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Book Review
A Glastonbury Romance
by John Cowper Powys
This 1933 novel takes place over the course of a year and follows a large cast of characters living in Glastonbury, England. The plot is fairly quiet, with no big arc. It is bracketed by a midsummer pageant and festival created by the mystically-minded John Geard and the spring flood that concludes the story. Some events mirror parts of Arthurian legend, especially aspects of the Grail quest. The book is mainly concerned with the shifting relationships of the characters and their relationships with the legends and traditions of Glastonbury.
There's a lot to like about this book. It's small and subtle in many ways and also large and sweeping in others. Powys does a great job of illuminating the inner lives of his characters and in getting at a spiritual and mystical layer underneath the people and the landscape. It often feels like a Victorian novel but with pre-war sensibilities. I never stopped being interested in these people and how their lives were unfolding. The only major thing that I did not entirely enjoy was that at nearly 1200 pages, A Glastonbury Romance may be too long, even for someone like myself who really enjoys long novels. I'm not fully convinced that it could support its own length.
by John Cowper Powys
This 1933 novel takes place over the course of a year and follows a large cast of characters living in Glastonbury, England. The plot is fairly quiet, with no big arc. It is bracketed by a midsummer pageant and festival created by the mystically-minded John Geard and the spring flood that concludes the story. Some events mirror parts of Arthurian legend, especially aspects of the Grail quest. The book is mainly concerned with the shifting relationships of the characters and their relationships with the legends and traditions of Glastonbury.
There's a lot to like about this book. It's small and subtle in many ways and also large and sweeping in others. Powys does a great job of illuminating the inner lives of his characters and in getting at a spiritual and mystical layer underneath the people and the landscape. It often feels like a Victorian novel but with pre-war sensibilities. I never stopped being interested in these people and how their lives were unfolding. The only major thing that I did not entirely enjoy was that at nearly 1200 pages, A Glastonbury Romance may be too long, even for someone like myself who really enjoys long novels. I'm not fully convinced that it could support its own length.
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Huh. I have never read this novel and it sounds important to twentieth-century Arthuriana. I am impressed that its length was publishable even in the wake of James Joyce.