The Solitudes (The Aegypt Cycle) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Reengaging the ideas of alternate lives, worlds, and worldviews that pulsed through his remarkable Little, Big, John Crowley's Ægypt series is a landmark in contemporary fiction. The series helped earn Crowley the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, and Harold Bloom installed the first two books in the series in his 1993 Western canon. Now, following the Spring 2007 hardcover release of the final book in the series (Endless Things), Overlook is bringing the entire tetralogy back into print--and, for the first time, presenting it as a real series.

In The Solitudes, the opening of the series, we are introduced to Pierce Moffett, an unorthodox historian and an expert in ancient astrology, myths, and superstition. The land that Moffett studies is not the real, geographical Egypt but Ægypt, a country of the imagination. When Moffett discovers the historical novels of local writer Fellowes Kraft, his course is charted. Kraft's books interweave stories of Italian heretic Giordano Bruno, young Will Shakespeare, and Elizabethan occultist John Dee--stories that begin to mingle with the narrative of Moffett's real and dream life in 1970s America. As Moffett's journey in and out of his comfortable reality continues, what becomes clear is revelatory: there is more than one history of the world.

This is the dazzling first novel in a series that will certainly take its place amongst the great books of our time. Completely revised by the author to further the power of the series as a whole, this is a perfect chance to rediscover one of our truly great writers, and one of our truly magical stories.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Overlook TP; Reprint edition (October 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585679860
• ISBN-13: 978-1585679867
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #238,139 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aegypt Restored, October 23, 2007

By	Crowley Fan - See all my reviews

This volume is absolutely wonderful. It is almost ridiculously fun, informative, exhilarating. Parts of it (I'm thinking especially of Pierce's flashbacks to life in New York, scattered across the first half) seem to me to be as good as--or even better than--anything in John Crowley's transcendent 1981 masterpiece, Little, Big.

The series centers on the Platonic/Gnostic notion that we're forgetting something, and that that something is our real life. It's not happening on another planet than this one: It flows through our own best, highest, most wakeful moments, and flows into the lives of others through incessant mystery. It's very easy to lose it again, to fall into routine or depression, to lose faith in ourselves and accept false external certainties, and this process is the heart of Aegypt's second and third volumes. But this first volume is one of discovery and rediscovery, of spring awakening, of following a trail of bread crumbs up the sky.

Bless Crowley for writing this book, the happy start of the ultimate romance for intelligent people.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The past is now; the future is, well, now - maybe., December 10, 2007

By	Dick Johnson (Oklahoma USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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I thought about waiting to review this after I had read the entire series - but not for long. I knew I would get the details mixed up as to what happened where and to whom and with what weapon. It is rare that I read a multi-part story straight through. I don't want to not have one to savor later. For the same reason that I'm going to review them as read, I'm afraid too many details would be forgotten before I got to the next parts.

I can also tell after volume one (and peeking at the descriptions of the other volumes) that this is not a series that has four episodes. Rather, it is one very large book split into four pieces.

Have your brain in good working condition before you tackle Solitudes. This isn't a case of thinking outside the box. There is no box. The book's setting is the universe and the time line stretches from the earliest yesterday to the furthest tomorrow. The characters walk a step or two off the beaten path, when there is a path.

Crowley mixes mysticism with metafiction (or meta-metaficiton?) to produce a book that will exercise your imagination. I stopped trying to figure out where the story was going so I could make sure I knew where it had been.

Simply stated, Crowley knows how to write well. I hope the other three volumes, Love & Sleep, Damonomania and Endless Things are as well done.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the wait, February 11, 2008

By	Dangle's girl (Astoria, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Very few modern authors can both engage your intellect and stir your soul; even fewer can unleash your imagination. But perhaps only one writer alive today can do all that in prose that is truly awe-inspiring: John Crowley. I'd been waiting for years for Aegypt to be reissued--it says something that used copies of the first editions were going for hundreds of dollars. Finally I got my copy of Solitudes and marveled at Crowley's ability to cast a spell in only a few pages. This book takes concentration and commitment to fully appreciate, you'll also probably want to check on some other sources on topics like Hermes Trismegistus and John Dee (thank god for Wikipedia). The 1970s setting is also a bit unfortunate, as it's recent enough to carry some baggage but not recent enough for this Gen X reader to really relate to. But this book will move and transport you like nothing else out there. Find a quiet place and give it a chance.