Wolf Solent (Harper Colophon Books, Cn 1163) [Paperback]

John Cowper Powys (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1984 | Series: Harper Colophon Books, Cn 1163 (Book 1163)

Often described as one of the great apocalyptic novels of our time, "Wolf Solent" is the story of a young man returning from London to work near to the school at which his father had been history master. Complex, romantic and humorous, it is a classic work combining a close understanding of man's everyday experience with a delicate awareness of the spiritual.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Powys's novel caused quite a stir when it debuted in 1929, garnering praise from many of the top writers of the day including Conrad Aiken and Theodore Dreiser. In it the title character returns to the English countryside, which remains steeped in mysticism and romance.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

A novelist of great, cumulative force and lyrical intensity. . . . Out of his rhapsodic style and keen attentiveness to nature, he builds a tower of prose to match the firmament. -- The Washington Post Book World

A stupendous and rather glorious book. . . as beautiful and strange as an electric storm. -- V.S. Pritchett

Keats equated his initial reading of Chapman's Homer with an explorer's first view of the Pacific or an astronomer's glimpse of a new planet. Opening John Cowper Powys's Wolf Solent, reissued by Vintage, is a revelation on that order. . . . The author writes prose that is always on the threshold of poetry-- sacramental, mesmerizing, of relentless power. . . . Wolf Solent is a protean, inexhaustible, exhilarating book. -- George Gurley, The Kansas City Star

The novel is a momentous piece of work . . . of transcendent interest and great beauty. -- The New York Times Book Review

The only book in the English language to rival Tolstoy. -- George Steiner

[Powys is] as domestic as Jane Austen, a genius like her at creating a cast of characters as part of a comedy and in a comic setting. . . . [He is] as billiant an explorer of our erotic being as D.H. Lawrence. -- The New York Review of Books --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 613 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (September 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060911638
• ISBN-13: 978-0060911638
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,211,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All of the things you long for, June 1, 2001

By 

Minsma (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wolf Solent (Paperback)

This is the most serious comic novel I've ever read. Cowper Powys is not afraid to make his main character, Wolf Solent, at times unlikable, frustrating, self-absorbed, the butt of jokes, but ultimately someone I was pulling for despite (or probably because of) his flaws. Every character in the novel is alive and dimensional, touching, often hilarious, full of frailties and illusions, especially Wolf. What is remarkable about the book is that Cowper Powys shows the transformation of a young man in all its contradictory minutiae. The author remembers and shows everything about the process of growth and change, all the details that most of us gloss over or forget.

The writing itself is like an hallucinogenic dream--half mad, surging with the glories of the senses, and tumbling with emotions. It is alternately exhilarating and exhausting, funny and wrenching, easy and uneasy. I picked the book up and put it down in fits and starts, worn out like a swimmer caught in a large blue wave. Wolf's mystical and very physical journey through illusion, the shattering of illusion, and its aftermath is a celebration of the things of the earth, the power of the pulse of life over the coldness of the grave. It is a torrent of philosophy; a breakdown between mind, spirit, body; between integration, disintegration, and reintegration; a sensual delight. It worn me out, wore thin, then filled me up again.

Wolf Solent--a poetic, mystical, idealistic young man comes to a small town in Dorset, is torn between two loves, discovers Beautiful Truths and Hard Truths, and must find a way to reconcile the contrary currents of life. We follow the details of his soul's journey over the course of a year--sometimes stream of consciousness, sometimes chaotic narrative experience, or funny scenes of people pretending to be civilized but really acting out of the mysterious, instinctual, pagan human heart. This narrative is much like the chaotic jumble inside the head of every person who thinks seriously about life's meaning, and maybe thinks too much. It is about the churning brain, about the bodies which carry these thought-machines around the luminous earth, about the spirit which envelopes both and aches, always, for something more and greater than itself.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a beautiful, life-changing book., February 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wolf Solent (Paperback)

I first read this novel twenty years ago and just read it agina in the lovely new Vintage edition. I am happy to say that my youthful opinion holds. This is one of the most beautiful, enthralling novels of the century. It changes one's view of how to live--of how to experience being alive. It refreshes the spirit. But not to sound mystical: It's just great reading.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sucks you into a special world, November 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wolf Solent (Paperback)

No other author I've read creates the sights, sounds and smells of a portion of the world as effectively as John Cowper Powys, and this book is typical of his art.

Pick up this book, and you'll find yourself slipping into Dorset of early 20th century. You'll find yourself surrounded by eccentric, but facinating characters who don't always act as you expect them to. You'll begin to notice the small (and large) things that make life interesting.

Beware, however. Powys' is NOT an author to read quickly. Do that and you'll find yourself annoyed by his philosophical and psychological musings. Take plenty of time to read his carefully crafted language and you're in for a wonderful experience.