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This is my favaorite of Zelazny's novels.
Zelazny tried to translate many myths into
his (sci-fi) language. In most of his novels he succeeded in creating his
original worlds. However I believe in "Eye
of Cat " he successfully created his
own myth. This mythological world based on
the Navajo spiritual world showed us complete
harmony between the world and us, a moment
of joy in being a part of the world.
"Billy" is an archetypes of man,
-- a hunter. In both Native American mythology,
and in most animism , it is thought that
a hunter and his prey are complementary parts
of the world and a hunter needs to sacrifice
his own life to his prey to complete the
circle of the life.
In the story, when Billy tried to adjust
to a modern world, he lost his own uniformity
between the world (his spirit) and himself.
He was exhausted. Just before he gave up
everything, fate came to him, as his past
prey, which could have killed him... "Cat".
Their chasing made bound them more and more
closely, until they became one. After Billy
killed "Cat" physically, he found
a way to unite himself to the world, and
a way to the final sacrifice...
Billy finally found himself as a part of
the world.
He was on a rock, no longer a hunter, or
a prey.
He was already an eternal existence
of the
world.
I believe that Zelazny tried to describe
"Life and Will" in "Lord of
Light", which is the best novel of his
younger age. "Eye of Cat" is the
best novel of his maturity, which tries to
describe "Death and Eternity".
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Well, I read this series 20 years ago, when
I was in a high school. Since then, this
one has always been my favorite entertainment novel. I
was very fascinated with the cool heroes.
This is a story like a hard-boiled heroic
fantasy, with fantastic worlds like "Shadow
worlds and Shift".
Corwin is a very ironical hero. He knows
his own dark side. Even when he acted like
a real hero, he still recognized his selfish
motivation. He is quite different from a
regular supernatural hero like Elric or Conan.
He is a real guy with modern-self. However
he has his own story and style based on his
myth (The Pattern). So he is still very heroic
in some aspects. I like his dual character
a lot, because I believe that we also have
such dual aspects.
Shadow worlds are the most fascinating parallel
worlds. Especially allayed shadows from "The
Pattern" to "The Courts of Chaos"
are a very imaginary view. I also like the
idea of parallel world based on possibilities.
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I think this is similar to Shakespearean
tragedy. It's a stylish story in which a
hero had been falling down because of his
mental blind spot. Using a tragic saga of
"Tristan" as a motif made this story be more dramatic.
A recurring theme in this story is psychoanalysis.
Even psychological world was visualized instantly
by a special sci-fi machine. The mental drama
between Dr. Render and Dr. Shallot is very
realistic.
We all have dark side of our own private
imaginations in our mind. Only the upper
layer of such strange imaginations is socialized
(shared) with other people, and that thin
layer allow us be able to communicate. Most
of the other layers are in subconscious area.
That means that even a psychological analyst
has large area of his/her mind, which he/she
would not know. If he/she is caught in the
trap of such a mental blind spot, what could
happen in his/her room...
I believe "Dream Master" is a
sci-fi story of such a tragedy which could
happen in the real world.
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