A spiritual journey & time romance, 05 Aug 2007
A novel which defies an easy categorization or a review except to say that it is perhaps one of the most distinctive, idiosyncratic English novels of the 20th century, though I hesitate about it being described as one of the greatest.

The novel concerns itself with many of Powys' own preoccupations: his view of nature and man's place in it and his reactionary views against technology which presage green politics; the timelessness of places (neo-romantic); `magic' and the supernatural; paganism & religion; and the mythic. One of the novel's strengths is its insights into the psychological nature of human beings (suffering, compassion, the bitter-sweet pain that awareness brings) reminiscent of Dostoevsky, whom Powys greatly admired.

The book portrays Wolf's return to Dorset through his subjective conscious though not in a modernist style. Perhaps one of the novel's flaws is that Wolf's `mythology' and `life-illusion' are never really examined in great detail. We are told how Wolf views the world - in his own mind - as a battle between the forces of good and evil, so that he comes to view his employer, the aged aristocrat, Urquhart, as a sinister figure intent on causing him harm.

Solent's eventual loss of his 'life-illusion' (possibly freedom of spirit?) comes through his return to Dorset, where his late father, 'Old Truepenny', caused much scandal, even resulting in Wolf discovering a long-lost half-sister. In a sense, Wolf's father and mother conduct a battle in his soul between an almost pagan delight in the moment (the actual physical sensation of the here and now as opposed to any notion of the hereafter) and bourgeois respectability/sensibilities (and hypocrisy) as represented by his formidable mother. Though long since dead, Wolf's father casts a long shadow over this novel and, at times, he feels more alive than those who survive him - as one character says `better to be dead in death than dead in life'.

The novel depicts Wolf's own awareness of his complex nature, the combination of the sexual and the spiritual. In its depiction of relationships between men and women, it's reminiscent of Lawrence and of the lyricism of Hardy whilst avoiding his contrived melodrama.

It is basically the story of Wolf's complex relationships with two very different women, the child of nature, Gerda, and his intellectual and emotional soul-mate, the ethereal Christie with whom he shares a psychic connection. Many of the most beautiful passages occur early in the novel when Wolf courts and seduces Gerda (Yellow Bracken) and how she can mimic birdsong such as that of a blackbird. Like Wolf, Gerda, too, loses something precious during the novel and, like Powys himself with his disastrous first marriage, we are left feeling that Wolf has married a woman `alien to him in mind and spirit'.

Feminist critics of Powys might have valid points, certainly in his presentation of Christie (over emotional) and Gerda (in her beauty reminiscent of Rosamund Vincy), and it's interesting to note how Wolf's mother and Gerda burden his spirits through their obsessions with material objects (for Wolf's mother, a tea-shop similar probably to the one trashed by a drunken Withnail!). Powys disliked capitalism and it's interesting to note that many of the most peculiar, original characters in the book (the dark arch-cynic and poet Jason, Christie) are ones who write. Wolf, too, is a writer but one who wastes his talent to write Urquhart's scandalous history of Dorset. Jason is an odd character but his dark prophecies about Wolf being cuckolded do come true. In a sense, Urquhart does cause evil to Wolf but perhaps not in the overt way we imagine.

It's a subtle novel with Wolf's year in Dorset set against the seasons: in Spring, he falls in love with Gerda and life appears to offer much; in Summer, his relationship blossoms with Christie, his true love; Autumn brings emotional conflict; and Winter, a feeling of resignation (in a job as a teacher), that he has lost a vital part of himself. The return of spring perhaps brings a new awareness and acceptance of things, `to forget and enjoy' and a renewed energy to face life's problems - `to endure or escape' - but one can't help feeling that Wolf's marriage to Gerda faces further trials ahead.


Wonderful Dense Literature, 20 Feb 2007
I'm afraid it's a while since I've read this and being a little short on time, this review will merely consist of a whole-hearted endorsement of a superbly written, dense novel set in rural England in the early half of 20th century; a novel bursting with life and erudition. Powys the most strangely overlooked British writer of the 20th century from what I can see. A writer very much of his culture in the way a writer should be, and his works very much poetic works of substance and strange insight into both man and nature.

A spiritual journey & time romance, 05 Aug 2007
A novel which defies an easy categorization or a review except to say that it is perhaps one of the most distinctive, idiosyncratic English novels of the 20th century, though I hesitate about it being described as one of the greatest.

The novel concerns itself with many of Powys' own preoccupations: his view of nature and man's place in it and his reactionary views against technology which presage green politics; the timelessness of places (neo-romantic); `magic' and the supernatural; paganism & religion; and the mythic. One of the novel's strengths is its insights into the psychological nature of human beings (suffering, compassion, the bitter-sweet pain that awareness brings) reminiscent of Dostoevsky, whom Powys greatly admired.

The book portrays Wolf's return to Dorset through his subjective conscious though not in a modernist style. Perhaps one of the novel's flaws is that Wolf's `mythology' and `life-illusion' are never really examined in great detail. We are told how Wolf views the world - in his own mind - as a battle between the forces of good and evil, so that he comes to view his employer, the aged aristocrat, Urquhart, as a sinister figure intent on causing him harm.

Solent's eventual loss of his 'life-illusion' (possibly freedom of spirit?) comes through his return to Dorset, where his late father, 'Old Truepenny', caused much scandal, even resulting in Wolf discovering a long-lost half-sister. In a sense, Wolf's father and mother conduct a battle in his soul between an almost pagan delight in the moment (the actual physical sensation of the here and now as opposed to any notion of the hereafter) and bourgeois respectability/sensibilities (and hypocrisy) as represented by his formidable mother. Though long since dead, Wolf's father casts a long shadow over this novel and, at times, he feels more alive than those who survive him - as one character says `better to be dead in death than dead in life'.

The novel depicts Wolf's own awareness of his complex nature, the combination of the sexual and the spiritual. In its depiction of relationships between men and women, it's reminiscent of Lawrence and of the lyricism of Hardy whilst avoiding his contrived melodrama.

