star we get to meet a young Mrs. Cornelius in this adventure of the first twenty years of Pyat's life.

And there indeed is three more bricks of his story. Ooh. But I think I need a holiday from this holiday with some lighter reading before I crack open the next volume.


"I think we have heard all we need, Kryscheff!*"

"I have hardly begun." I said calmly. "There is much more."


*Kryscheff is the name Pyat had to use while a student in St. Petersburg.