The acclaimed reality-altering finale to the "dizzying experience, achieved with unerring security of technique" that is the Aegyptread full description
reviews
Dec 05, 2011
Eddie
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I would still give the Aegypt series as a whole 5 stars, if only for boldness and complexity of vision and its execution, but this final installment was something of a disappointment to me. But even as I say this I know that in a way the whole series was about disappointment and thwarted dreams that are forced to find other lesser avenues of expression.
The series started with the possibility of opening doorways into mansions containing new worlds within worlds, and ends with someone More...
The series started with the possibility of opening doorways into mansions containing new worlds within worlds, and ends with someone More...
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Apr 02, 2009
Chris
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This whole series is something that you need to read more than once. I think this coda is a little weak for a reason and focuses on Pierce for a reason. In many ways, the story echoes life and the stories that we tie in life. And that, even here in this last book, is still strong. I think that is way it is a little weak. Its the aftermath.
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Mar 23, 2010
Christy
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After re-reading for the umpteenth time two all time favorite Crowleys: Engine Summer (wrongly, I think, considered the last of his minor books instead of the first of his major ones), and the almost universally acclaimed Little, Big, I was still hungry for more. Sadly, I can't love what I've now read of the Aegypt quartet with the same passion as ES and LB; there are too many languors, too many tropes that are just a little too twee (all those heavily symbolic car names and fanciful place names
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Dec 06, 2009
Vicky
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A sad disappointment after the first three books in the Aegypt cycle, which were marvelous though exasperating. This one is just exasperating. Crowley seems to be spinning his wheels here; he gives up on plot and character development and substitutes philosophical rumination and episodic fantasy. Characters we have come to love in the first three books barely appear in this one, and new ones are introduced that we don't have time to get interested in. That's what I find hardest to forgive, becau
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May 11, 2009
Alan
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Erudite and verbose, flowery and wise, elegaic... those adjectives and more describe the conclusion to John Crowley's AEgypt quartet. But sad, too, is an appropriate word. Perhaps even endless is a word that fits. Endings are hard, as Crowey says himself; they contain a hint of sadness even when they're written as happy ones, and this ending is no exception.
I find myself saddened, too, that I did not like this book more than I did, at how I had to force myself through it--for sometim More...
I find myself saddened, too, that I did not like this book more than I did, at how I had to force myself through it--for sometim More...
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Jan 20, 2010
Akiva
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The rest of this series is wonderful, this book is merely lush. It was part of the story within the story that the conclusion had to fall flat and with the way that story reflects itself into the actual series, those flaws had to somehow propagate into the novel itself. That said, this book felt like a bit of a chore and I feel like he could have done more to mitigate. What plot there was in the first three books has basically ended by the start of this volume and most of the characters you like
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Jan 26, 2011
Mely
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Crowley's prose is as beautiful as ever, but something I can't quite define about this coda bothers me. Perhaps it's how it's so much Pierce's story (Rosie and Sam have vanished into their own happy endings). Perhaps it's how oddly solipsic Pierce is, despite his wide-ranging mind. On the first read, anyway, it's the least satisfying of the quartet.
From another writer it would still be a four or five, because of the gorgeous prose, the gorgeous structures of thought, but it's John Crowley; I More...
From another writer it would still be a four or five, because of the gorgeous prose, the gorgeous structures of thought, but it's John Crowley; I More...
Jul 21, 2008
Beldon
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30 years in the making-- 20 years in the producing. My love for Crowley's work is known to pretty obvious from my reviews, but I was hesitant when I read the fist two novels in this series. Twenty years ago I was not very well-versed in history or literature-- themes that run deep through this series. But, like a good teacher, Crowley leads the reader to understand on a human level the significance of times and places alien to us. I'm sure there are some little gems hidden away for the liter
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Apr 08, 2008
Greg
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I don't know why anyone would want to read this little mini-review, but here it goes. This is the fourth and final part of the Aegypt series of books, the books started coming out in the late 80's and then at longer and longer intervals they continued to come out till last year the final installment appeared, along with the eventual re-issue of the previous novels.