It is basically the story of Wolf's complex relationships with two very different women, the child of nature, Gerda, and his intellectual and emotional soul-mate, the ethereal Christie with whom he shares a psychic connection. Many of the most beautiful passages occur early in the novel when Wolf courts and seduces Gerda (Yellow Bracken) and how she can mimic birdsong such as that of a blackbird. Like Wolf, Gerda, too, loses something precious during the novel and, like Powys himself with his disastrous first marriage, we are left feeling that Wolf has married a woman `alien to him in mind and spirit'.

Feminist critics of Powys might have valid points, certainly in his presentation of Christie (over emotional) and Gerda (in her beauty reminiscent of Rosamund Vincy), and it's interesting to note how Wolf's mother and Gerda burden his spirits through their obsessions with material objects (for Wolf's mother, a tea-shop similar probably to the one trashed by a drunken Withnail!). Powys disliked capitalism and it's interesting to note that many of the most peculiar, original characters in the book (the dark arch-cynic and poet Jason, Christie) are ones who write. Wolf, too, is a writer but one who wastes his talent to write Urquhart's scandalous history of Dorset. Jason is an odd character but his dark prophecies about Wolf being cuckolded do come true. In a sense, Urquhart does cause evil to Wolf but perhaps not in the overt way we imagine.

It's a subtle novel with Wolf's year in Dorset set against the seasons: in Spring, he falls in love with Gerda and life appears to offer much; in Summer, his relationship blossoms with Christie, his true love; Autumn brings emotional conflict; and Winter, a feeling of resignation (in a job as a teacher), that he has lost a vital part of himself. The return of spring perhaps brings a new awareness and acceptance of things, `to forget and enjoy' and a renewed energy to face life's problems - `to endure or escape' - but one can't help feeling that Wolf's marriage to Gerda faces further trials ahead.


Wonderful Dense Literature, 20 Feb 2007
I'm afraid it's a while since I've read this and being a little short on time, this review will merely consist of a whole-hearted endorsement of a superbly written, dense novel set in rural England in the early half of 20th century; a novel bursting with life and erudition. Powys the most strangely overlooked British writer of the 20th century from what I can see. A writer very much of his culture in the way a writer should be, and his works very much poetic works of substance and strange insight into both man and nature.

Massive Myth-making Masterpiece, 04 Apr 2008
Surely the most criminally neglected English novel of all time?

This is truly a huge book in all aspects; size - 750 pages of beautifully dense closely scripted prose, but also scope - for Powys attempts a rare and ambitious thesis of describing the very process by which myths are manufactured. In describing events ocurring during just one week in 499A.D.he far exceeds the torpid Fantasy genre that could easily claim this novel as their own. Yes all the names are their (with appropriately alternative spellings, Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin et al) but, most importantly, they form a mythopoetic backdrop for a much more historically specific drama to ripple outwards.

A very easy novel to misjudge by its cover, even its blurb. However for those who would enjoy the meatiest read of an almost Shakespearean scope addled with a Proustian sensitivity, Lawrentian eroticism and an almost Joycean fixation with language this could be the one for you. All four literary giants are namechecked in reviews by much more intelligent readers then myself on the back cover!

Simply the best novel I have encountered this millenium...and then some.

A spiritual journey & time romance, 05 Aug 2007
A novel which defies an easy categorization or a review except to say that it is perhaps one of the most distinctive, idiosyncratic English novels of the 20th century, though I hesitate about it being described as one of the greatest.

The novel concerns itself with many of Powys' own preoccupations: his view of nature and man's place in it and his reactionary views against technology which presage green politics; the timelessness of places (neo-romantic); `magic' and the supernatural; paganism & religion; and the mythic. One of the novel's strengths is its insights into the psychological nature of human beings (suffering, compassion, the bitter-sweet pain that awareness brings) reminiscent of Dostoevsky, whom Powys greatly admired.

The book portrays Wolf's return to Dorset through his subjective conscious though not in a modernist style. Perhaps one of the novel's flaws is that Wolf's `mythology' and `life-illusion' are never really examined in great detail. We are told how Wolf views the world - in his own mind - as a battle between the forces of good and evil, so that he comes to view his employer, the aged aristocrat, Urquhart, as a sinister figure intent on causing him harm.

Solent's eventual loss of his 'life-illusion' (possibly freedom of spirit?) comes through his return to Dorset, where his late father, 'Old Truepenny', caused much scandal, even resulting in Wolf discovering a long-lost half-sister. In a sense, Wolf's father and mother conduct a battle in his soul between an almost pagan delight in the moment (the actual physical sensation of the here and now as opposed to any notion of the hereafter) and bourgeois respectability/sensibilities (and hypocrisy) as represented by his formidable mother. Though long since dead, Wolf's father casts a long shadow over this novel and, at times, he feels more alive than those who survive him - as one character says `better to be dead in death than dead in life'.

The novel depicts Wolf's own awareness of his complex nature, the combination of the sexual and the spiritual. In its depiction of relationships between men and women, it's reminiscent of Lawrence and of the lyricism of Hardy whilst avoiding his contrived melodrama.

It is basically the story of Wolf's complex relationships with two very different women, the child of nature, Gerda, and his intellectual and emotional soul-mate, the ethereal Christie with whom he shares a psychic connection. Many of the most beautiful passages occur early in the novel when Wolf courts and seduces Gerda (Yellow Bracken) and how she can mimic birdsong such as that of a blackbird. Like Wolf, Gerda, too, loses something precious during the novel and, like Powys himself with his disastrous first marriage, we are left feeling that Wolf has married a woman `alien to him in mind and spirit'.

Feminist critics of Powys might have valid points, certainly in his presentation of Christie (over emotional) and Gerda (in her beauty reminiscent of Rosamund Vincy), and it's interesting to note how Wolf's mother and Gerda burden his spirits through their obsessions with material objects (for Wolf's mother, a tea-shop similar probably to the one trashed by a drunken Withnail!). Powys disliked capitalism and it's interesting to note that many of the most peculiar, original characters in the book (the dark arch-cynic and poet Jason, Christie) are ones who write. Wolf, too, is a writer but one who wastes his talent to write Urquhart's scandalous history of Dorset. Jason is an odd character but his dark prophecies about Wolf being cuckolded do come true. In a sense, Urquhart does cause evil to Wolf but perhaps not in the overt way we imagine.

