Incidents and accidents, hints and allegations...but mostly, John Crowley!
This is going to be a hellaceously sloppy entry, I know that already. I want to link to several things, but I'm tired -- too tired to make properly coded, streamlined links, so the URL's are going to be flopping around on the page, all their naughty bits exposed.

There has been so much going on, some of it good, much of it not, a great deal of it simply...new and strange. I am sorry to be such a cryptic tease, I really am. However, I have a notion of what my revelatory post should be like, and I am like a pit-bull with notions once they enter my head. My notion is that the revelation must include a large chunk of difficult history: difficult in that it was difficult to live, and difficult in that it will be difficult to relate. I know I can do it -- I have some of it written in my head already -- but that post will take time to write and all kinds of mental, emotional, and physical energy that I simply don't have at the moment. In three weeks, I'm taking a vacation but only have plans to get away for a couple of days -- the rest of the time (one week off from work), will simply be spent puttering about and recharging. If I haven't done so before then, I will write the post during my vacation.

Now, on to pure, geeky, esoteric literary fangirl orgasmic glee! John Crowley is one of my favorite writers -- perhaps the favorite. There's only one person on my friends list that I know for sure is also a fan of Crowley, but I'm not sure if he (this friend) even reads me anymore. I suspect not, as I haven't heard a peep from him in quite some time. As for the rest of you...John Crowley is the most unsung, undeservedly unknown, undiscovered gem of a writer of which I know. It pains me how few people register recognition when I mention his name, but I know there's a small, rabid cult of Crowley fans out there -- I just haven't met any in real life.

I'd read all John Crowley's fiction except for his last two novels. The Translator came out in 2002. I became aware of it sometime after that, but didn't feel moved to pick it up. I don't know why. I had some idea that it was a departure from his previous novels, and, I was also disappointed by Daemonomania, the last book I'd read by him. But, recently, while strolling around the stacks of the Alameda Free Library (love that name), armed with my brand new library card, I wandered over to Mr. Crowley's works and picked up both The Translator and Lord Byron's Novel.

I finished The Translator two days ago and...this is where I want to insert expletives, adjectives and adverbs that can somehow describe how wonderful this novel was -- no, not wonderful -- beautiful in a heart-rending way, the way the Himalayas are at sunrise -- and what a genius John Crowley is, what an exquisite craftsman, but all I can really do is offer you a picture of me crossing my arms wrist over wrist as I press them against my body, which is what I do when I feel inexpressible love for something or someone, like this.

I'm a little ways into Lord Byron's Novel and I love it just as much.

Today, having "rediscovered" John Crowley, I went on a little Google hunt, and I discovered two wonderful things:

One: John Crowley has a livejournal!!!!!: http://crowleycrow.livejournal.com/

Two: This spring will see a special publication, by subscription only, of a 25th anniversary edition of John Crowley's novel Little, Big. Information is here: http://littlebig25.com/

Both of these things fill me with almost unbearable delight.


EDIT: Oh, I forgot one!
Endless Things, the fourth and final novel in the AEgypt series, is also coming out this spring!
http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Things-Aegypt-John-Crowley/dp/1931520224/sr=8-1/qid=1171150264/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-4726823-2187917?ie=UTF8&s=books