Deeply atmospheric, impressively learned, endlessly suggestive: it won’t mean much, though, to readers who haven’t wrestled...
Historian Pierce Moffett’s ongoing scholarly obsession with “magic, secret histories, and the End of the World” is depicted in ever darkening hues—in the forbiddingly dense third volume of Crowley’s ambitious Aegypt Quartet (Aegypt, 1987; Love and Sleep, 1994).
As before, the action is set both in the remote upstate New York town of Blackbury Jambs and in memories of rural Kentucky and a heritage of violence—a legacy the reclusive Pierce is still trying to escape. Furthermore, the present narrative is mirrored in excerpts from the bizarre children’s books of Fellowes Kraft, as well as from Pierce’s research (inspired by Kraft) into the histories of the 16th-century philosophers “heretic” Giordano Bruno and English scientist-mystic John Dee, whose “dealings with the spirits” (a form of the “daemonomania” that grips Pierce) may have awakened dark forces that threaten overweening mortals. These potent materials easily upstage a comparatively wan contemporary story that centers in Pierce’s confused relationships with two women named Rose (who may be Platonic halves of a single feminine figure), a little girl named Sam who suffers inexplicable seizures and may be a “sensitive” attuned to unearthly harmonies, and the menacing Powerhouse International cult. Though its surface is refreshingly lucid, this overstuffed novel turns on a “plot” that’s really a series of episodic variations on the Aegypt Quartet’s commanding theme: that a “secret history” grasped by only a few humans underlies the world we think we know, and directs our actions. Dreams and foreshadowings, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, the kabala, astrology, Neoplatonism, and many other skillfully assimilated sources and influences suffuse a narrative likewise steeped in grand mythic resonances—as a childless mother becomes Demeter seeking Persephone, and Pierce both a subdued Faust and a chastened Prospero resigned to the necessity of “burning his books.”
Deeply atmospheric, impressively learned, endlessly suggestive: it won’t mean much, though, to readers who haven’t wrestled with its equally demanding predecessors. Crowley’s work is a taste well worth acquiring, but you have to work at it.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2000
ISBN: 0-553-10004-1
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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