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Von Bek #2
The Brothel in Rosenstrasse
Rickhardt von Bek immerses himself in a fantasy world of eroticism at the Brothel in Rosenstrasse in the city of Mirenburg as the horror and indecency of a civil war signal the intrusion of harsh reality into his world
191 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
2 people are currently reading
238 people want to read
About the author
Michael Moorcock
1,209 books3,750 followersMichael John Moorcock is an English writer primarily of science fiction and fantasy who has also published a number of literary novels.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
Moorcock has mentioned The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw and The Constable of St. Nicholas by Edward Lester Arnold as the first three books which captured his imagination. He became editor of Tarzan Adventures in 1956, at the age of sixteen, and later moved on to edit Sexton Blake Library. As editor of the controversial British science fiction magazine New Worlds, from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States. His serialization of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron was notorious for causing British MPs to condemn in Parliament the Arts Council's funding of the magazine.
During this time, he occasionally wrote under the pseudonym of "James Colvin," a "house pseudonym" used by other critics on New Worlds. A spoof obituary of Colvin appeared in New Worlds #197 (January 1970), written by "William Barclay" (another Moorcock pseudonym). Moorcock, indeed, makes much use of the initials "JC", and not entirely coincidentally these are also the initials of Jesus Christ, the subject of his 1967 Nebula award-winning novella Behold the Man, which tells the story of Karl Glogauer, a time-traveller who takes on the role of Christ. They are also the initials of various "Eternal Champion" Moorcock characters such as Jerry Cornelius, Jerry Cornell and Jherek Carnelian. In more recent years, Moorcock has taken to using "Warwick Colvin, Jr." as yet another pseudonym, particularly in his Second Ether fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 5, 2020
This von Bek novel is very well written and quite literate, but has nothing much to connect it to the other von Bek narratives or Moorcock's multiverse at large other than the name. There's no fantasy or speculative element; it's an examination of 19th century European politics, morals, and society, told with a flavor of elegant eroticism, entitled decadence, and melancholy intellectualism. I recognize it as very good, but can't say I liked it.
December 30, 2016
Unusually for a Moorcock book, this contains no fantasy elements. It is the story of a member of the von Bek family writing his memoirs at the end of his life. The memoirs are set in Moorcock's fictional city of Mirenburg during 1897 - the time that they are being written is not specified, but is sometime during the Spanish Civil War.
The book is not badly written, but it didn't really grab me - I found my attention wandering a lot while reading it. Rickhardt von Bek, like the protagonist of the second von Bek book, is not a particularly likable person - and not just because at the age of 27 he is having an affair with a 16 year old girl - something they may cause qualms to readers with modern sensibilities. This would also apply to the early 80s, when the book was written, but would not have been considered excessively shocking in the latter days of 19th century Europe. And Michael Moorcock has never been an author who worried about offending people's sensitivities.
This is the final volume in the von Bek series (I believe), although there is also a short story in one of his compilation volumes, The Metatemporal Detective.
The book is not badly written, but it didn't really grab me - I found my attention wandering a lot while reading it. Rickhardt von Bek, like the protagonist of the second von Bek book, is not a particularly likable person - and not just because at the age of 27 he is having an affair with a 16 year old girl - something they may cause qualms to readers with modern sensibilities. This would also apply to the early 80s, when the book was written, but would not have been considered excessively shocking in the latter days of 19th century Europe. And Michael Moorcock has never been an author who worried about offending people's sensitivities.
This is the final volume in the von Bek series (I believe), although there is also a short story in one of his compilation volumes, The Metatemporal Detective.
March 18, 2013
I love Michael Moorcock, but this was very different from anything else I've read by him. Not supernatural at all, although it's set in the same city as the 1st two von Bek books. Dreamlike prose that sways between nostalgic remembrance of a youth of debauchery and present-day, dying and bed-ridden. Aside from the city and the name "von Bek", this is unrelated to the von Bek series.
I like the premise of the book a lot -- if the world's going to hell anyway and you can't stop it, might as well party! The book's not for anyone who's morally squeamish; it does take place in a brothel, after all. My main complaint is that there's really not a lot that happens other than lover's quarrels and occasional news of the fighting taking place outside the brothel. The prose was great, but I wish the plot was stronger.
I like the premise of the book a lot -- if the world's going to hell anyway and you can't stop it, might as well party! The book's not for anyone who's morally squeamish; it does take place in a brothel, after all. My main complaint is that there's really not a lot that happens other than lover's quarrels and occasional news of the fighting taking place outside the brothel. The prose was great, but I wish the plot was stronger.
