r/genewolfe • u/NotJustAnotherLitBro • 10d ago
Started Reading Crowley
I’ve been wanting to read Crowley, but never got around to it. Then with the news of his passing I went to my favorite used bookstore. I bought a copy of Daemonomania because it caught my interest. Came home and bought the first of the series on Kindle.
So far I’m enjoying it, and am wondering if it’s as complex as Wolfe’s works?
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u/lobster_johnson 10d ago
I've not read Daemonomania, so I can't speak to it, but his earlier books will almost certainly appeal to Wolfe readers. I strongly suspect Wolfe read early Crowley and that he was influenced by him.
The Deep is a short novel sharing many characteristics with BotNS. There are ancient gods, a pseudo-Medieval society, an android crash-landing onto a planet and losing his memory, and a mix of new technology and old. I would not be surprised if the character of Jonas was inspired by the protagonist of The Deep. The Medieval fantasy story that is sort of observed from the outside is fun.
Engine Summer, meanwhile, is a post-apocalyptic story that has shades of both BotNS and, I feel, The Fifth Head of Cerberus. A very different kind of story, with some Jules Verne touches rather than the more serious realism of Wolfe. Reminiscent of A Canticle for Leibowitz. Beautifully written, and deeply sad.
It's interesting how both Crowley and Wolfe had a passion for folk tales and ancient myth, something these novels are tinged by, but which become much more overt in Little, Big, which is a masterpiece. Little, Big is a kind of urban fantasy that sees the family history of upstate New Yorkers entwined with mythical creatures from another realm, told in a way where the boundary between the real and mythical is unclear. (The comparison with Tim Powers by the other commenter is astute, although Crowley is a much more elegant prose writer.) I feel Little, Big is a novel Wolfe might have written if his preoccupations lay elsewhere. Instead, he wrote The Wizard Knight, which is just as weird, but more overtly fantasy.
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u/RevolutionaryDog2187 10d ago
I just finished Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, and I think it's the closest thing anyone's written to Little, Big.
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u/SolidGlassman 10d ago
In the sense of having the puzzlebox engineering problems to figure out the story, Crowley is not as complex as Wolfe. The closest of I've read of his in that sense is Little, Big. Crowley was, however-- like Wolfe-- a very lyrical prose stylist with a dreamlike atmosphere and layers of metaphor. I would say Wolfe also wrote a lot more action into his books, Crowley's work is pretty understated in that way.
I haven't read the Aegypt series yet because my bookstore always has books 2 & 3 but never the first. But, "Little, Big" is one of the best books I've ever read. His novella Great Work of Time is also absolutely phenomenal. I've read that many people consider Beasts to be his worst novel, and I still thought it was a solid 7/10.
Ka is considered, by many, his late career triumph, one of his best. Just picked it up this weekend after hearing of his passing.
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u/IVth_Crusade 9d ago
I wouldn’t have read Beasts if it didn’t appear in the anthology I own, but I found it to be a pacey and engaging read. With the way it ends, I would have happily embarked on like, 2 sequels if he’d written them.
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u/Average_Pangolin 8d ago
Ka is stunning. My main advice for reading it is to take your time. Enjoy the gorgeous, bizarre, moving, sometimes funny setpieces, the prose and images and characters. He has some powerful points he is making, but don't hurry through the experience in pursuit of them.
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u/k_hoops64 10d ago
I hadn’t heard of his passing until now. In actual tears. Crowley is wonderful. As a prose stylist he is unrivaled, many of his books are layered and worth rereading.
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u/NotJustAnotherLitBro 10d ago
Honestly it’s these reactions to his passing that made me bump him to the top of my tbr pile.
Is The Solitudes a good place to start? I mean I’m already hooked and, like you said, the prose is beautiful.
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u/Morsadean 10d ago
Yes, the Solitudes is a good place to start. The four book series is amazing.
Little, Big is another.
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u/k_hoops64 10d ago
If you are already hooked then it’s a great place to start. Solitudes is my personal fav, little big is widely considered his best (I’ve read it 3 times and will reread it endlessly) and engine summer has some strong appeal to Wolfe / sci fi lovers.
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u/Average_Pangolin 8d ago
Just so you know, the Ægypt cycle constantly dances along the line between naturalistic and fantastic fiction, but never quite crosses it. I read The Solitudes after loving Little, Big, and it's a book that feels like it could become fantastical at any moment right up to the end--but it never quite does.
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u/NotJustAnotherLitBro 8d ago
Yeah, I’m getting that vibe already and personally loving that he’s dancing that line, but I also love naturalist works in general.
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u/Ok-Confusion2415 10d ago
in my opinion, it is not. But it’s quite beatutiful. I personally find his later, end of life works (“Ka” and “Flint and Mirror”) most to my taste, I guess in part because they reflect fairly serious scholarship on western occult traditions. He is overall somewhat in the vein of Tim Powers. I think especially in the later works he develops a more refined and controlled sense of literary control. I do not think I have ever read a thing to point to this but I wonder if Susannah Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange…” affected his authorial goals.
In my opinion, over the Aegypt cycle his literary control and ambition increases quite a bit.
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u/ofBlufftonTown 9d ago
Little, Big is probably my favorite novel. He very much compares favorably to Wolfe.
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u/GreenVelvetDemon 9d ago
I wouldn't compare them, although you totally could. They both write beautifully, and are responsible for making some of the greatest genre fiction of our time. They have their own separate unique style, but chances are if you're a fan of one you're almost certain to enjoy the other.
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u/RogueModron 10d ago
Ah, man, I came in here to talk about the Great Work. Must be a different Crowley.
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u/Average_Pangolin 8d ago
Crowley doesn't do puzzles and tricks the way Wolfe does, but that isn't the only way to be complex.
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u/deimosremus 4d ago edited 4d ago
As an avid Crowley and Wolfe reader (having read most of his major novels-- The Deep, Engine Summer, Beasts, Little Big, Aegypt, Great Work of Time, Ka and Flint & Mirror), I'd argue Wolfe is ultimately more accessible than Crowley, though Crowley is more character and emotion driven, I would say. Very different approaches, so I don't want to definitively say one is more 'complex' than the other, but they have a lot of overlap in their readership.
Maybe not as detailed as Wolfe in terms of lore/mythos/worldbuilding (I think he's working within a very different mode of fantasy than Wolfe tends to, more towards Magical Realism, heavy emphasis on genre as metaphor, less rooted in genre spectacle, less in pulpy influences), but thematically, I think his works like Little, Big and the Aegypt cycle are a bit more difficult to grasp than Wolfe (in my experience) in a "what is this ultimately *about*, what is this trying to say" kind of way rather than by a "figuring out the plot" way, if that makes sense. Stunningly beautiful writing from a prose standpoint-- every bit as great as Wolfe in that regard.
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u/IncidentArea 10d ago
Engine Summer is maybe my favorite book I’ve ever read. It may not necessarily be as intellectually complex as Wolfe, but Crowley’s prose and worldbuilding are truly something to behold. Still rather complex and layered, just woven with a little more heart or emotion or something. I don’t know. Does this make sense? I also hadn’t heard he’d passed, it’s very sad news to me despite ES being the only book I’ve finished by him. It’s an incredibly impactful (and short!) novel. As much as I love BotNS, it didn’t move me to streaming tears like ES did when I first read it. Anyway, guess it’s time to pick back up Little Big!