Snake's Hands: The Fiction of John Crowley

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Alice K. Turner, Michael Andre-Druissi
Wildside Press LLC, Jan 1, 2003 - Literary Criticism - 408 pages
Brilliant, poetic, a master of fantastic symbolism and emotional portraiture, John Crowley is one of the finest contemporary American novelists. As Harold Bloom writes in his Preface to this book, "Crowley writes so magnificently that only a handful of living writers can equal him as a stylist . . . Of novelists, only Philip Roth consistently writes on Crowley's level." Engine Summer; Little, Big; Aegypt; Great Work of Time; The Translator: these are only the highlights of a twenty-five year literary career of extraordinary depth and eloquence. Yet Crowley has not been the subject of a full-length critical study until now; Snake's-Hands remedies this lack, in full. In Snake's-Hands, Alice K. Turner and Michael Andre-Driussi assemble a host of brilliant essays on the fiction of John Crowley, by such eminent writers and critics as John Clute, Thomas M. Disch, James Hynes, Brian Attebery, and Bill Sheehan. Explore with them Crowley's fantasticated retellings of the Hundred Years' War and of innumerable beast fables; his subtle rendering of the bucolic decline of Earth; his astonishing, multi-leveled vision of the fairylands deep within mundane reality; his British Empire upon which the sun, heartbreakingly, never can set; his glowing, brooding trio of Hermetic masterpieces; his tale of poetry at war with nuclear annihilation. Wonders of artistry, the artistry of wonder: Crowley is a genius, and Snake's-Hands demonstrates this alluringly, in a potent mosaic of insights. Snake's-Hands: The Fiction of John Crowley is the essential guide to the work of a great writer, and a landmark of criticism in its own right.
 

Contents

PREFACE by Harold Bloom
9
John Crowleys 15thCentury Game of Kings by Alice
15
a Defence of the Conclusion to John Crowleys First
25
John Crowleys Great Blond Beasts by Michael AndreDriussi
35
ENGINE SUMMER
43
A Poetic Novel by Thomas M Disch
55
Little Belaire the List and the Riven World
67
The Great Knot Unraveled Or Not by Michael AndreDriussi
85
Antiquities and Four More Tales by Alice K Turner
263
Genre Trouble or John Crowleys Unfinished Symphony by James Hynes
273
The Ægypt Series by John Clute
289
Astrology and Thematic Structure in the Ægypt Novels of John Crowley by Don Riggs
299
Apuleian and Brunonian Themes in John Crow leys Dæmonomania by Sondra Ford Swift
309
Loves Labours Lost in Ægypt by Matthew S S Davis
323
Blackbury Jambs and Other Misunderstandings by Graham Sleight
339
Time in Ægypt by Alice K Turner
347

Many Lives Synopsis of a Proposed Novel by John Crowley
109
The First Engine Summer by Adam Stepha
121
Best and Biggest by Thomas M Disch
159
The Influence of the Alice Books and Other Works
165
Little Big for Little Folk by Alice K Turner
205
The Novelty of Egypt by Michael AndreDriussi
217
Timelines for Great Work of Time by Michael AndreDriussi
229
Technology and the Art
243
John Crowley on the Ægypt Series an Interview by Alice K Turner
351
THE TRANSLATOR
364
Notes on John Crowleys The Translator by Bill Shee
369
A Bibliography by Graham Sleight
385
Screenwriting by John Crowley by Matthew S S Davis
391
Reviews and Articles by Mat thew S S Davis
397
Contributors
403
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