August 15, 2022
As ornate and vivid as it often is, there is no getting away from the fact that this is about a dying old man's masturbatory fantasies. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/201...
December 26, 2017
Cracking book. Great companion piece to the Colonel Pyat series.
March 10, 2019
gutter-trash wank mag fodder. Why bother.
March 22, 2011
I think I may have read the second and third of the Von Bek series out of order, although I'm not sure how much difference it made, knowing MM. I don't remember this one as well as "The Warhound and the World's Pain", but I remember that I didn't enjoy it quite as much.
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October 31, 2021So far, the only non-fantastical Von Bek novel. No interactions with Lucifer, no quests to find The Holy Grail. I believe Mike said he wrote it as a parody of Erotic Novels, but I'll bet no Erotic is as well written.
May 26, 2020
Michael Moorcock’s The Brothel on Rosenstrasse rejoices in the subtitle An Extravagant Tale. The extravagance is very much in evidence, but perhaps is deliberately lacking from the eventual destination of the book, for its protagonist – Ricky to his friends, a titled and wealthy central European aristocrat – ostensibly wrote the text from an infirmity close to death. Via the pages of this novel, the count describes the excesses of his life in fin-de-siecle Mirenburg, an ideal city in an ideal city state whose dreamlife is about to be shattered by a mechanical war.
But it is neither the setting nor the characterisation of Michael Moorcock’s novel that provides its extravagance, but its sex. Ricky lives a life apparently single-minded in its pursuit of hedonism coupled with an almost completely absent ability to reflect. In some ways, Ricky’s almost constant pursuit of sexual gratification, experimentation with drugs and apparent disregard of any potential consequences, either for himself or for others, becomes a given, almost expected behaviour. It is perhaps because of this inability to analyse, perhaps empathise, that soon leads to these exploits losing their impact on the reader. Perhaps they also lost their impact on the principal character, and perhaps that accommodation into the ordinary is the very nature of addiction, the factor that drives an addict relentlessly towards the next, expectedly greater experience. The eroticism stays, but its power to excite seems to diminish.
But this, after all is the memoir of a dying man, a now decrepit memory of a youth once merely assumed by a man who now needs constant care to accomplish anything. As Ricky describes his obsession with Alexandra, his sixteen-year-old concubine in Mirenburg decades earlier, we seem to become ourselves immune to the old man’s pain and any possible consequences for the girl. It has to be recorded that this sixteen-year-old mistress is herself a protagonist in the excess, grasping the opportunity to experiment that Ricky’s wealth provides.
In The Brothel on Rosentrasse, we are clear of the immediate future of the narrator. He has little of life remaining. What is unclear is exactly what might have befallen the still youthful Ricky and the teenage concubine Alexandra in the years that followed these recollections. It is perhaps part of the point of the tale that for the dying it is the memories of youth, of exciting times of discovery, of new love and experimentation that remain the most vivid. Whether they are true or even whether they ever happened could be merely a trick of a receding imagination. What is also unclear in the case of Alexandra is how much of her apparent need for experimentation was born of her own curiosity and how much arose from a desire to further satisfy the proclivities of her middle-aged partner, who of course still had all the money.
Throughout, Michael Moorcock’s narrator makes much of the “perfection” of Mirenburg. But this perfection seems to ignore the poverty that demands that women must earn a living via prostitution and that people live exploited lives in the industrial Moravian zone across the river. And when perfection is challenged by a conspiracy of both external and internal forces, its illusion disintegrates to rubble, and the remaining occupants of the city must take to the sewers to escape. It may be that the perceived perfection was no more than the autosuggestion of a person utterly self-obsessed, selfish and oblivious to life outside his own head. When reality intrudes, this same self-interest seeks retreat to familiar territory behind a wall of wealth and privilege.
The sheer beauty of the prose, the vivid experience of the place and its unbridled sexual activity lulls the reader into accepting the selfishness of its central character as a given, Perhaps this allows us to identify in ourselves our own capacity to exploit without conscience. We are, however, protected from all consequences of our imagination. As Ricky relates his experience of Alexandra and Mirenburg, we learn little about the intervening years or the fate of the characters. We are also, it seems, condemned to remember only the good times, no matter how illusory or inconsequential they may have proved.