It's a subtle novel with Wolf's year in Dorset set against the seasons: in Spring, he falls in love with Gerda and life appears to offer much; in Summer, his relationship blossoms with Christie, his true love; Autumn brings emotional conflict; and Winter, a feeling of resignation (in a job as a teacher), that he has lost a vital part of himself. The return of spring perhaps brings a new awareness and acceptance of things, `to forget and enjoy' and a renewed energy to face life's problems - `to endure or escape' - but one can't help feeling that Wolf's marriage to Gerda faces further trials ahead.


Wonderful Dense Literature, 20 Feb 2007
I'm afraid it's a while since I've read this and being a little short on time, this review will merely consist of a whole-hearted endorsement of a superbly written, dense novel set in rural England in the early half of 20th century; a novel bursting with life and erudition. Powys the most strangely overlooked British writer of the 20th century from what I can see. A writer very much of his culture in the way a writer should be, and his works very much poetic works of substance and strange insight into both man and nature.

Massive Myth-making Masterpiece, 04 Apr 2008
Surely the most criminally neglected English novel of all time?

This is truly a huge book in all aspects; size - 750 pages of beautifully dense closely scripted prose, but also scope - for Powys attempts a rare and ambitious thesis of describing the very process by which myths are manufactured. In describing events ocurring during just one week in 499A.D.he far exceeds the torpid Fantasy genre that could easily claim this novel as their own. Yes all the names are their (with appropriately alternative spellings, Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin et al) but, most importantly, they form a mythopoetic backdrop for a much more historically specific drama to ripple outwards.

A very easy novel to misjudge by its cover, even its blurb. However for those who would enjoy the meatiest read of an almost Shakespearean scope addled with a Proustian sensitivity, Lawrentian eroticism and an almost Joycean fixation with language this could be the one for you. All four literary giants are namechecked in reviews by much more intelligent readers then myself on the back cover!

Simply the best novel I have encountered this millenium...and then some.

Read this masterpiece!, 30 Aug 2007
Owen Glendower is a huge and wonderful novel by the genius John Cowper Powys (1872-1963).
When I finished the novel (938 pages in my edition) I was sad that the joy of reading came to an end. In 21 long chapters with titles such as: The castle, The sword of Eliseg, Mathrafal, The maid in armour and Difancoll, you can already sense what this novel is about. It tells of the Welsh uprising under Owen Glendower at the beginning of the 15th century. It is also about the love affair between Rhisiart - the other protagonist - and the beautiful red-haired Tegolin.
Owen Glendower (born in 1354 or 1359) was the last Welsh prince who fought the English. He was not a militarist (he received a fashionable education at the Inns of Court) but a man who almost against his will became the leader of an army. In 1400 he organised a rebellion against the English king Henry IV, and claimed the title Prince of Wales. Students and labourers joined the uprising. They were succesful, but in 1405, after the siege at Woodbury Hill near Worcester, Owen retreated to Wales.
His wife and children were captured by the English and Owen became a hunted man. He was never caught and probably died in 1416.
So far for history, but Powys' novel is much, much more. It is a wonderful philosophical novel, a bildungsroman of Rhisiart, an adventure novel (but the first scene of battle is on page 550!), a fantasy novel if you like (all lovers of 'The Lord of The Rings' should read this book!)
The style of writing is exuberant, rich, colourful, poetic (in the best sense of the word: full of sound and smell; full of rhythm, symbols and metaphor).
The characters are colourful and interesting:knights and friars, maidens and warriors, bards and bishops, Lords and Kings, are etched on the readers mind.
Some of the scenes in the novel are unforgettable. At the end of chapter 19 Owen and a couple of friends are watching a battle between a French ship and a pirate ship: there is only one survivor and he swims to the shore. Owens swims to rescue the bold but tired swimmer, and when they come ashore the surprise is immense...the figure that swam to the shore is a...but read it yourself!

Reading this novel is like scaling a mountain. You can't read it in a couple of days. Ideal is a vacation of at least two weeks. Then you can plunge in this world of words and wonder, and come out of it gasping for air when you finish the last lovely lines.

It is a novel for lovers of Shakespeare, Scott, Thomas Hardy. It is in the grand tradition of Dickens, Dostojewski, Melville.
John Cowper Powys is without a doubt one of the true English geniuses of the twentieth century. He wrote at least six masterpieces: the four Wessex novels (Wolf Solent, A Glastonbury Romance, Weymouth Sands, Maiden Castle), and the two Welsh historical romances (Owen Glendower and Porius). He wrote numerous other novels, essays (Dostojewski, Rabelais) and poetry.
Like al the greatest writers of the twentieth century (Tolstoj, Proust, Kafka, Joyce, Musil, Nabokov, Borges), Powys didn't receive the Nobelprice.
So if you are tired of the superficial pc-novels of so called great writers like Philip Roth, Ian McEwan and J.M. Coetzee, here is something completely different, something of an altogether different scale! This is reading for the good and the brave, for the bold and the blessed.

A spiritual journey & time romance, 05 Aug 2007
A novel which defies an easy categorization or a review except to say that it is perhaps one of the most distinctive, idiosyncratic English novels of the 20th century, though I hesitate about it being described as one of the greatest.

The novel concerns itself with many of Powys' own preoccupations: his view of nature and man's place in it and his reactionary views against technology which presage green politics; the timelessness of places (neo-romantic); `magic' and the supernatural; paganism & religion; and the mythic. One of the novel's strengths is its insights into the psychological nature of human beings (suffering, compassion, the bitter-sweet pain that awareness brings) reminiscent of Dostoevsky, whom Powys greatly admired.

The book portrays Wolf's return to Dorset through his subjective conscious though not in a modernist style. Perhaps one of the novel's flaws is that Wolf's `mythology' and `life-illusion' are never really examined in great detail. We are told how Wolf views the world - in his own mind - as a battle between the forces of good and evil, so that he comes to view his employer, the aged aristocrat, Urquhart, as a sinister figure intent on causing him harm.

