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From Publishers Weekly
With this impressive if flawed sequel to the magisterial AEgypt (1987), Crowley offers another taste of his deeply intellectual brand of contemporary fantasy. As a boy, historian and writer Pierce Moffett developed a fascination with the occult, devouring tomes of arcane lore. Now Pierce has become increasingly convinced that, several times in history, the world has undergone a great transformation whereby the nature of things--the systems that govern its operation--have changed; where once alchemy and magic worked, now they don't. Digging through the papers of a favorite childhood novelist, Pierce discovers an unpublished manuscript that, set in the 16th century and tracking two real-life men of knowledge, seems to bolster his supposition that things were indeed once different. Several people are affected by his discovery--the woman he comes to care for; an epileptic child; a dying man seeking the philosopher's stone. It's not in the plot that the relative strengths of Crowley's book lie. Rather, it's in the breathtaking language, the rolling seductive sentences and the precision with which he evokes the sense of everyday life spiced with hints of mystical secrets. The problem, though, is that there's no proper payoff to all the portent. Crowley tries mightily, but he just can't pull off the miracle of creating his own philosopher's stone here. Still, if what he ends up with isn't quite gold, it glitters enough to keep readers involved. Major ad/promo.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
Crowley (Aegypt, 1987, etc.) struggles to recapture the smooth blending of straight narrative and speculative hermeticism that gave his best work, Little, Big (1981), the startling quality of metaphysical realism. It eludes him, unfortunately, here. Very much a book of levels, as the title's two primal forces indicate, this is the story of a writer named Pierce Moffett, who grew up with his mother and uncle and cousins in rural Kentucky (far removed from his homosexual father back in New York City). Pierce eventually turns into an upstate New York loner, an isolato equipped with paranormal gifts of magic and wisdom that set him more firmly in tune with the music of the spheres than with the lives of his neighbors. The book is a chronicle of Pierce's slow steps into this world (a fuller sex life, learning to drive) but also a charting of the introduction he unwittingly provides to others of a reality off, as it were, to one side of daily conscious life. Crowley adds historical focus in chapters about the struggles of two 16th-century psychic pioneers, the Italian metaphysician Giordano Bruno and the English mage John Dee. These historical sections, though graceful (Crowley is a deliciously elegant writer, sentence by sentence), are heavy dumplings; and though Crowley ultimately and quite strikingly turnbuckles the two levels into one at the end, it feels a lot less than natural and inevitable. The split-vision pretty much weighs down the spring of Pierce's pilgrim's progress into love and eroticism (women, but also a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy who is his illegitimate son, a pure Eros figure). In the end, the secret knowledge so sought after here comes to seem a burden the reader would rather shrug off than embrace. Disappointing. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Misunderstood,
By
This review is from: LOVE AND SLEEP (Hardcover)
The first sequel to AEgypt, Love & Sleep chronicles lovelorn and adrift Pierce Moffett as he stands upon the cusp of a magical change in history. Simultaneously, we view the brief encounter between Giordano Bruno and John Dee at Mortlake in the late 16th century, Pierce's own childhood in the Cumberland mountains, and begin to see deeply into the lives of Pierce's two roses (Rose Ryder and Rosie Rasmussen). This book seems to have been unpopular with some Crowley fans, perhaps because it almost entirely lacks any sort of action, and is instead a lyrical, brooding meditation on change and age. It is also true that some of the Renaissance scenes are over-long, windy, and at times do not quite ring true. Further, it is a sequel, and what's more will have two more sequels of its own; the third book in the series, Daemonomania, is already out, but who knows when book 4 will appear? Although I would grant all these criticisms, it is Crowley's graceful prose that makes this book such an extraordinary achievement. AEgypt was a bit unfocused, seemingly unsure where it was going; Love & Sleep takes wing and soars. Crowley's ear for modern speech is exceptional, and he also manages to clutch us emotionally without ever dipping into maudlin or pathos. Furthermore, the way he weaves together oddities of Renaissance magical history and mythology with the modern world is breathtaking --- Bobby Shaftoe's werewolf father is hauntingly real, human, and deeply felt. For me, this is Crowley's best book since Little, Big, but it's certainly not for the quick reader. Love & Sleep requires a good deal of effort and time from the reader, and we must be prepared to surrender to the homely, slow pace of the prose.
4.0 out of 5 stars
an excellent work in progress,
By rash67 (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: L0VE AND SLEEP (Paperback)
A 4 book work in progress, starting with "Aegypt". Dealing with 2 plots, one in the current time (Pierce Moffat), one in the past (Bruno). Bruno discovers, in the middle ages, the 20th century explanation of how the universe works, speaks out about it and gets persecuted by the Inquisition. John Dee talks to an angel thru his "shew" stone. The sections for the books are the latin names of the houses of the zodiac. We can therefore look forward to another 2 books with 3 houses each. This is a hurculean effort. Lets hope John Crowley doesn't run out of plot before he runs out of houses. It took about a decade between the publishing of book one and two. Lets also hope that he will not need 40 years to finish the story. The quality is too good.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing sequel to Aegypt reveals insufficiency of magi,
By rampageous_cuss (Under Billy Penn's Hat) - See all my reviews
This review is from: L0VE AND SLEEP (Paperback)
I loved Crowley's Aegypt, a wonderful compound of life, art, and magic (specifically hermeticism.) Although written in Crowley's beautiful style this novel was a severe disappointment. The lyrical life-affirming optimism of the preceding novel was wholly absent, replaced by a dismal elegaic pessimism. The book's structure is kind of clumsy too - it's a loosely related set of chunks of stories which while interesting in themselves don't flow well together. It's interesting to speculate that the novel's grim tone is related to the murder of Crowley's friend and professor of hermetic studies Ioan Culianu, who was assassinated, evidentally for political reasons, in 1991. Giordano Bruno, the Renaissance hermeticist, is a principal subject of Crowley's novel and his life bears parallels to Culianu's.
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