Reengaging the ideas of alternate lives, worlds, and worldviews that pulsed through his remarkable Little, Big, John Crowley's Ãegyptread full description
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Mar 04, 2008
Elizabeth
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I've never before come to the end of book and been unsure of whether or not I liked it. I'm intrigued by it. I'd even say fascinated, or, perhaps, compelled is a better word. There is so much to think about. What is the meaning of history? What if there are multiple, real histories (not just multiple historical interpretations) that lie next to each other, like folds in one piece of cloth? Especially for someone who studied history, this is fascinating book for its questions. For someone who lov
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Feb 13, 2008
Jason
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(My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)
So to even begin understanding today's essay, you need to first understand the following -- that what we now know as modern "science," back when it was invented in the 1500s, was in fact mostly a religious pursuit when it was first created. See, such deep thinkers back then ultimately wanted to be c More...
So to even begin understanding today's essay, you need to first understand the following -- that what we now know as modern "science," back when it was invented in the 1500s, was in fact mostly a religious pursuit when it was first created. See, such deep thinkers back then ultimately wanted to be c More...
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Nov 20, 2007
Kelly
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Possibly the most formative book I've ever read. The main character, Pierce Moffat, feels so familiar to me that it was easy for Crowley's brilliant prose to influence how I saw the world.
Often compared to Robertson Davies in his use of history and sense of detail, Crowley actually leaves the old master behind with the sheer world-cracking scope of the piece.
Intellectually demanding, but rewarding beyond belief.
This is the beginning of a four book series which was completed th More...
Often compared to Robertson Davies in his use of history and sense of detail, Crowley actually leaves the old master behind with the sheer world-cracking scope of the piece.
Intellectually demanding, but rewarding beyond belief.
This is the beginning of a four book series which was completed th More...
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Mar 22, 2009
Vicky
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Toward the end of this very strange and ingenious novel, the author reviews it himself. The hero, Pierce Moffett, has come across an unpublished manuscript by a deceased author, and it sounds very much like The Solitudes itself:
"For it wasn't a *good* book at all, Pierce supposed, considered as a book, a novel; it was a philosophical romance, remote and extravagant, without much of the tang of life as it really must have gone on in the world--as it really *had* gone on if you me More...
"For it wasn't a *good* book at all, Pierce supposed, considered as a book, a novel; it was a philosophical romance, remote and extravagant, without much of the tang of life as it really must have gone on in the world--as it really *had* gone on if you me More...
Jul 27, 2008
Michael
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When I first read this book (under its original title _Aegypt_) I greatly enjoyed it but I didn't have a mature enough perspective to get the most out of it. I also didn't know there was a sequel, and so when I read the third book in the sequence (_Daemonomania_) I was completely lost.
There is another history of the world, concurrent with the history taught to you in school, and Pierce Moffett seeks to chronicle this secret history (peopled by Giordano Bruno, John Dee, and Will Shake More...
There is another history of the world, concurrent with the history taught to you in school, and Pierce Moffett seeks to chronicle this secret history (peopled by Giordano Bruno, John Dee, and Will Shake More...
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Nov 22, 2007
Just re-read this and highly recommend it. This series of four books argues that "there is more than one history of the world." In fact, we each make up our own. In particular, these books suggest that history has a series of hairpin curves which completely alter our perception of the past as well as the present. Moments like the Renaissance and the 1960s dredged up ancient texts and opened up a wide range of possibilities that closed down in ensuing decades. The book has amazing chara
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Aug 05, 2011
Kerith
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I remember this being lovely bus reading on all those Choral Union trips to Detroit back when I was in that group. Delightfully, magically written. I really have no clue what it was about! Many stories within a story -- it was one of those books where everything comes together, just like in life generally, and shows me how all the books I read are somehow linked.
Near the end, the main male character wonders why he has to live two lives -- the life outside (to me, the life of the world) and More...