Solent's eventual loss of his 'life-illusion' (possibly freedom of spirit?) comes through his return to Dorset, where his late father, 'Old Truepenny', caused much scandal, even resulting in Wolf discovering a long-lost half-sister. In a sense, Wolf's father and mother conduct a battle in his soul between an almost pagan delight in the moment (the actual physical sensation of the here and now as opposed to any notion of the hereafter) and bourgeois respectability/sensibilities (and hypocrisy) as represented by his formidable mother. Though long since dead, Wolf's father casts a long shadow over this novel and, at times, he feels more alive than those who survive him - as one character says `better to be dead in death than dead in life'.

The novel depicts Wolf's own awareness of his complex nature, the combination of the sexual and the spiritual. In its depiction of relationships between men and women, it's reminiscent of Lawrence and of the lyricism of Hardy whilst avoiding his contrived melodrama.

It is basically the story of Wolf's complex relationships with two very different women, the child of nature, Gerda, and his intellectual and emotional soul-mate, the ethereal Christie with whom he shares a psychic connection. Many of the most beautiful passages occur early in the novel when Wolf courts and seduces Gerda (Yellow Bracken) and how she can mimic birdsong such as that of a blackbird. Like Wolf, Gerda, too, loses something precious during the novel and, like Powys himself with his disastrous first marriage, we are left feeling that Wolf has married a woman `alien to him in mind and spirit'.

Feminist critics of Powys might have valid points, certainly in his presentation of Christie (over emotional) and Gerda (in her beauty reminiscent of Rosamund Vincy), and it's interesting to note how Wolf's mother and Gerda burden his spirits through their obsessions with material objects (for Wolf's mother, a tea-shop similar probably to the one trashed by a drunken Withnail!). Powys disliked capitalism and it's interesting to note that many of the most peculiar, original characters in the book (the dark arch-cynic and poet Jason, Christie) are ones who write. Wolf, too, is a writer but one who wastes his talent to write Urquhart's scandalous history of Dorset. Jason is an odd character but his dark prophecies about Wolf being cuckolded do come true. In a sense, Urquhart does cause evil to Wolf but perhaps not in the overt way we imagine.

It's a subtle novel with Wolf's year in Dorset set against the seasons: in Spring, he falls in love with Gerda and life appears to offer much; in Summer, his relationship blossoms with Christie, his true love; Autumn brings emotional conflict; and Winter, a feeling of resignation (in a job as a teacher), that he has lost a vital part of himself. The return of spring perhaps brings a new awareness and acceptance of things, `to forget and enjoy' and a renewed energy to face life's problems - `to endure or escape' - but one can't help feeling that Wolf's marriage to Gerda faces further trials ahead.


Wonderful Dense Literature, 20 Feb 2007
I'm afraid it's a while since I've read this and being a little short on time, this review will merely consist of a whole-hearted endorsement of a superbly written, dense novel set in rural England in the early half of 20th century; a novel bursting with life and erudition. Powys the most strangely overlooked British writer of the 20th century from what I can see. A writer very much of his culture in the way a writer should be, and his works very much poetic works of substance and strange insight into both man and nature.

Massive Myth-making Masterpiece, 04 Apr 2008
Surely the most criminally neglected English novel of all time?

This is truly a huge book in all aspects; size - 750 pages of beautifully dense closely scripted prose, but also scope - for Powys attempts a rare and ambitious thesis of describing the very process by which myths are manufactured. In describing events ocurring during just one week in 499A.D.he far exceeds the torpid Fantasy genre that could easily claim this novel as their own. Yes all the names are their (with appropriately alternative spellings, Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin et al) but, most importantly, they form a mythopoetic backdrop for a much more historically specific drama to ripple outwards.

A very easy novel to misjudge by its cover, even its blurb. However for those who would enjoy the meatiest read of an almost Shakespearean scope addled with a Proustian sensitivity, Lawrentian eroticism and an almost Joycean fixation with language this could be the one for you. All four literary giants are namechecked in reviews by much more intelligent readers then myself on the back cover!

Simply the best novel I have encountered this millenium...and then some.

Read this masterpiece!, 30 Aug 2007
Owen Glendower is a huge and wonderful novel by the genius John Cowper Powys (1872-1963).
When I finished the novel (938 pages in my edition) I was sad that the joy of reading came to an end. In 21 long chapters with titles such as: The castle, The sword of Eliseg, Mathrafal, The maid in armour and Difancoll, you can already sense what this novel is about. It tells of the Welsh uprising under Owen Glendower at the beginning of the 15th century. It is also about the love affair between Rhisiart - the other protagonist - and the beautiful red-haired Tegolin.
Owen Glendower (born in 1354 or 1359) was the last Welsh prince who fought the English. He was not a militarist (he received a fashionable education at the Inns of Court) but a man who almost against his will became the leader of an army. In 1400 he organised a rebellion against the English king Henry IV, and claimed the title Prince of Wales. Students and labourers joined the uprising. They were succesful, but in 1405, after the siege at Woodbury Hill near Worcester, Owen retreated to Wales.
His wife and children were captured by the English and Owen became a hunted man. He was never caught and probably died in 1416.
So far for history, but Powys' novel is much, much more. It is a wonderful philosophical novel, a bildungsroman of Rhisiart, an adventure novel (but the first scene of battle is on page 550!), a fantasy novel if you like (all lovers of 'The Lord of The Rings' should read this book!)
The style of writing is exuberant, rich, colourful, poetic (in the best sense of the word: full of sound and smell; full of rhythm, symbols and metaphor).
The characters are colourful and interesting:knights and friars, maidens and warriors, bards and bishops, Lords and Kings, are etched on the readers mind.
Some of the scenes in the novel are unforgettable. At the end of chapter 19 Owen and a couple of friends are watching a battle between a French ship and a pirate ship: there is only one survivor and he swims to the shore. Owens swims to rescue the bold but tired swimmer, and when they come ashore the surprise is immense...the figure that swam to the shore is a...but read it yourself!

