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Reading Backwards
Reading Backwards is John Crowley’s first collection of non-fiction since In Other Words was published in 2007. Like its predecessor, this new book reflects an astonishing range of interests, both literary and otherwise. Like its predecessor, it is a book that no John Crowley fan can afford to miss.
The volume opens with the autobiographical “My Life in the Theater,” a memoir of the younger Crowley’s earliest ambitions, and closes with the moving and memorable “Practicing the Arts of Peace.” In between, the author offers us more than thirty carefully crafted essays, each one notable for its insight, intelligence and typically graceful prose.
The opening section, A Voice from the Easy Chair, reflects Crowley’s tenure as Easy Chair columnist for Harper’s Magazine. Subjects include life under the once omni-present threat of the Selective Service Board, the enduring personal importance of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and thoughts on what it means to be truly well read. The second section, Fictional Voices, is filled with acute commentary on a wide range of books and writers, among them SF masters such as Paul Park, Ursula K. le Guin and Thomas Disch; the important, if neglected, historical novelist David Stacton (a model for the fictional Ffellowes Kraft of the Ægypt novels); classic science fiction novels of the 1950s, and much, much more. The final section, Looking Outward, Looking In, ranges freely across a wide variety of subjects and ideas, such as UFO literature, the utopian architecture of Norman Bel Geddes, the life and career of renowned theosophist Helen Blavatsky, and the nature of time.
Reading Backwards is a book that can be read from beginning to end with enormous pleasure. It can also be read and enjoyed in whatever order the reader prefers. However it’s read, it’s a multifarious source of entertainment, illumination, and thought, and offers a fascinating glimpse into the intellectual life of one of the finest novelists of our time.
Limited: 750 signed numbered hardcover copies
Lettered: 26 signed leatherbound copies, housed in a custom traycase
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Prologue: My Life in the Theater 1910—1960
Section One: A Voice from the Easy Chair
Everything that Rises
Dressed to Kill
Rule, Britannica
A Ring-Formed World
Universal Use
Spare the Darling
On Not Being Well-Read
Selective Service
An Artist of the Sleeping World
Section Two: Fictional Voices
A Postcard from Ursula
Paul Park’s Hidden Worlds
Life Work: The Fiction of Nicholson Baker
Leslie Epstein’s Uproars
Ben Katchor’s Cardboard Suitcase
Remembering Thomas Disch
Joan Aiken and the Wolves of Willoughby Chase
David Stacton and the Judges of the Secret Court
The Hero of a Thousand Dreams
Little Criminals: The Fiction of Richard Hughes
Richard Hughes: In Hazard
Born to be Posthumous
The Whole Household of Man
Blossom and Fade: Herman Hesse and The Glass Bead Game
Nine Classic Science Fiction novels of the 1950s
Section Three: Looking Outward, Looking In
The Man who Invented the 20th Century
Stranger Things: UFOs and Life on the Moon
Metamorphosis: Rosamond Purcell’s Natural History
Unrealism
Madame and the Masters
The Ones Who Walk Away from Metropolis
A Few Moments in Eternity
Works of Mercy
The Next Future/Totalitopia
A Well Without a Bottom
New Ghosts and How to Know Them
Time After Time
Squeak and Gibber
Practicing the Arts of Peace
The volume opens with the autobiographical “My Life in the Theater,” a memoir of the younger Crowley’s earliest ambitions, and closes with the moving and memorable “Practicing the Arts of Peace.” In between, the author offers us more than thirty carefully crafted essays, each one notable for its insight, intelligence and typically graceful prose.
The opening section, A Voice from the Easy Chair, reflects Crowley’s tenure as Easy Chair columnist for Harper’s Magazine. Subjects include life under the once omni-present threat of the Selective Service Board, the enduring personal importance of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and thoughts on what it means to be truly well read. The second section, Fictional Voices, is filled with acute commentary on a wide range of books and writers, among them SF masters such as Paul Park, Ursula K. le Guin and Thomas Disch; the important, if neglected, historical novelist David Stacton (a model for the fictional Ffellowes Kraft of the Ægypt novels); classic science fiction novels of the 1950s, and much, much more. The final section, Looking Outward, Looking In, ranges freely across a wide variety of subjects and ideas, such as UFO literature, the utopian architecture of Norman Bel Geddes, the life and career of renowned theosophist Helen Blavatsky, and the nature of time.
