I'm not sure what I thought of this book. There are things about it that I really loved. As always, I loved Crowley's writing, which is unassuming and simple, and yet incredibly vivid and capable of conveying complexity. I also liked the idea that maybe the current reality hasn't always been real: that maybe fantasy worlds have been true in the past, but have somehow disappeared. I like the layers of reality, and the quest for the most real one. I liked the books-within-books - there are long scenes where characters are reading novels, and the book contains extracts of a few of those novels.

However, there are some things I don't think I liked. I didn't find Pierce Moffett, the main character, all that likeable, or even as well-developed as a Crowley character ought to be. The climactic moment at the end didn't seem to be much of a climax. I was never really sure what the book was about or where the plot was going (which is often the case in a Crowley novel, but it didn't work as well in this one).

I'm planning to read the next book in the series, in hopes that as the series progresses everything will become clear. ( )

"From Publishers Weekly
Reengaging the motifs of alternate lives, worlds and world-views that pulsed through his remarkable Little, Big, Crowley's new novel shapes itself around unorthodox historian Pierce Moffett, who seeks to explain the secret histories of the world, the old notions of science, religion and philosophy that have survived in astrology, myths and superstition; not the real, geographical Egypt, but AEgypt, the cognate country of the imagination from which the gypsies came. In resonating stories nested one inside the other, Crowley describes Blackbury Jambs, Pa., where among ex-students turned shepherds and mystics turned babysitters, Pierce finally finds himself part of a community and rediscovers the source of his quest, the historical novels of local writer Fellowes Kraft, who has his own stories to tellof young Will Shakespeare, Elizabethan Doctor John Dee's desire to speak with angels and Giordano Bruno's thirst to understand his world, for which he would be burned as a heretic. Affecting, cerebral, surprising and delightful, this extraordinary philosophical romance suggests an unlikely but thriving marriage between a writer like Anne Tyler and one such as Jorge Luis Borges.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc."

I found this very dense and difficult to read but rewarding nevertheless. Have not decided whether I will continue with the rest of the cycle. ( )

"LibraryThing thinks you will love The Solitudes (certainty: high)" Heh. I thought so too, I really did. I adore Crowley's "Little Big" and everything about this novel sounded like just my cup of tea - but I could barely drag myself through the book. It was quite a plodding read for me, though my interest usually sparked up a bit during the digressive vignettes... or were the digressive vignettes the main focus and the story of Pierce Moffett just the wrapping? Either way, ultimately there wasn't enough to hang my hat on in terms of investment in any of the storylines - or story fragments, really, and it was only dogged determination that pulled me through to the end. ( )

This book had so much promise. It's unfortunate that I found the historical novel section extremely dry, and the supernatural and hidden symbol parts just boring. ( )

I came across the last book in this series and it sounded really interesting, so I dug up the first book, this book, and looked forward to it. All I can say is that it is a major letdown. Neat idea, or captivating at least, but poor execution. It felt like it took three-hundred pages just to get the story to start and that was at the end. The historical fiction parts were boring. It all fits together, and I think the reader is supposed to have this moment when they realize that the book they are reading mirrors the one that the character is trying to write. However, things like that have been done by others and far better. I wasn't staggered by this realization, just let down. The novel doesn't flow well either. You want something to happen and progress to be made, and it just takes a thirty to fifty page flashback that is not interesting and doesn't really move the story forward. Everything is jumbled even down to the sentences which seem to langor in their own obscure style to the point that it is hard to make sense of things. ( )