Reading this novel is like scaling a mountain. You can't read it in a couple of days. Ideal is a vacation of at least two weeks. Then you can plunge in this world of words and wonder, and come out of it gasping for air when you finish the last lovely lines.

It is a novel for lovers of Shakespeare, Scott, Thomas Hardy. It is in the grand tradition of Dickens, Dostojewski, Melville.
John Cowper Powys is without a doubt one of the true English geniuses of the twentieth century. He wrote at least six masterpieces: the four Wessex novels (Wolf Solent, A Glastonbury Romance, Weymouth Sands, Maiden Castle), and the two Welsh historical romances (Owen Glendower and Porius). He wrote numerous other novels, essays (Dostojewski, Rabelais) and poetry.
Like al the greatest writers of the twentieth century (Tolstoj, Proust, Kafka, Joyce, Musil, Nabokov, Borges), Powys didn't receive the Nobelprice.
So if you are tired of the superficial pc-novels of so called great writers like Philip Roth, Ian McEwan and J.M. Coetzee, here is something completely different, something of an altogether different scale! This is reading for the good and the brave, for the bold and the blessed.


Massive Myth-making Masterpiece, 04 Apr 2008
Surely the most criminally neglected English novel of all time?

This is truly a huge book in all aspects; size - 750 pages of beautifully dense closely scripted prose, but also scope - for Powys attempts a rare and ambitious thesis of describing the very process by which myths are manufactured. In describing events ocurring during just one week in 499A.D.he far exceeds the torpid Fantasy genre that could easily claim this novel as their own. Yes all the names are their (with appropriately alternative spellings, Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin et al) but, most importantly, they form a mythopoetic backdrop for a much more historically specific drama to ripple outwards.

A very easy novel to misjudge by its cover, even its blurb. However for those who would enjoy the meatiest read of an almost Shakespearean scope addled with a Proustian sensitivity, Lawrentian eroticism and an almost Joycean fixation with language this could be the one for you. All four literary giants are namechecked in reviews by much more intelligent readers then myself on the back cover!

Simply the best novel I have encountered this millenium...and then some.

A spiritual journey & time romance, 05 Aug 2007
A novel which defies an easy categorization or a review except to say that it is perhaps one of the most distinctive, idiosyncratic English novels of the 20th century, though I hesitate about it being described as one of the greatest.

The novel concerns itself with many of Powys' own preoccupations: his view of nature and man's place in it and his reactionary views against technology which presage green politics; the timelessness of places (neo-romantic); `magic' and the supernatural; paganism & religion; and the mythic. One of the novel's strengths is its insights into the psychological nature of human beings (suffering, compassion, the bitter-sweet pain that awareness brings) reminiscent of Dostoevsky, whom Powys greatly admired.

The book portrays Wolf's return to Dorset through his subjective conscious though not in a modernist style. Perhaps one of the novel's flaws is that Wolf's `mythology' and `life-illusion' are never really examined in great detail. We are told how Wolf views the world - in his own mind - as a battle between the forces of good and evil, so that he comes to view his employer, the aged aristocrat, Urquhart, as a sinister figure intent on causing him harm.

Solent's eventual loss of his 'life-illusion' (possibly freedom of spirit?) comes through his return to Dorset, where his late father, 'Old Truepenny', caused much scandal, even resulting in Wolf discovering a long-lost half-sister. In a sense, Wolf's father and mother conduct a battle in his soul between an almost pagan delight in the moment (the actual physical sensation of the here and now as opposed to any notion of the hereafter) and bourgeois respectability/sensibilities (and hypocrisy) as represented by his formidable mother. Though long since dead, Wolf's father casts a long shadow over this novel and, at times, he feels more alive than those who survive him - as one character says `better to be dead in death than dead in life'.

The novel depicts Wolf's own awareness of his complex nature, the combination of the sexual and the spiritual. In its depiction of relationships between men and women, it's reminiscent of Lawrence and of the lyricism of Hardy whilst avoiding his contrived melodrama.

It is basically the story of Wolf's complex relationships with two very different women, the child of nature, Gerda, and his intellectual and emotional soul-mate, the ethereal Christie with whom he shares a psychic connection. Many of the most beautiful passages occur early in the novel when Wolf courts and seduces Gerda (Yellow Bracken) and how she can mimic birdsong such as that of a blackbird. Like Wolf, Gerda, too, loses something precious during the novel and, like Powys himself with his disastrous first marriage, we are left feeling that Wolf has married a woman `alien to him in mind and spirit'.

Feminist critics of Powys might have valid points, certainly in his presentation of Christie (over emotional) and Gerda (in her beauty reminiscent of Rosamund Vincy), and it's interesting to note how Wolf's mother and Gerda burden his spirits through their obsessions with material objects (for Wolf's mother, a tea-shop similar probably to the one trashed by a drunken Withnail!). Powys disliked capitalism and it's interesting to note that many of the most peculiar, original characters in the book (the dark arch-cynic and poet Jason, Christie) are ones who write. Wolf, too, is a writer but one who wastes his talent to write Urquhart's scandalous history of Dorset. Jason is an odd character but his dark prophecies about Wolf being cuckolded do come true. In a sense, Urquhart does cause evil to Wolf but perhaps not in the overt way we imagine.

It's a subtle novel with Wolf's year in Dorset set against the seasons: in Spring, he falls in love with Gerda and life appears to offer much; in Summer, his relationship blossoms with Christie, his true love; Autumn brings emotional conflict; and Winter, a feeling of resignation (in a job as a teacher), that he has lost a vital part of himself. The return of spring perhaps brings a new awareness and acceptance of things, `to forget and enjoy' and a renewed energy to face life's problems - `to endure or escape' - but one can't help feeling that Wolf's marriage to Gerda faces further trials ahead.


Wonderful Dense Literature, 20 Feb 2007
I'm afraid it's a while since I've read this and being a little short on time, this review will merely consist of a whole-hearted endorsement of a superbly written, dense novel set in rural England in the early half of 20th century; a novel bursting with life and erudition. Powys the most strangely overlooked British writer of the 20th century from what I can see. A writer very much of his culture in the way a writer should be, and his works very much poetic works of substance and strange insight into both man and nature.