Reading Backwards is a book that can be read from beginning to end with enormous pleasure. It can also be read and enjoyed in whatever order the reader prefers. However it’s read, it’s a multifarious source of entertainment, illumination, and thought, and offers a fascinating glimpse into the intellectual life of one of the finest novelists of our time.
Limited: 750 signed numbered hardcover copies
Lettered: 26 signed leatherbound copies, housed in a custom traycase
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Prologue: My Life in the Theater 1910—1960
Section One: A Voice from the Easy Chair
Everything that Rises
Dressed to Kill
Rule, Britannica
A Ring-Formed World
Universal Use
Spare the Darling
On Not Being Well-Read
Selective Service
An Artist of the Sleeping World
Section Two: Fictional Voices
A Postcard from Ursula
Paul Park’s Hidden Worlds
Life Work: The Fiction of Nicholson Baker
Leslie Epstein’s Uproars
Ben Katchor’s Cardboard Suitcase
Remembering Thomas Disch
Joan Aiken and the Wolves of Willoughby Chase
David Stacton and the Judges of the Secret Court
The Hero of a Thousand Dreams
Little Criminals: The Fiction of Richard Hughes
Richard Hughes: In Hazard
Born to be Posthumous
The Whole Household of Man
Blossom and Fade: Herman Hesse and The Glass Bead Game
Nine Classic Science Fiction novels of the 1950s
Section Three: Looking Outward, Looking In
The Man who Invented the 20th Century
Stranger Things: UFOs and Life on the Moon
Metamorphosis: Rosamond Purcell’s Natural History
Unrealism
Madame and the Masters
The Ones Who Walk Away from Metropolis
A Few Moments in Eternity
Works of Mercy
The Next Future/Totalitopia
A Well Without a Bottom
New Ghosts and How to Know Them
Time After Time
Squeak and Gibber
Practicing the Arts of Peace
464 pages, Hardcover
First published November 30, 2019
8 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
John Crowley
129 books833 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
John Crowley was born in Presque Isle, Maine, in 1942; his father was then an officer in the US Army Air Corps. He grew up in Vermont, northeastern Kentucky and (for the longest stretch) Indiana, where he went to high school and college. He moved to New York City after college to make movies, and did find work in documentary films, an occupation he still pursues. He published his first novel (The Deep) in 1975, and his 15th volume of fiction (Endless Things) in 2007. Since 1993 he has taught creative writing at Yale University. In 1992 he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
His first published novels were science fiction: The Deep (1975) and Beasts (1976). Engine Summer (1979) was nominated for the 1980 American Book Award; it appears in David Pringle’s 100 Best Science Fiction Novels.
In 1981 came Little, Big, which Ursula Le Guin described as a book that “all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy.”
In 1980 Crowley embarked on an ambitious four-volume novel, Ægypt, comprising The Solitudes (originally published as Ægypt), Love & Sleep, Dæmonomania, and Endless Things, published in May 2007. This series and Little, Big were cited when Crowley received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature.
He is also the recipient of an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant. His recent novels are The Translator, recipient of the Premio Flaianno (Italy), and Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, which contains an entire imaginary novel by the poet. A novella, The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines, appeared in 2002. A museum-quality 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big, featuring the art of Peter Milton and a critical introduction by Harold Bloom, is in preparation.
Note: The John Crowley who wrote Sans épines, la rose: Tony Blair, un modèle pour l'Europe? is a different author with the same name. (website)
John Crowley was born in Presque Isle, Maine, in 1942; his father was then an officer in the US Army Air Corps. He grew up in Vermont, northeastern Kentucky and (for the longest stretch) Indiana, where he went to high school and college. He moved to New York City after college to make movies, and did find work in documentary films, an occupation he still pursues. He published his first novel (The Deep) in 1975, and his 15th volume of fiction (Endless Things) in 2007. Since 1993 he has taught creative writing at Yale University. In 1992 he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
His first published novels were science fiction: The Deep (1975) and Beasts (1976). Engine Summer (1979) was nominated for the 1980 American Book Award; it appears in David Pringle’s 100 Best Science Fiction Novels.