Near the end, the main male character wonders why he has to live two lives -- the life outside (to me, the life of the world) and More...
Jul 09, 2011
Kerith
rated it:
I remember this being lovely bus reading on all those Choral Union trips to Detroit back when I was in that group. Delightfully, magically written. I really have no clue what it was about! Many stories within a story -- it was one of those books where everything comes together, just like in life generally, and shows me how all the books I read are somehow linked.
Near the end, the main male character wonders why he has to live two lives -- the life outside (to me, the life of the world) and More...
Near the end, the main male character wonders why he has to live two lives -- the life outside (to me, the life of the world) and More...
Sep 01, 2011
g
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Pierce Moffat is a down-and-out historian who becomes hip to a recurring historical phenomenon, a sort of crossroads in time, when the history of the world could move in an infinite number of directions but ultimately settles on one, its previous history entirely subsumed into the next. His thesis and search center around a lost civilization called Aegypt (not to be confused with Egypt), whose thinkers are founders of the Hermetic tradition that later influenced occultists Giordano Bruno, John D
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Oct 03, 2011
Tessa
rated it:
It is impossible to explain a John Crowley novel. One cannot simply say his plots are magnificent, (they are) his characters realistic (they are) his prose superb (it is) because then one is asked to explain why.
I treated myself to Aegypt, I find with certain novellists that I purchase their novels as a matter of course but I save them on my shelf until I have done something worthy of reading them, and John Crowley is one such author. Aegypt is in many ways similar to Foucault's pendulum, a More...
I treated myself to Aegypt, I find with certain novellists that I purchase their novels as a matter of course but I save them on my shelf until I have done something worthy of reading them, and John Crowley is one such author. Aegypt is in many ways similar to Foucault's pendulum, a More...
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Jun 07, 2011
Rebecca
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Wow! This book was unlike any other I've read before. I can see why some readers feel conflicted as to whether they liked it or not. I know that I loved it yet I don't feel satisfied, but maybe that's because I need to read the entire series. I felt like I was obsessed with the book more than that I necessarily was enjoying it, if that makes any sense. It called on something deep inside but didn't provide closure or answers...yet. The author definitely takes his time moving the story along and n
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Sep 08, 2010
Rochelle
rated it:
Curiouser and curiouser.....
ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE
by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.
A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, More...
ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE
by: Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.
A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, More...
May 09, 2009
Jim
rated it:
I read these books out of order, having discovered Love and Sleep in the library about 5 years after its publication. The world Crowley builds creeps into your mind slowly. The books are slow-moving and dense, but that's part of the point, I think. Crowley gives you time to contemplate the way it really happens, it comes to you while life goes on. There are huge background themes behind the characters, and you glimpse them more clearly than the characters thanks to the historical sections of
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Jan 03, 2008
Aaron
rated it:
This book will blow your noodle with its investigation into the notion that the world was once totally different than it now is, and that it was possible, during a time, to actually make lead into gold and build a perpetual motion machine. Alas, that knowledge is now lost for good and can never be recovered. Crazy shit.
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May 10, 2010
Jennifer
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I will not write too much yet as I'm taking it as the first part of the overall novel "The Aegypt Cycle" and not as a standalone work. This is not a novel, I think; as much an exploration of multiple theories and histories as it is a story of particular characters; it is a massive dose of philosophy and literature and history whisked into something rich and thick and lovely, to be sipped slowly and with all senses alight.
I'm also going to have to revisit my undergraduate t More...
I'm also going to have to revisit my undergraduate t More...
May 29, 2011
Pariskarol
rated it: 
I love John Crowley, author of my #1 favorite book of all time (Little, Big), but these other books he did are just not all that interesting to me.
In "Aegypt," Crowley tells the same story from another of his books, "Of Love and Sleep," (which wasn't that great either) from a different point of view. And now I see there are two more to follow? And it's a "cycle"??