Massive Myth-making Masterpiece, 04 Apr 2008
Surely the most criminally neglected English novel of all time?

This is truly a huge book in all aspects; size - 750 pages of beautifully dense closely scripted prose, but also scope - for Powys attempts a rare and ambitious thesis of describing the very process by which myths are manufactured. In describing events ocurring during just one week in 499A.D.he far exceeds the torpid Fantasy genre that could easily claim this novel as their own. Yes all the names are their (with appropriately alternative spellings, Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin et al) but, most importantly, they form a mythopoetic backdrop for a much more historically specific drama to ripple outwards.

A very easy novel to misjudge by its cover, even its blurb. However for those who would enjoy the meatiest read of an almost Shakespearean scope addled with a Proustian sensitivity, Lawrentian eroticism and an almost Joycean fixation with language this could be the one for you. All four literary giants are namechecked in reviews by much more intelligent readers then myself on the back cover!

Simply the best novel I have encountered this millenium...and then some.

Read this masterpiece!, 30 Aug 2007
Owen Glendower is a huge and wonderful novel by the genius John Cowper Powys (1872-1963).
When I finished the novel (938 pages in my edition) I was sad that the joy of reading came to an end. In 21 long chapters with titles such as: The castle, The sword of Eliseg, Mathrafal, The maid in armour and Difancoll, you can already sense what this novel is about. It tells of the Welsh uprising under Owen Glendower at the beginning of the 15th century. It is also about the love affair between Rhisiart - the other protagonist - and the beautiful red-haired Tegolin.
Owen Glendower (born in 1354 or 1359) was the last Welsh prince who fought the English. He was not a militarist (he received a fashionable education at the Inns of Court) but a man who almost against his will became the leader of an army. In 1400 he organised a rebellion against the English king Henry IV, and claimed the title Prince of Wales. Students and labourers joined the uprising. They were succesful, but in 1405, after the siege at Woodbury Hill near Worcester, Owen retreated to Wales.
His wife and children were captured by the English and Owen became a hunted man. He was never caught and probably died in 1416.
So far for history, but Powys' novel is much, much more. It is a wonderful philosophical novel, a bildungsroman of Rhisiart, an adventure novel (but the first scene of battle is on page 550!), a fantasy novel if you like (all lovers of 'The Lord of The Rings' should read this book!)
The style of writing is exuberant, rich, colourful, poetic (in the best sense of the word: full of sound and smell; full of rhythm, symbols and metaphor).
The characters are colourful and interesting:knights and friars, maidens and warriors, bards and bishops, Lords and Kings, are etched on the readers mind.
Some of the scenes in the novel are unforgettable. At the end of chapter 19 Owen and a couple of friends are watching a battle between a French ship and a pirate ship: there is only one survivor and he swims to the shore. Owens swims to rescue the bold but tired swimmer, and when they come ashore the surprise is immense...the figure that swam to the shore is a...but read it yourself!

Reading this novel is like scaling a mountain. You can't read it in a couple of days. Ideal is a vacation of at least two weeks. Then you can plunge in this world of words and wonder, and come out of it gasping for air when you finish the last lovely lines.

It is a novel for lovers of Shakespeare, Scott, Thomas Hardy. It is in the grand tradition of Dickens, Dostojewski, Melville.
John Cowper Powys is without a doubt one of the true English geniuses of the twentieth century. He wrote at least six masterpieces: the four Wessex novels (Wolf Solent, A Glastonbury Romance, Weymouth Sands, Maiden Castle), and the two Welsh historical romances (Owen Glendower and Porius). He wrote numerous other novels, essays (Dostojewski, Rabelais) and poetry.
Like al the greatest writers of the twentieth century (Tolstoj, Proust, Kafka, Joyce, Musil, Nabokov, Borges), Powys didn't receive the Nobelprice.
So if you are tired of the superficial pc-novels of so called great writers like Philip Roth, Ian McEwan and J.M. Coetzee, here is something completely different, something of an altogether different scale! This is reading for the good and the brave, for the bold and the blessed.


Massive Myth-making Masterpiece, 04 Apr 2008
Surely the most criminally neglected English novel of all time?

This is truly a huge book in all aspects; size - 750 pages of beautifully dense closely scripted prose, but also scope - for Powys attempts a rare and ambitious thesis of describing the very process by which myths are manufactured. In describing events ocurring during just one week in 499A.D.he far exceeds the torpid Fantasy genre that could easily claim this novel as their own. Yes all the names are their (with appropriately alternative spellings, Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin et al) but, most importantly, they form a mythopoetic backdrop for a much more historically specific drama to ripple outwards.

A very easy novel to misjudge by its cover, even its blurb. However for those who would enjoy the meatiest read of an almost Shakespearean scope addled with a Proustian sensitivity, Lawrentian eroticism and an almost Joycean fixation with language this could be the one for you. All four literary giants are namechecked in reviews by much more intelligent readers then myself on the back cover!

Simply the best novel I have encountered this millenium...and then some.

Prototype for a Masterpiece, 05 Jul 2002
Powys'"A Glastonbury Romance" is, by a country mile, my favourite novel. In "Weymouth Sands" you see its genesis, the primeval identification of people with place,the glorious articulation of a pre-television consciousness - but with far less subtlety. Too often the characters are poorly fleshed out idealisations and their interactions merely philosophical dialogue. But Powys can write sex and anyone interested in the mysticism of eroticism should give this rightly reissued novel a go.

intriguing and revealing, 24 Jul 2001
I was attracted to this work by the claim that the author is the closest one can get to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky in the English language and Henry Miller's praise that 'to encounter Powys is to arrive at the very fountain of creation'. None of this proved to be unfounded, the book grips you in a quiet way that you don't notice and you come to care for the characters and what their fates will be. Interspersed with the unfolding of their stories is prose so beautiful and insightful into people in general, our relationship with nature, with each other, and, most frighteningly, with ourselves. The author reveals all of this to us with clarity and beauty and makes Weymouth Sands an amazing experience to read.

