http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2016/05/review-of-deep-by-john-crowley_20.html ( )

This is a great, weird, crazy little sf-fantasy that I love for reasons I can't really put my finger on. Crowley's ability to simply write is obviously one of the elements that works in the book's favour, though my review of [b:Little Big|2612|The Tipping Point How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference|Malcolm Gladwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298411975s/2612.jpg|2124255] will show that, in my opinion at least, that isn't always enough to carry a Crowley book.

I can (and did) easily imagine this as a movie from the 70's with David Bowie starring as the enigmatic Visitor from the stars (a role he is familiar with) as he wanders in an amnesiac haze through the strange flat-earth world created by Crowley. Throughout his journey he witnesses the internecine wars of the Reds and the Blacks, the two reigning groups of aristocrats (who seem to be something of an amalgam of playing cards and chess pieces...though more fleshed out than that description implies) along with the guerilla resistance of the Just.

There's obviously a fairly strong allegorical element to this tale, and normally I don't like that, but Crowley manages to overcome this and still make his characters people, despite their obvious archetypes. Crowley's concerns with examining how human power corrupts, even when used with the best of intentions, and the idea of examining how a closed system will develop when only certain known external factors are allowed to be introduced were interesting, but ultimately I think this book's success lies in the fact that it was a story easy to get lost in and simply enjoy from start to finish. ( )

I have been reading older books, in part because back then they were still publishing short books, which are nice when time is limited.
This book was very intriguing, I kept trying to understand more of the world than I did. I guess it is the 'mysterious stranger with no mystery tries to understand mission' theme, but with an interesting twist. The world he falls in is totally confusing to the reader, and feels a bit artificial and amiss - but that is by design.
I kept feeling I was somehow missing some clues that would make more sense of it, but I still enjoyed reading it ( )