It's so strange to me how authors get enamored of a story or a setting or a cast o More...
In "Aegypt," Crowley tells the same story from another of his books, "Of Love and Sleep," (which wasn't that great either) from a different point of view. And now I see there are two more to follow? And it's a "cycle"??
It's so strange to me how authors get enamored of a story or a setting or a cast o More...
Oct 06, 2011
Michael
rated it:
This cuts my soul the way prime John Crowley always does, but this book takes that stream of inspiration to its most fantastically baroque consequences. This is the author of "Little, Big" writing both "Foucault's Pendulum" and something like the "Quicksilver" books simultaneously. With some borrowed tone from "Against the Day." Doesn't matter that only one of those books had yet been written.
There is more than one history of the world.
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There is more than one history of the world.
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Jan 06, 2010
Akiva
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This is the first of four books collected under the title Aegypt. Things happen in this book, I suppose. There are boys and girls and old books. Some meet. Some separate. Some grow together or apart. Somehow the girls are all more or less named Rose. There is a novel within the novel in which seventeenth century alchemists figure prominently. The protagonist is writing a book which somehow shares an intricate structure with the novel organized around the astrological houses. There is a narrative
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Apr 20, 2011
I'm not going to rate this book because I'm sorry to say I didn't finish it. I adored one of his other books, LITTLE, BIG, and looked forward to this one. I do so love a good metaphysical novel and the opening scene held much promise. Then, too, Crowley is a lovely wordsmith. The problem was I kept losing interest in the narrative. I didn't particularly care about the characters, and I so wanted to. I fully recognize this may just be a case of the wrong book at the wrong time, by which I m
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Oct 29, 2010
Alice
rated it:
The Solitudes defied being placed in a catagory. It was a 70s sex/drug fest, a philosopher's guide to life and a historical storybook all in one. There were things that really worked for me and things that I didn't enjoy at all.
As far as the main protagonist goes Pierce Moffet was, for me, a waste of space. I enjoyed nothing about him or his storyline until the end of the novel. He was smug, arrogant and, it seems, influenced by whatever way the wind was blowing. I'll admit a good bit More...
As far as the main protagonist goes Pierce Moffet was, for me, a waste of space. I enjoyed nothing about him or his storyline until the end of the novel. He was smug, arrogant and, it seems, influenced by whatever way the wind was blowing. I'll admit a good bit More...
Feb 21, 2010
Consuelo
rated it:
Aún no puedo rankear este libro, ni decido si lo amé o si no me gustó. De todas formas, a medida que pasan los dias, como que me gusta mas. Y hay que leerlos todos para tener una minima idea. Se nota mucho que esto es la primera parte de un solo libro.
Esto se trata (creo), de un profesor de historia llamado Pierce Moffett (Aquí parentesis. En la contratapa dice "fracasado". Quienes fuimos a una facultad de ciencias sociales y estamos semi-cesantes sabemos que tener un traba More...
Esto se trata (creo), de un profesor de historia llamado Pierce Moffett (Aquí parentesis. En la contratapa dice "fracasado". Quienes fuimos a una facultad de ciencias sociales y estamos semi-cesantes sabemos que tener un traba More...
Nov 09, 2010
S. Ben
rated it:
A very intricately-crafted occult history novel, somewhat able to stand on its own but clearly part of a larger work. My hope is that this becomes a five-star ("it was amazing") book in the context of the overall cycle, though that remains to be seen. Pacing is leisurely.
Some chapters of this book have the current-day characters reading histories or historical fiction, and for much of the book I actually found those the more gripping sections. There was a point in the th More...
Some chapters of this book have the current-day characters reading histories or historical fiction, and for much of the book I actually found those the more gripping sections. There was a point in the th More...