One of Powys's greatest novels, 09 Oct 1999
John Cowper Powys is one of the most under-rated of twentieth century writers, and Weymouth Sands one of his greatest novels. While reflecting Powys's own unique character, the world described in the book is remarkably free from the modern banes of political correctness and the constrictions of a 'point of view'. As a result it offers a wonderfully wide and unjudgmental view of the characters and the locale, which combines with Powys's extraordinary rich literary expression to make this a truly great work. Buy this book!

Well worth the effort - a great experience!, 30 Apr 1999
I nearly didn't get beyond page one, but am very glad I did! JCP's style is densely woven and obviously "literary" at times (a fault today?!) but is well worth getting into. His characters and places are brilliantly portrayed, and his philosophy is compelling. Read it!

beautiful, 25 Apr 1999
Powys's most accessible and moving work. An excellent introduction to a truly great writer. Don't miss this one.

A spiritual journey & time romance, 05 Aug 2007
A novel which defies an easy categorization or a review except to say that it is perhaps one of the most distinctive, idiosyncratic English novels of the 20th century, though I hesitate about it being described as one of the greatest.

The novel concerns itself with many of Powys' own preoccupations: his view of nature and man's place in it and his reactionary views against technology which presage green politics; the timelessness of places (neo-romantic); `magic' and the supernatural; paganism & religion; and the mythic. One of the novel's strengths is its insights into the psychological nature of human beings (suffering, compassion, the bitter-sweet pain that awareness brings) reminiscent of Dostoevsky, whom Powys greatly admired.

The book portrays Wolf's return to Dorset through his subjective conscious though not in a modernist style. Perhaps one of the novel's flaws is that Wolf's `mythology' and `life-illusion' are never really examined in great detail. We are told how Wolf views the world - in his own mind - as a battle between the forces of good and evil, so that he comes to view his employer, the aged aristocrat, Urquhart, as a sinister figure intent on causing him harm.

Solent's eventual loss of his 'life-illusion' (possibly freedom of spirit?) comes through his return to Dorset, where his late father, 'Old Truepenny', caused much scandal, even resulting in Wolf discovering a long-lost half-sister. In a sense, Wolf's father and mother conduct a battle in his soul between an almost pagan delight in the moment (the actual physical sensation of the here and now as opposed to any notion of the hereafter) and bourgeois respectability/sensibilities (and hypocrisy) as represented by his formidable mother. Though long since dead, Wolf's father casts a long shadow over this novel and, at times, he feels more alive than those who survive him - as one character says `better to be dead in death than dead in life'.

The novel depicts Wolf's own awareness of his complex nature, the combination of the sexual and the spiritual. In its depiction of relationships between men and women, it's reminiscent of Lawrence and of the lyricism of Hardy whilst avoiding his contrived melodrama.

It is basically the story of Wolf's complex relationships with two very different women, the child of nature, Gerda, and his intellectual and emotional soul-mate, the ethereal Christie with whom he shares a psychic connection. Many of the most beautiful passages occur early in the novel when Wolf courts and seduces Gerda (Yellow Bracken) and how she can mimic birdsong such as that of a blackbird. Like Wolf, Gerda, too, loses something precious during the novel and, like Powys himself with his disastrous first marriage, we are left feeling that Wolf has married a woman `alien to him in mind and spirit'.

Feminist critics of Powys might have valid points, certainly in his presentation of Christie (over emotional) and Gerda (in her beauty reminiscent of Rosamund Vincy), and it's interesting to note how Wolf's mother and Gerda burden his spirits through their obsessions with material objects (for Wolf's mother, a tea-shop similar probably to the one trashed by a drunken Withnail!). Powys disliked capitalism and it's interesting to note that many of the most peculiar, original characters in the book (the dark arch-cynic and poet Jason, Christie) are ones who write. Wolf, too, is a writer but one who wastes his talent to write Urquhart's scandalous history of Dorset. Jason is an odd character but his dark prophecies about Wolf being cuckolded do come true. In a sense, Urquhart does cause evil to Wolf but perhaps not in the overt way we imagine.

It's a subtle novel with Wolf's year in Dorset set against the seasons: in Spring, he falls in love with Gerda and life appears to offer much; in Summer, his relationship blossoms with Christie, his true love; Autumn brings emotional conflict; and Winter, a feeling of resignation (in a job as a teacher), that he has lost a vital part of himself. The return of spring perhaps brings a new awareness and acceptance of things, `to forget and enjoy' and a renewed energy to face life's problems - `to endure or escape' - but one can't help feeling that Wolf's marriage to Gerda faces further trials ahead.


Wonderful Dense Literature, 20 Feb 2007
I'm afraid it's a while since I've read this and being a little short on time, this review will merely consist of a whole-hearted endorsement of a superbly written, dense novel set in rural England in the early half of 20th century; a novel bursting with life and erudition. Powys the most strangely overlooked British writer of the 20th century from what I can see. A writer very much of his culture in the way a writer should be, and his works very much poetic works of substance and strange insight into both man and nature.

Massive Myth-making Masterpiece, 04 Apr 2008
Surely the most criminally neglected English novel of all time?

This is truly a huge book in all aspects; size - 750 pages of beautifully dense closely scripted prose, but also scope - for Powys attempts a rare and ambitious thesis of describing the very process by which myths are manufactured. In describing events ocurring during just one week in 499A.D.he far exceeds the torpid Fantasy genre that could easily claim this novel as their own. Yes all the names are their (with appropriately alternative spellings, Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin et al) but, most importantly, they form a mythopoetic backdrop for a much more historically specific drama to ripple outwards.

A very easy novel to misjudge by its cover, even its blurb. However for those who would enjoy the meatiest read of an almost Shakespearean scope addled with a Proustian sensitivity, Lawrentian eroticism and an almost Joycean fixation with language this could be the one for you. All four literary giants are namechecked in reviews by much more intelligent readers then myself on the back cover!

Simply the best novel I have encountered this millenium...and then some.