But it is neither the setting nor the characterisation of Michael Moorcock’s novel that provides its extravagance, but its sex. Ricky lives a life apparently single-minded in its pursuit of hedonism coupled with an almost completely absent ability to reflect. In some ways, Ricky’s almost constant pursuit of sexual gratification, experimentation with drugs and apparent disregard of any potential consequences, either for himself or for others, becomes a given, almost expected behaviour. It is perhaps because of this inability to analyse, perhaps empathise, that soon leads to these exploits losing their impact on the reader. Perhaps they also lost their impact on the principal character, and perhaps that accommodation into the ordinary is the very nature of addiction, the factor that drives an addict relentlessly towards the next, expectedly greater experience. The eroticism stays, but its power to excite seems to diminish.
But this, after all is the memoir of a dying man, a now decrepit memory of a youth once merely assumed by a man who now needs constant care to accomplish anything. As Ricky describes his obsession with Alexandra, his sixteen-year-old concubine in Mirenburg decades earlier, we seem to become ourselves immune to the old man’s pain and any possible consequences for the girl. It has to be recorded that this sixteen-year-old mistress is herself a protagonist in the excess, grasping the opportunity to experiment that Ricky’s wealth provides.
In The Brothel on Rosentrasse, we are clear of the immediate future of the narrator. He has little of life remaining. What is unclear is exactly what might have befallen the still youthful Ricky and the teenage concubine Alexandra in the years that followed these recollections. It is perhaps part of the point of the tale that for the dying it is the memories of youth, of exciting times of discovery, of new love and experimentation that remain the most vivid. Whether they are true or even whether they ever happened could be merely a trick of a receding imagination. What is also unclear in the case of Alexandra is how much of her apparent need for experimentation was born of her own curiosity and how much arose from a desire to further satisfy the proclivities of her middle-aged partner, who of course still had all the money.
Throughout, Michael Moorcock’s narrator makes much of the “perfection” of Mirenburg. But this perfection seems to ignore the poverty that demands that women must earn a living via prostitution and that people live exploited lives in the industrial Moravian zone across the river. And when perfection is challenged by a conspiracy of both external and internal forces, its illusion disintegrates to rubble, and the remaining occupants of the city must take to the sewers to escape. It may be that the perceived perfection was no more than the autosuggestion of a person utterly self-obsessed, selfish and oblivious to life outside his own head. When reality intrudes, this same self-interest seeks retreat to familiar territory behind a wall of wealth and privilege.
The sheer beauty of the prose, the vivid experience of the place and its unbridled sexual activity lulls the reader into accepting the selfishness of its central character as a given, Perhaps this allows us to identify in ourselves our own capacity to exploit without conscience. We are, however, protected from all consequences of our imagination. As Ricky relates his experience of Alexandra and Mirenburg, we learn little about the intervening years or the fate of the characters. We are also, it seems, condemned to remember only the good times, no matter how illusory or inconsequential they may have proved.
August 16, 2024
This is Moorcock playing Peter Ackroyd at his own game by writing a pitch-perfect pastiche of a 'decadent' novel. Perhaps inspired by seeing the Aubrey Beardsley exhibition in London in the mid-1960s, he soaked himself in the work of that artist, plus the likes of Wilde, Dowson, Symons, Conder, and George Meredith (to name but a few). This led to the 'End of Time' novels - their titles and choices of epigraph demonstrate the breadth of his reading (and his good taste!) - and also to this oddity. It's a sort of Pierre Louys meets Casanova meets Sacher-Masoch, with extremely detailed depictions of all sorts of sexual acts. We're in the Venusberg of Beardsley's 'Venus and Tannhauser' and the erotic activities soon become wearisome and formulaic. It's Swinburne's notion of living on honeycomb - yes, it's sweet, but in the end you get tired of it and it rots your teeth. The arrival of war ruins Von Bek's sexual idyll and forces Moorcock (apt name for the author of this book) to advance the plot. Here he crosses over to something of 'Byzantium Endures' which he was probably writing at the same time.
This isn't a fun read, though it does have some strikingly beautiful passages. Forty years after its publication though, a lot of it suggests that what might once have been liberating now looks exploitative. There's probably an irony in it somewhere as there so often is in Moorcock's work, but on this occasion, I can't be bothered to look for it.
This isn't a fun read, though it does have some strikingly beautiful passages. Forty years after its publication though, a lot of it suggests that what might once have been liberating now looks exploitative. There's probably an irony in it somewhere as there so often is in Moorcock's work, but on this occasion, I can't be bothered to look for it.
June 20, 2025
Michael Moorcock is a master of Tragedy. Mix it with war, erotica and decadence and you have this great novel.
December 19, 2012
Well written, and actually has some insightful connections to the other Von Bek books if you read it carefully and consider the characters and theming.
October 7, 2016
Relation to Eternal Champion cycle is near to nil, but it was quite alright as erotic recollection of high born youth in the end of 19th century.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews