The Deep is an early (1975) short novel by John Crowley. A visitor arrives from elsewhere on a strange mediaeval world where the two factions, the "Reds" and the "Blacks", struggle for supremacy through battle, murder and treachery. It soon becomes apparent that he (it) is only superfically human. Damaged in a skirmish between Protectors and the Just at the start, he and we spend the rest of the book finding out how and why he was made and sent. Early, Fauconred quotes their book: "the world is founded on a pillar which is founded on the Deep". This turns out to be true. Whilst a war of succession (apparently patterned on the Wars of the Roses) plays out, the visitor becomes secretary, then recorder; and travels to the edge of the world to meet Leviathan, an immemorial creature who built the world to shelter his sleep from the heaven stones. Meanwhile, the slow stable world which has been immortal because repeating for uncounted years begins to spiral into the unknown path of development.
External links
- http://home.att.net/~Storytellers/jcrowley.html "a strange and difficult book with some truly beautiful writing"
- http://pluto.spaceports.com/~mot/books/books7.htm#deep
