Reading John Crowley’s Ægypt Cycle right now; working on book 2 of the series, “Love & Sleep”. Thinking hard about the basic idea: there are times of change in the world, and the key is to recognize when those times are happening – particularly if you’re in the middle of them. And those times are ones in which the actual way that the world is slips into something very different, and the old way never existed at all. The “four corners of the Earth” once meant something real to those living in that era, even if there are not literally four corners of the Earth today, for example.
Some individuals, like the protagonist Pierce Moffett, seem to be among those fated to sense, if not explicitly recognize, that they are living in such a time. Others go on with their lives and fail to see the old world slipping irrevocably into the new.
One question that remains open (for me, at this point in the cycle) is: can those who recognize the change coming also direct it in any way? Is it possible to bring about Paradise on Earth, or is it simply enough to know that the alteration in the structure of the world (and the Universe at large) is happening? Is it enough of a blessing to watch, or should one fated to see the slippage happening also try to steer its course in some way?
Pierce, through his knowledge of history, mythology, and religion, has the ability to look back and see where prior changes must have happened even as he senses one is happening now. He can see paths through thickets of historical memory that few others (a notable one being the author, Fellowes Kraft, whose works follow/lead/intertwine through the cycle) were able to. I wonder if he will be able to traverse those paths safely. Or whether he will have to cut some of his own through the brush.
The beauty of novels is that sometimes, they describe the way the world would work if it were just located at an acute – incredibly tiny, even – angle to our own. I admire Crowley immensely for providing a world not without blood, tears, and pain, but also hope. Moving an infinitely (practically) large universe through a vanishingly small angle might be finitely possible.