This series of books is quite interesting, a great mixture of occult and esoterica, with very good writing and engaging charact More...
This series of books is quite interesting, a great mixture of occult and esoterica, with very good writing and engaging charact More...
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Aug 29, 2007
Jeremiah
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I've finished reading John Crowley's Endless Things. For those who haven't drunk the kool-aid (and if you haven't what the hell is wrong with you!) this is the fourth, and last, book in his Aegypt series which first begun in 1987 when I was in high school. So this is a series I've been reading my entire adult life (sort of mirroring in some ways the life of the main character Pierce).
The Aegypt series involves the search, the dream quest of Pierce that there is a story that will unco More...
The Aegypt series involves the search, the dream quest of Pierce that there is a story that will unco More...
Jan 19, 2009
Bobby
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I understand the grievance many people had with this book - in the previous three novels Crowley seems to promise a return to an age of wonder, or something like that - but instead it all just sort of dissolves into a disappointingly quotidian reality. Upon stumbling across these paragraphs from Aegypt,though - I realize there is really no other way he could have concluded it:
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Did he really intend to suggest in his book that once-upon-a-time the useless procedures of magic had had
Sep 29, 2010
Jennifer
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I think others have already commented on how this is a non-ending. I should say that it felt very much like a drift--think a lazy river, and suddenly you look up and realize the boat has long since sailed into uncharted waters. The great moment of this series (really it should all be one book) happens outside the text; as such we can't ever really experience something like closure. That being said, there was much about this book that felt added, in a sort of "and then . . . " mode;
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Jan 09, 2009
Elrik
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I just wish I could write like this. John Crowley is one of my favourite fiction writers, along with Alan Garner. Read the whole Aegypt series: this is the fourth and last of them. The first is (now) called "The Solitudes".
Aug 22, 2009
Aramis
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More than 20 years after I read Aegypt, I finally have reached the end of the cycle. It could have ended no other way. Though I was a bit disappointed with the plot, the writing as always remains unmatched.
Jan 21, 2010
Christopher
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Part four (of four). I had a hard time imagining how Crowley would finish his four-part meganovel, and for a time as I began to read this final book I wondered if he or I had lost our way. However, it turned out that it did all come together. Taken together these four books are Crowley's best work, possibly the best American novel of the past few decades. Very powerful, very, very good.
Dec 14, 2009
Loretta
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Overall, I was quite disappointed with this book, and with the series. The middle part of this book, in particular, was completely incoherent as far as I'm concerned. It was only redeemed by the last third, where Crowly went back to the characters and at least provided some resolution of the story. I understand what he was trying to do; but I just wasn't happy with the execution.
Feb 07, 2009
Aaron
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Dense, nearly impenetrable at times, but richly rewarding, as with all of Crowley's work. It almost feels like a coda to the rest of the Aegypt sequence, but it's secrets are most likely necessary to reach a proper understanding of the sequence as a whole. Ultimately, it's a gorgeous book, but certainly not for everyone.
Nov 30, 2008
Susannah
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I love John Crowley's Aegypt series of novels as a whole, and this is a very satisfying conclusion to what has been an erudite sampler of apocryphal histories and a meaty narrative pleasure. I'm just sad to have turned the last page.
Jan 09, 2009
John
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I was really looking forward to this book, the last in the 4 book Aegypt series. However, it turned out to be a disappointingly weak novel. Crowley seems to have either run out of steam or lost his direction on this one.
Feb 16, 2008
the last book in the tetralogy didn't really go to a place i understood, but that's john crowley for you (or for me, at any rate), and the the first three books were everything i could've wanted.
Mar 21, 2008
Michael
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This book deserves a long and careful review in the context of the rest of Crowley's Aegypt books. Which I hope to do someday soon. Crowley has a v. nice blog worth looking at.
Feb 24, 2008
chris
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Colossal disappointment to a series that took 20 years to get completely published. Perhaps I was just exhausted with it.
Feb 11, 2012
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