Zelazny's A Rose for Ecclesiastes - The entire short story here (!), with commentary

[Majimaune]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Inventively evocative.

The perfect words right there.

[Giovanna Clairval]

And, a little help... to organise the threads...

Roger Zelazny: VERY IMPORTANT FOR FANS!

ZELAZNY's Complete SHORT STORIES Bibliography

Favourite Zelazny novels and short stories

Zelazny's A Rose for Ecclesiastes - The entire short story here (!), with commentary

New Zelazny Colletion in the works

Amber?

Zelazny and the rewriting of myths

Nine princes to Amber - Roger Zelazny

[Giovanna Clairval]

I promised a commentary...

Later...

[Strife]

This Rose is something I didn't expect at all.

I have read the Amber series and I am a fan. I also played Amber games. The story here has nothing to do with that.

I'm not used to this kind of writing, but I loved it. I think I'll re-read it many times.

A guy who is conceited and vane but becomes human in the end. Beautiful.

[Ian Whates]

Originally Posted by Strife

This Rose is something I didn't expect at all.

I have read the Amber series and I am a fan. I also played Amber games. The story here has nothing to do with that.

I'm not used to this kind of writing, but I loved it. I think I'll re-read it many times.

A guy who is conceited and vane but becomes human in the end. Beautiful.

Welcome to the world of Zelazny, Strife. Zelazny was a true master. The Amber books are wonderful in their own right, but represent just a single facet of a truly diverse talent. If Amber is all you've read, you have some great treats in store... I envy you.

[RVM45]

.....A very intriqueing story. Thanks for listing it.

.....RVM45

[Giovanna Clairval]

Thank you, RVM45.



A flower on desert Mars can give hope to a dying race. Yet, Gailinger is not the best ambassador to convince the Martians to forgo their collective suicide. He is young, conceited, selfish. To his Martian guests, he reads out the beginning of the Book of Ecclesiastes because he believes in nothing… All is vain, as vain as he, the poet, the vainest of men. In contrast with his nihilism, the rose cloned by his fellow scientist becomes the real ambassador of humanity.

The rose represents what is not useful in se, just beautiful (and ephemeral but replacable, like a single individual). But the red rose symbolises also a loving heart, compassion, desire, everything humanity possesses and a very old, alien civilisation has lost.

Gailinger ruptures the order of Martian culture. The Mothers understand his message and halt the genocide, but Braxa the dancer rejects him as a man.
He, the successful son of a too-demanding father, learns that one can succeed and lose at the same time.

Gailinger's transformation unfolds when he is humbled by love, when he realises that he is nothing in his lover's eyes. He then tries to end his life, but Zelazny won't let his protagonist take the easy way out. Gailinger will have to learn to live with a new comprehension: humanity comes with limits.

Zelazny's main theme is renewal. "A Rose for Ecclesiastes", is the story of one man's personal renewal, and how his renewal redeems an entire population and their planet.

There has never been a rose on Mars.