A review by stale_reviews
The Deep by John Crowley

adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

PROS

-Fascinating plot and eerie mysteries (

The events at the edge of the world gave off really weird vibes and I was so curious what the Visitor's purpose was

)

-Characterization and character development is accomplished through action rather than info dumps. The same can be said with the world-building. (

I never expected to like Redhand, Learned, and Sennred, but I loved their development. The edge of the world was incredibly captivating and left me wanting more answers. Who is the guy in the Last House? Why does he live there?

)

-The writing can be both beautiful and challenging at times.

-Drifts back and forth between feeling like Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Sometimes both!

-Satisfying ending

CONS

-Very slow start

-The writing was often difficult to parse, even compared to other books written in the 70's

-I'm not sure I understood all the themes that Crowley intended to convey. I recognized a lot of Christian symbolism, but nothing particularly novel or complex (

The Visitor is obviously a Messiah-like figure who rejects their intended purpose of violence

). If you know a lot about The War of the Roses (which I don't) you might get more out of this than I did

-Didn't enjoy homosexual relationships being referred to as "flawed love", but it was handled better than many Sci/Fantasy books of the time (

though I liked that there wasn't much blatant homophobia and many characters just moved on from this character detail

)

-

I thought Leviathan was going to be a manifestation of Thomas Hobbes' vision of the commonwealth, but that didn't appear to be the case. I never did figure out what Crowley was trying to do with it, other than remind the Visitor of their original purpose and resolve the plot.