Engine Summer

Engine Summer by John Crowley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of this book’s strengths was quite how effective it was at making me sleepy. The post-apocalypse it describes is serene, slow-moving and largely free from conflict. Although the protagonist goes on a quest, most of the jeopardy he encounters is elided. The central mystery that bookends the novel (who is the story being told to and why) isn’t in itself strong enough to propel the reader forwards. You have to trust the tale is worth telling. Thankfully it is.

There are some dated elements – many of the future societies being described have gendered assumptions that a modern reader will chafe at. This was written over 40 years ago and to a degree it shows. What’s lasting about it is the protagonist’s own yearning for knowledge and love. These (male-coded) desires are implied to have been taken to extremes and have ruined the world. But there are other ways of living proposed by the novel. Psychological and genetic engineering have produced a cat-like people who have abandoned expansionist drives, and the protagonist’s own illiterate culture, where deception is impossible and everyone says what they mean, seems to be a pleasant place to grow up.

The stories that structure these groups are imperfectly understood by the protagonist, and some of the novel’s most beautiful writing is found in evoking that ambiguity. The ending suggests that the protagonist has become a story that will in turn provide a template for a different way of living, and the love he experienced is seen to inspire the person hearing the tale to emulate it. Crowley’s hope might be that the tale does the same for the reader.

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