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A review by allisonjpmiller
Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley
5.0
I was so reluctant to finish this book that I didn't even feel seriously upset when research for a school paper kept me away from it for over a month. Its world is utterly unlike anything I've encountered in any medium; I knew that leaving it would be a loss, and now that I've finally turned the last page, I can confirm: I'm gutted. Like the nameless narrator of Ka's frame-story, I can't quite stomach the sight of Dar Oakley winging away from me, carrying the stories he never told me with him.
John Crowley writes the way I wish I could. You're all fired for never telling me he existed, much less that he's (apparently) been writing gorgeous, impressionistic prose like this in service of singular fictional dreamscapes since the 70s. Depart from me! I already bought [b:Little, Big|90619|Little, Big|John Crowley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1435452849s/90619.jpg|518635] and will read it whenever I feel like I can fully digest another Crowley creation.
What's Ka about? A little bit of everything, but mostly: death and story. Using the vantage point of a crow to full effect, including all the superstitions and legends humans have attached to them over the centuries (along with a wonderfully deft touch in describing the everyday concerns and behaviors of real birds), Crowley examines the role that these two things have played in the rise of human civilization (called Ymr in the book) - particularly how the human understanding of death and story, both conscious and unconscious, has influenced worlds beyond People's (including Ka, the Crows' realm).
If we're just talking plot, though, Ka is about this: a Crow who travels into the human land of the dead and steals the secret to eternal life, then lives long enough to regret it.
Despite my gushing, please note that this isn't a book with universal appeal. It's unflinchingly brutal in parts and rife with the gory details of Crow-life; Dar Oakley has to learn our sense of the sacred, and even then he doesn't quite understand it. The narrative can also be slow and ponderous in keeping with its scope, taking readers from ancient Celtic tribal lands all the way to modern-day America. But, taken as a whole, it's an irreducible experience, full of wisdom and insight and keen truth that's difficult to hold in the mind all at once - which is why, of course, we so desperately need Story to organize it. (That's half the argument of the book.) Ka is one of those transformative reads that found me when I needed it most. I'm already carrying bits of it back with me into the real world.
John Crowley writes the way I wish I could. You're all fired for never telling me he existed, much less that he's (apparently) been writing gorgeous, impressionistic prose like this in service of singular fictional dreamscapes since the 70s. Depart from me! I already bought [b:Little, Big|90619|Little, Big|John Crowley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1435452849s/90619.jpg|518635] and will read it whenever I feel like I can fully digest another Crowley creation.
What's Ka about? A little bit of everything, but mostly: death and story. Using the vantage point of a crow to full effect, including all the superstitions and legends humans have attached to them over the centuries (along with a wonderfully deft touch in describing the everyday concerns and behaviors of real birds), Crowley examines the role that these two things have played in the rise of human civilization (called Ymr in the book) - particularly how the human understanding of death and story, both conscious and unconscious, has influenced worlds beyond People's (including Ka, the Crows' realm).
If we're just talking plot, though, Ka is about this: a Crow who travels into the human land of the dead and steals the secret to eternal life, then lives long enough to regret it.
Despite my gushing, please note that this isn't a book with universal appeal. It's unflinchingly brutal in parts and rife with the gory details of Crow-life; Dar Oakley has to learn our sense of the sacred, and even then he doesn't quite understand it. The narrative can also be slow and ponderous in keeping with its scope, taking readers from ancient Celtic tribal lands all the way to modern-day America. But, taken as a whole, it's an irreducible experience, full of wisdom and insight and keen truth that's difficult to hold in the mind all at once - which is why, of course, we so desperately need Story to organize it. (That's half the argument of the book.) Ka is one of those transformative reads that found me when I needed it most. I'm already carrying bits of it back with me into the real world.