Read this masterpiece!, 30 Aug 2007
Owen Glendower is a huge and wonderful novel by the genius John Cowper Powys (1872-1963).
When I finished the novel (938 pages in my edition) I was sad that the joy of reading came to an end. In 21 long chapters with titles such as: The castle, The sword of Eliseg, Mathrafal, The maid in armour and Difancoll, you can already sense what this novel is about. It tells of the Welsh uprising under Owen Glendower at the beginning of the 15th century. It is also about the love affair between Rhisiart - the other protagonist - and the beautiful red-haired Tegolin.
Owen Glendower (born in 1354 or 1359) was the last Welsh prince who fought the English. He was not a militarist (he received a fashionable education at the Inns of Court) but a man who almost against his will became the leader of an army. In 1400 he organised a rebellion against the English king Henry IV, and claimed the title Prince of Wales. Students and labourers joined the uprising. They were succesful, but in 1405, after the siege at Woodbury Hill near Worcester, Owen retreated to Wales.
His wife and children were captured by the English and Owen became a hunted man. He was never caught and probably died in 1416.
So far for history, but Powys' novel is much, much more. It is a wonderful philosophical novel, a bildungsroman of Rhisiart, an adventure novel (but the first scene of battle is on page 550!), a fantasy novel if you like (all lovers of 'The Lord of The Rings' should read this book!)
The style of writing is exuberant, rich, colourful, poetic (in the best sense of the word: full of sound and smell; full of rhythm, symbols and metaphor).
The characters are colourful and interesting:knights and friars, maidens and warriors, bards and bishops, Lords and Kings, are etched on the readers mind.
Some of the scenes in the novel are unforgettable. At the end of chapter 19 Owen and a couple of friends are watching a battle between a French ship and a pirate ship: there is only one survivor and he swims to the shore. Owens swims to rescue the bold but tired swimmer, and when they come ashore the surprise is immense...the figure that swam to the shore is a...but read it yourself!

Reading this novel is like scaling a mountain. You can't read it in a couple of days. Ideal is a vacation of at least two weeks. Then you can plunge in this world of words and wonder, and come out of it gasping for air when you finish the last lovely lines.

It is a novel for lovers of Shakespeare, Scott, Thomas Hardy. It is in the grand tradition of Dickens, Dostojewski, Melville.
John Cowper Powys is without a doubt one of the true English geniuses of the twentieth century. He wrote at least six masterpieces: the four Wessex novels (Wolf Solent, A Glastonbury Romance, Weymouth Sands, Maiden Castle), and the two Welsh historical romances (Owen Glendower and Porius). He wrote numerous other novels, essays (Dostojewski, Rabelais) and poetry.
Like al the greatest writers of the twentieth century (Tolstoj, Proust, Kafka, Joyce, Musil, Nabokov, Borges), Powys didn't receive the Nobelprice.
So if you are tired of the superficial pc-novels of so called great writers like Philip Roth, Ian McEwan and J.M. Coetzee, here is something completely different, something of an altogether different scale! This is reading for the good and the brave, for the bold and the blessed.


Massive Myth-making Masterpiece, 04 Apr 2008
Surely the most criminally neglected English novel of all time?

This is truly a huge book in all aspects; size - 750 pages of beautifully dense closely scripted prose, but also scope - for Powys attempts a rare and ambitious thesis of describing the very process by which myths are manufactured. In describing events ocurring during just one week in 499A.D.he far exceeds the torpid Fantasy genre that could easily claim this novel as their own. Yes all the names are their (with appropriately alternative spellings, Arthur, Merlin, Taliesin et al) but, most importantly, they form a mythopoetic backdrop for a much more historically specific drama to ripple outwards.

A very easy novel to misjudge by its cover, even its blurb. However for those who would enjoy the meatiest read of an almost Shakespearean scope addled with a Proustian sensitivity, Lawrentian eroticism and an almost Joycean fixation with language this could be the one for you. All four literary giants are namechecked in reviews by much more intelligent readers then myself on the back cover!

Simply the best novel I have encountered this millenium...and then some.

Prototype for a Masterpiece, 05 Jul 2002
Powys'"A Glastonbury Romance" is, by a country mile, my favourite novel. In "Weymouth Sands" you see its genesis, the primeval identification of people with place,the glorious articulation of a pre-television consciousness - but with far less subtlety. Too often the characters are poorly fleshed out idealisations and their interactions merely philosophical dialogue. But Powys can write sex and anyone interested in the mysticism of eroticism should give this rightly reissued novel a go.

intriguing and revealing, 24 Jul 2001
I was attracted to this work by the claim that the author is the closest one can get to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky in the English language and Henry Miller's praise that 'to encounter Powys is to arrive at the very fountain of creation'. None of this proved to be unfounded, the book grips you in a quiet way that you don't notice and you come to care for the characters and what their fates will be. Interspersed with the unfolding of their stories is prose so beautiful and insightful into people in general, our relationship with nature, with each other, and, most frighteningly, with ourselves. The author reveals all of this to us with clarity and beauty and makes Weymouth Sands an amazing experience to read.

One of Powys's greatest novels, 09 Oct 1999
John Cowper Powys is one of the most under-rated of twentieth century writers, and Weymouth Sands one of his greatest novels. While reflecting Powys's own unique character, the world described in the book is remarkably free from the modern banes of political correctness and the constrictions of a 'point of view'. As a result it offers a wonderfully wide and unjudgmental view of the characters and the locale, which combines with Powys's extraordinary rich literary expression to make this a truly great work. Buy this book!

Well worth the effort - a great experience!, 30 Apr 1999
I nearly didn't get beyond page one, but am very glad I did! JCP's style is densely woven and obviously "literary" at times (a fault today?!) but is well worth getting into. His characters and places are brilliantly portrayed, and his philosophy is compelling. Read it!

beautiful, 25 Apr 1999
Powys's most accessible and moving work. An excellent introduction to a truly great writer. Don't miss this one.

Interesting, but Powys fans beware!, 23 Nov 2007
This is an interesting, if rather dated, self-help book that JCP wrote in the 30s. Much of the advice is useful, but, equally, much is rather outdated, especially in attitudes to women. And caution - this is a reissue of The Art of Happiness, which many Powys fans may already have. There is nothing inside to say this is a reissue, and JCP's name is Powers on the front cover, so it's sloppy all round. The text, though, is worth reading.