The Laughter of Carthage

Synopsis

Reviews criticized the novel, saying: " … though Moorcock may want all the ugly rhetoric to be read as the ravings of a self-deluding liar and knave, the ironies--e.g., Pyat's own secret Jewishness--aren't as clear here as they were in Byzantium Endures. So this 600-page novel, for all its scene-by-scene skill, soon becomes a cold, tedious exercise--short on genuine character or charm, basically shapeless, faintly unpleasant."