In 1981 came Little, Big, which Ursula Le Guin described as a book that “all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy.”
In 1980 Crowley embarked on an ambitious four-volume novel, Ægypt, comprising The Solitudes (originally published as Ægypt), Love & Sleep, Dæmonomania, and Endless Things, published in May 2007. This series and Little, Big were cited when Crowley received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature.
He is also the recipient of an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant. His recent novels are The Translator, recipient of the Premio Flaianno (Italy), and Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, which contains an entire imaginary novel by the poet. A novella, The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines, appeared in 2002. A museum-quality 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big, featuring the art of Peter Milton and a critical introduction by Harold Bloom, is in preparation.
Note: The John Crowley who wrote Sans épines, la rose: Tony Blair, un modèle pour l'Europe? is a different author with the same name. (website)
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 2, 2019
I tried to find something to appreciate about this collection. I guess, if I had to choose one, it would be the first autobiographical piece, although, even this was dry and did not draw me into it. There were several aspects of his experience as he told it through that piece that I could find common ground throughout my own experience and yet it did not elicit any emotion.
This is completely random work in my opinion. There are essays that are loosely tied together, the way a freshman English 101 coursework lesson plan would throw various topics together just to cover the basics. It was hard to find a theme, which I understand may have been the point but also feels somewhat unmotivated to really put together a true collection.
Overall, this did not work for me. I hope there are others that appreciate this more than I did.
Thanks for the opportunity to review it.
#ReadingBackwards #Netgalley #SubterraneanPress
This is completely random work in my opinion. There are essays that are loosely tied together, the way a freshman English 101 coursework lesson plan would throw various topics together just to cover the basics. It was hard to find a theme, which I understand may have been the point but also feels somewhat unmotivated to really put together a true collection.
Overall, this did not work for me. I hope there are others that appreciate this more than I did.
Thanks for the opportunity to review it.
#ReadingBackwards #Netgalley #SubterraneanPress
October 12, 2019
This was full of short stories that are meant to be completed out of order. I found it a refreshing new way to read but if that was done with a traditional book, I would be lost.
Some of these stores were funny and some more serious, but all in all the writing and collection was enjoyable.
Thank you NetGalley for an advanced read copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
Some of these stores were funny and some more serious, but all in all the writing and collection was enjoyable.
Thank you NetGalley for an advanced read copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
June 18, 2020
I feel like this is just a collection of words. There is no story here. Just a bunch of facts and pretty biased opinions. The writing was all over the place. I felt like I was staring at these words for a really long time and not absorbing anything. If someone was to force me to give a summary, the only think I can tell you is the author really likes the theater and the name Nabokov was mentioned (I only remember this because I like his books). And ghosts? Other than that, I got nothing. Maybe not having a central theme and each chapter/essay/whatever-it-is only very loosely being connected is the point, but if I wanted to read a collection of unrelated words, I'd read the dictionary. I'm giving this book 2 stars and not 1, because the author is clearly educated and maybe this book was just way over my head. Idk man, the author is smart, but he created something I don't enjoy reading.
Quotes/lines that bothered me:
-"Strips stuffed with stuff are often also stuffed with words..."
-"...a display of wide-ranging useless knowledge and a gift of instant recall that I’m still (obviously) rather pumped (as they say) about."
-"They remained for a few moments, and then with instantaneous acceleration vanished over the horizon: in the blink, that is, of an eye."
-"I ASSUME THAT it was Gary K. Wolfe, editor of these volumes and a discerning critic and scholar in the field (it is a field and has scholars)..."
-There's a whole paragraph, about 15 lines, that's just a list of movie titles. Why is this included?
-A quote that isn't a sentence, just a list of 43 adjectives: "Fraying, tattered, cracked, flattened, swollen, dried, scrawny, collapsed, shredded, peeling, torn, warped, weathered, faded, bristling, moldy, clenched, tangled, punctured, battered, bashed-in, scooped- out, withered, engorged, trampled, toppled, crushed, bald, listing, leaning, twisting, hanging, buried, wedged, impaled, straggling, stretched, disjointed, disembowelled, skinned, docked, gnawed, entrenched."
-"HPB’s last work was called The Secret Doctrine, a title that could be
given to a hundred books by a hundred hands but that now belongs to her."