Nov 04, 2008
Nicolas
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En fait, le problème, c’est que dès le début, j’ai été noyé par les différents personnages qui se mélangent les uns aux autres sans aucune séparation : on passe du “héros” ou plutôt du personnage principal de Pierce Moffet au Docteur Dee ou à Giordano Bruno sans rien pour nous signaler ces passages, ce qui est très déstabilisant. Déja, ca rendait les choses difficiles, mais je me suis accroché par habitude : je ne supporte pas de ne pas terminer un roman. Le problème, c’est que pour avoir un rom
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May 22, 2008
Anneke
rated it:
I am about half way through the book and am enjoying it. However, I find that, unlike "Little, Big", it isn't moving along as swiftly as I would like. I find myself dozing off in parts, particularly in the bits which SHOULD be interesting, where he is laying out the whys and wherefores of Ægypt...
However, I persevere.
Interestingly enough, I had never heard of Dr. John Dee before and the other evening, I was watching a documentary of odd things at the British Mu More...
However, I persevere.
Interestingly enough, I had never heard of Dr. John Dee before and the other evening, I was watching a documentary of odd things at the British Mu More...
Feb 12, 2008
Nancy
rated it:
I will say right off the bat that this is a book that is (as I saw in a book review somewhere) NFE: Not for Everyone. It resonated with me on very many levels and for many reasons, but it is not anywhere close to mainstream fiction. I happen to prefer books that are somewhat "quirky" and this is about as quirky as they get. Having said that, let me state for those who enjoy a very good off-the-wall type of read, that this is probably one of the better books I've read lately, and how fo
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Dec 25, 2007
David
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I eagerly approached this book on the recommendation of a couple of friends. However, Aegypt wasn't all that I hoped it would be. The main character, Pierce Moffett, is a history professor who discovers the symbolic and mythological underpinnings of the history that he has studied for so long. He becomes fascinated by Hermetics and the works of Dee and Bruno. The portions of the book dedicated to Moffett's exploration of these subjects are excellent. The writing is delightful and fanciful, and
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Nov 15, 2007
Tim
rated it: 
I came across the last book in this series and it sounded really interesting, so I dug up the first book, this book, and looked forward to it. All I can say is that it is a major letdown. Neat idea, or captivating at least, but poor execution. It felt like it took three-hundred pages just to get the story to start and that was at the end. The historical fiction parts were boring. It all fits together, and I think the reader is supposed to have this moment when they realize that the book the
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Apr 28, 2008
Brooke
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There is more than one history of the world - or so John Crowley says repeatedly in Aegypt (original titled The Solitudes, apparently), the first in a four-book series.
I have to admit, I almost didn't make it through. The first 1/3 of the book is sloooow and pretentious. I hate leaving books unfinished, though, so I plowed ahead. Once Crowley finishes laying out his thesis and starts moving along, it gets better. Still so very pretentious, but better.
It skips back and f More...
I have to admit, I almost didn't make it through. The first 1/3 of the book is sloooow and pretentious. I hate leaving books unfinished, though, so I plowed ahead. Once Crowley finishes laying out his thesis and starts moving along, it gets better. Still so very pretentious, but better.
It skips back and f More...
Oct 18, 2009
Leif
rated it:
The remarkable beginning to Aegypt, and Crowley at some of his finest. Dense? Not really, rather cumulative, and broadly engaging. His engagement with multiple interpretations, timelines, and characters demands suitable attentions from the reader, and this might put you off if you have no time for subleties. However, I confidently believe that Crowley repays this attention marvellously in many ways.
Nov 27, 2011
Dan
rated it:
I tried to read this twice. The first time, I mired in a very long description of landscape toward the end of Chapter Two. The landscape being described was sort of nice, I guess, but I did not feel it merited that many words. I would have been happier if he had said "there was a river there", and then moved on to the plot.
I came back to this book much later, shortly after discovering Kindle-For-Android. I made it through the description of how the protagonist was a bro More...
I came back to this book much later, shortly after discovering Kindle-For-Android. I made it through the description of how the protagonist was a bro More...
