Title: Disappointing sequel to Aegypt reveals insufficiency of magi
Review: I loved Crowley's Aegypt, a wonderful compound of life, art, and magic (specifically hermeticism.) Although written in Crowley's beautiful style this novel was a severe disappointment. The lyrical life-affirming optimism of the preceding novel was wholly absent, replaced by a dismal elegaic pessimism. The book's structure is kind of clumsy too - it's a loosely related set of chunks of stories which while interesting in themselves don't flow well together. It's interesting to speculate that the novel's grim tone is related to the murder of Crowley's friend and professor of hermetic studies Ioan Culianu, who was assassinated, evidentally for political reasons, in 1991. Giordano Bruno, the Renaissance hermeticist, is a principal subject of Crowley's novel and his life bears parallels to Culianu's.
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