Lord Byron's Novel - The Evening Land - by John Crowley

John Crowley continues to amaze with the breadth of his creativity. His 2005 book, Lord Byron’s Novel, explores the life of that notorious poet and his near-unknown daughter Ada, later Ada Lovelace, a mathematician who, mentored by Charles Babbage, foresaw the capabilities of computers, even in the 1850s. The vehicle is a single page of a destroyed manuscript which refers to a full-length novel penned by Byron, burned at her mother’s request by Ada. But this single page contains a cipher – a number series which when decoded, applies to columns of numbers written on a stack of pages in Ada’s papers.

The researchers, in 2002, suspect that Ada burned the manuscript out of deference to her mother, but not before rendering it in a code only broken by their diligence. Crowley’s novel is the result, with footnotes by Ada commenting about the likely personages and encounters her father’s novel refers to. Meanwhile, a thread of communications between researchers introduces another story. In effect, this novel is three: Lord Byron’s itself, The Evening Land, is everything one might hope for from a poet, adventurer, ne’er-do-well, a rebel dubbed “Satan” by his detractors. Ada’s chapter-by-chapter observations offer a counterpoint to his words. The communications of his 21^st century discoverers open yet another view onto a man who lived fully and died young.

What is it about Crowley? What muse has come to dwell with him, giving unique insight to his subjects, which themselves range from the fairy tale Little, Big; to his novel Four Freedoms, about Americans who during WWII moved from the margins to center stage while the young white male (dominant) group was overseas at war: women, racial minorities, cripples – their efforts were needed to supply military materiel, so they were allowed economic power and privilege previously closed to them. Crowley explores the mystic undercurrents of modern life in his Ægypt trilogy. Then, his novel The Translator is patterned on the life of Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, expatriate due to official persecution. In this deceptively short work, we see the poet, teaching a seminar at an American university, cultivate an undergrad woman – not a Russian speaker/reader – to translate his poetry into English. Their simpatico relationship enables her to express his words, not literally but from the heart, in another language.

And here we have him reaching into the past, resurrecting a poet of faltering reputation, along with his daughter never given due recognition. Crowley seems engaged in a sort of literary healing, in which his clear insights rescue people from the niches into which society has confined them, setting them on a path of honor and respect. If curiosity drives what you read, Crowley should be on your list, on your bookshelf, and his voice in your mind.

Review: John Crowley's Four Freedoms

John Crowley explores mind, body, spirit and human society through intriguing individuals. He's unafraid of coincidence, magic, or mystery, every person enmeshed in a life that constricts in some ways but exalts in others.

His 2009 novel Four Freedoms is about World War II America.
"We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want . . . everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear . . . anywhere in the world."
--President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to Congress, January 6, 1941

Roosevelt's optimistic assertion is not enough to transform the status quo, but in combination with America's shift to a wartime economy and the removal of white men, drafted and sent overseas, from their accustomed dominance, it adds impetus to a sea-change. Marginalized people - cripples, minorities and women - are suddenly wanted, and paid, to step into the vacancies - and so they flower, and thrive, and find fulfillment far outside their accustomed niches.

We follow Prosper Olander, a young man with a twisted spine and useless legs, who journeys from Chicago to an airplane factory in Oklahoma. This factory, the creation of a pair of brothers long fascinated by flight, is a self-contained village: houses and streets, clinics, child care, a newspaper, cafeterias and entertainment - an ideal community dedicated to war materiel. Its round-the-clock workforce have come from all over the country to earn top wages. Most are women, many married to servicemen but others single, excelling at work they've never before been allowed to do.

Crowley's story flows from one character to another, into their lives and thoughts. We learn important moments in their histories, we see how love and loss have blunted them, and we watch as they form alliances then break them. Prosper, though crippled, attracts certain women, and proves a simpatico and able lover, a catalyst who makes them consider a more open future.

This book is primarily about women: Prosper's father left when he was small, his struggling mother fell ill, he grew up with a pair of maiden aunts. Meanwhile, the women he meets are on their own in ways unthinkable just a few years before, their resourcefulness surprising not just to them but to society at large. One is a standout softball pitcher, another a young mother who becomes a highly competent inspector in the factory.

Crowley fully evokes wartime: the way ramped-up military manufacturing ended the Depression; the rationing of food, gasoline, and other resources; the sounds, smells and habits of an era. Changing circumstances shook society into motion: new places, new roles, new confidence. The weakening of the family gave rise to individual success, and like-mindedness trumped blood ties as people sought personal freedom within relationships. By ending the story after V-E Day but before the servicemen come home, he leaves us with a hopeful vision of America's future - along with the realization that in every era greatness is squandered, and we permit or maybe even welcome the fetters of the past.