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avisnoctua's review against another edition
challenging
dark
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
paragraph's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
flipperhazard's review against another edition
5.0
Ka reads like a book that has been translated a few times over. It feels as if some crucial information has been lost through these “translations.” I’m sure that’s the intention. Cool book. Beautiful lore-building. While reading Ka, I’d forget that Ymr, a vague otherworld on top of (or beneath?) ours, isn’t real.
lacunaboo's review against another edition
4.0
This book is like a bunch of myths, new and old, strung together. The writing was nice, although getting through the day to day happenings of crow life could be a bit of a slog sometimes. In the end, it seemed like I should take away something wondrous from this story, but I don’t know what that should be. Was the point of this book something about humankind’s relationship with death? Maybe. I’m really not sure.
trish204's review against another edition
3.0
After having been to the Limestone Kingdom and magical Austin in my last two books, I thought this was the best choice, thematically. Well ...
We meet Dark Oakley, a crow (yes yes, I know the bird above is NOT a crow, but ravens are more prominent on the internet *shrugs*). We meet him back when he didn't have a name. We follow him when he is named, when he finds a world next to his own (Ka). We follow him when he travels from one world to the next, meeting horses, owls, boars, foxes, humans of all ages and more. Eventually, we watch him find his mate and steal the secret of immortality - and when he loses it again. Dar Oakley dies, is reborn without memory of his former life/knowledge, always regains the memory eventually, learns more from life to life, but always dies again eventually. Until ...
This is an Odyssey-ish quest through a number of realms that combines a number of mythological tropes and themes and characters. Coyote is in here too (just like in my previous two books).
The problem? The way these tropes and themes and characters were treated weren't anything new. Add to that the fact that the way the story is told is long-winded and just trickling along at too slow a pace. There is no rise-and-fall, there isn't any (or much) suspense, and while the realms change and therefore challenge Dar Oakley and his mate, I never felt challenged or surprised or ... much of anything.
I sometimes liked the philosophical examination of the nature of things (creatures) and evolution of stories as well as the book's point that we all ARE stories. As a bookworm, the thought that we are nothing without thought and memory (Hugin and Munin), without stories we tell and stories that are told about us, appealed to me. There is a saying that people cannot live on bread and water alone because we need stories to tell us HOW to live. Sadly, this story, despite its potential and the research into the social behavior of crows (the difference to ravens, too), didn't have much to say on that subject. It reminded me of the ramblings of a guy I'm trapped in a car with on a long-ass road trip through the middle of nowhere after I made the mistake of asking for a story because I know he's written a book. *lol* That sounds harsh, I know, but while I didn't DNF or scream with frustration, I was disappointed with how the source material was treated here, especially after the interesting foreshadowing we got in the book's prologue.
The writing also didn't blow me away. After a few people I know have called the prose graceful and lyrical and beautiful, I might have expected too much. I'm not sure. But the prose was nothing special in my opinion.
So while this wasn't truly bad, it was also nothing remarkable, sadly. So why 3 stars? Well, because I'm a sucker for corvids and mythology and stories about the nature of stories (thought + memory = stories), mythological creatures and us silly little humans smack in the middle of it all.
We meet Dark Oakley, a crow (yes yes, I know the bird above is NOT a crow, but ravens are more prominent on the internet *shrugs*). We meet him back when he didn't have a name. We follow him when he is named, when he finds a world next to his own (Ka). We follow him when he travels from one world to the next, meeting horses, owls, boars, foxes, humans of all ages and more. Eventually, we watch him find his mate and steal the secret of immortality - and when he loses it again. Dar Oakley dies, is reborn without memory of his former life/knowledge, always regains the memory eventually, learns more from life to life, but always dies again eventually. Until ...
This is an Odyssey-ish quest through a number of realms that combines a number of mythological tropes and themes and characters. Coyote is in here too (just like in my previous two books).
The problem? The way these tropes and themes and characters were treated weren't anything new. Add to that the fact that the way the story is told is long-winded and just trickling along at too slow a pace. There is no rise-and-fall, there isn't any (or much) suspense, and while the realms change and therefore challenge Dar Oakley and his mate, I never felt challenged or surprised or ... much of anything.
I sometimes liked the philosophical examination of the nature of things (creatures) and evolution of stories as well as the book's point that we all ARE stories. As a bookworm, the thought that we are nothing without thought and memory (Hugin and Munin), without stories we tell and stories that are told about us, appealed to me. There is a saying that people cannot live on bread and water alone because we need stories to tell us HOW to live. Sadly, this story, despite its potential and the research into the social behavior of crows (the difference to ravens, too), didn't have much to say on that subject. It reminded me of the ramblings of a guy I'm trapped in a car with on a long-ass road trip through the middle of nowhere after I made the mistake of asking for a story because I know he's written a book. *lol* That sounds harsh, I know, but while I didn't DNF or scream with frustration, I was disappointed with how the source material was treated here, especially after the interesting foreshadowing we got in the book's prologue.
The writing also didn't blow me away. After a few people I know have called the prose graceful and lyrical and beautiful, I might have expected too much. I'm not sure. But the prose was nothing special in my opinion.
So while this wasn't truly bad, it was also nothing remarkable, sadly. So why 3 stars? Well, because I'm a sucker for corvids and mythology and stories about the nature of stories (thought + memory = stories), mythological creatures and us silly little humans smack in the middle of it all.
immovabletype's review against another edition
I may come back to this someday; I was disappointed to DNF it about halfway through. There were points where Dar Oakley's perspective (as a crow) is a delight to read and try to parse: what is he trying to describe as an animal that he simply doesn't have human words — or, indeed, human methods of thinking — to express? But sometimes it's just too dense and layered with concepts of history, religion and mythology that I don't have a vocabulary for, and that made it frustrating. There's also very little driving the story itself, it's all pretty psychological and meandering, so that made it hard to put up with the more experimental writing. If anyone else has read this I'd be interested to know what you think of the back half of the book.
archergal's review against another edition
3.0
Well, I did read it, and in time for the book club.
The writing is very lovely. This is just not the right time in my life to be reading a melancholy meditation on death and the afterlife as seen through the eyes of a crow though.
This is the second John Crowley book I've bounced off. I think it's me, since many other love him.
Oh well.
The writing is very lovely. This is just not the right time in my life to be reading a melancholy meditation on death and the afterlife as seen through the eyes of a crow though.
This is the second John Crowley book I've bounced off. I think it's me, since many other love him.
Oh well.
straylight's review against another edition
2.0
An interesting, and circular, tale. I might have to revisit this at a later point. I recognized at least one of the mythological re-tellings, but perhaps there are others I missed?
gobblebook's review against another edition
4.0
This is a strange book, and I had the sneaking suspicion all the way through that Crowley is doing something really complex and profound and completely over my head, because that's how a lot of his other books are. It tells the story of humanity's relationship with crows, and humanity's legends about crows, but it is told from the filtered viewpoint of one crow who has lived for all eternity and has been the object of these legends. I say "filtered" because the story is narrated by a man to whom the crow told his life story: the crow doesn't always remember the details, so the human fills some of them in, so there's some unreliable narrator stuff happening.
The crow's life explores many themes. One is story and storytelling, and the need to tell stories to make sense of the world. Another is death - Dar Oakley frequently travels to the realm of the dead, and human legends about crows often involve crows' ability to travel between the worlds of the living and the dead. The book explores the theme of human history (starting in prehistory and ending in the present day), and humanity's changing relationship to nature, death, and the divine.
I enjoyed reading this, even if it did go quite long.
chrudos's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25