-"It will be strange. It is forever unknowably strange, its strangeness not the strangeness of fiction or of any art or any guess but absolute."
Quotes/lines that bothered me:
-"Strips stuffed with stuff are often also stuffed with words..."
-"...a display of wide-ranging useless knowledge and a gift of instant recall that I’m still (obviously) rather pumped (as they say) about."
-"They remained for a few moments, and then with instantaneous acceleration vanished over the horizon: in the blink, that is, of an eye."
-"I ASSUME THAT it was Gary K. Wolfe, editor of these volumes and a discerning critic and scholar in the field (it is a field and has scholars)..."
-There's a whole paragraph, about 15 lines, that's just a list of movie titles. Why is this included?
-A quote that isn't a sentence, just a list of 43 adjectives: "Fraying, tattered, cracked, flattened, swollen, dried, scrawny, collapsed, shredded, peeling, torn, warped, weathered, faded, bristling, moldy, clenched, tangled, punctured, battered, bashed-in, scooped- out, withered, engorged, trampled, toppled, crushed, bald, listing, leaning, twisting, hanging, buried, wedged, impaled, straggling, stretched, disjointed, disembowelled, skinned, docked, gnawed, entrenched."
-"HPB’s last work was called The Secret Doctrine, a title that could be
given to a hundred books by a hundred hands but that now belongs to her."
-"It will be strange. It is forever unknowably strange, its strangeness not the strangeness of fiction or of any art or any guess but absolute."
December 9, 2019
John Crowley's writing crosses boundaries between fantasy and so-called 'realistic' fiction, and this book of essays does something similar. It ranges widely among topics such as the changing perception of ghosts, the challenging but threatening (in his time) theories of Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake for his assertions, and a number of appreciations (and criticisms) of various authors, some of whom wrote SF and F (Ursula Le Guin, Thomas Disch), but many of whom didn't (such as Richard Hughes and David Stacton). He also has interesting essays on comics creators Windsor McKay (“Little Nemo in Slumberland”), and Ben Katchor. A particularly intriguing essay deals with the photography of Rosamund Purcell, with whom I was unfamiliar.
Crowley recently retired from academia and while his language is sometimes sprinkled with abstruse words, he is such a careful writer that his meaning is always clear. It's a pleasure to read an author whose mind works differently than yours, but who can explain his reasoning and feelings so plainly. It's like having a good conversation with someone you are acquainted with but don't really know that well, and finding out how fascinating that person really is.
The book covers over a decade of essays, so there is some repetition that the reader can gloss over. This is good, because it's a big book (444 pages of text). It would not be a sin to dip in and read just those essays that seem to appeal to you, although I can attest that all of them are worthwhile.
Crowley recently retired from academia and while his language is sometimes sprinkled with abstruse words, he is such a careful writer that his meaning is always clear. It's a pleasure to read an author whose mind works differently than yours, but who can explain his reasoning and feelings so plainly. It's like having a good conversation with someone you are acquainted with but don't really know that well, and finding out how fascinating that person really is.
The book covers over a decade of essays, so there is some repetition that the reader can gloss over. This is good, because it's a big book (444 pages of text). It would not be a sin to dip in and read just those essays that seem to appeal to you, although I can attest that all of them are worthwhile.
Read
November 12, 2019A series of reprints, everything is well written but everything seems dry... just not something I enjoyed.
If you are looking for something thought-provoking, intellectual, at times challenging (in a good way), Crowley is your best friend. My favorite piece was written about Animal Fiction, when animal characters are sentient and what that does to the story.
If you are looking for something thought-provoking, intellectual, at times challenging (in a good way), Crowley is your best friend. My favorite piece was written about Animal Fiction, when animal characters are sentient and what that does to the story.
December 8, 2019
A series of erudite, beautifully written essays covering a variety of topics, including fascinating insights into Crowley's and selected authors fictions. Marred slightly by some repetition for which he gracefully apologises. This book evoked in me the strong desire to read and re-read some of Crowley's books.
June 7, 2020
Essays and reviews: on the whole I found the personal pieces more interesting, particularly the one on the Enclycopedia Brittanica, and another on being well read. Enjoyed very much.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews