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A review by heyhawk
Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley
5.0
December 2018- My second time through this great novel. It's a myth that attempts to encompass all myths and mostly succeeds. It's narrated by a man who lives in a post-climate collapse mid-northwestern America and is presumably the last human companion of Dar Oakley,
a crow who has lived through ages of the rise of humanity and now seems to be there for the end. He is in some way THE crow of myth and the story is his. Beautifully written without excess. Ambitious without pretension.
Last year I rated it the best book I read for the first time in 2017. In retrospect that distinction should have gone to Prater Violet by Christopher Isherwood or to the Patternist books by Octavia Butler (though since I had already read one of those, they might not qualify). That being said, this is among my favorite books; one of the best novels of the decade. I considered reading it yearly, but I don't think I will, though I will read it several more times, I'm sure. Highly recommended!
a crow who has lived through ages of the rise of humanity and now seems to be there for the end. He is in some way THE crow of myth and the story is his. Beautifully written without excess. Ambitious without pretension.
Last year I rated it the best book I read for the first time in 2017. In retrospect that distinction should have gone to Prater Violet by Christopher Isherwood or to the Patternist books by Octavia Butler (though since I had already read one of those, they might not qualify). That being said, this is among my favorite books; one of the best novels of the decade. I considered reading it yearly, but I don't think I will, though I will read it several more times, I'm sure. Highly recommended!