Improving my mind
So now I'm reading E. R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros as one does, and it's rather like sitting down with an entire cheesecake; no matter how good your appetite, there's a limit to just how much cheesecake you can have at one go.
A friend pointed out to me that the language is not immune to parody:
(Lord Juss and Brandoch Daha, along with the one of the few surviving Impland nobels, Mirvash Faz, pass Yule night in an enchanted glade)
All the creatures of the forest came to that feast, for they were without fear, having never looked upon the face of nan. Little tree-apes, and popinjays, and titmouses, and coalmouses, and wrens, and gentle round-eyed rabbits, and badgers, and dormice, and pied squirrels, and beavers from the streams, and storks, and ravens, and bustards, and wombats, and the spider-monkey with her baby at her breast
And then this, more recent, classic of another medium:
Cleric: [reading] And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, "O Lord, bless this thy hand grenade, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats and large chu...
(Yes, I know there's no proof the Pythons were taking a jab at Eddison. And yet…)