Ka

Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr

By: John Crowley

Narrated by: John Crowley

Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

From award-winning author John Crowley comes an exquisite fantasy novel about a man who tells the story of a crow named Dar Oakley and his impossible lives and deaths in the land of Ka.

A Crow alone is no Crow.

Dar Oakley - the first Crow in all of history with a name of his own - was born two thousand years ago. When a man learns his language, Dar finally gets the chance to tell his story. He begins his tale as a young man, and how he went down to the human underworld and got hold of the immortality meant for humans, long before Julius Caesar came into the Celtic lands; how he sailed West to America with the Irish monks searching for the Paradise of the Saints; and how he continuously went down into the land of the dead and returned. Through his adventures in Ka, the realm of Crows, and around the world, he found secrets that could change the humans' entire way of life - and now may be the time to finally reveal them.

©2017 John Crowle (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Recorded by arrangement with Saga Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Amazing book

I love John Crowley and see him as one of the best writer currently out there. This book only strengthened m admiration for his work. This novel follows the multiple lives that of a crow Dar Oakley as he interacts with various humans over at last many centuries if not longer. Those of you who are familiar with Crowley's works will know that he writes of worlds that combine fantasy and reality in a skillful way that to me, really is more of a look at our world from a very different perspective thus offering insight into the deep issues of human kind. In this work The extraordinarily well developed characters grapple with love, aging, death, the quest for immortality and how humans fit within the natural world.

It sounds very deep, and it is, but it is also very gentle and simple. I recommend this book to all.

Wonderful

My favorite book I’ve yet listened to. Plot is loose and hard to describe. Prose is gorgeous, precise, generous, moving. Author reads it beautifully. Will want to listen to this again, and will seek out more by this author. Cannot recommend highly enough.

a real story or maybe not

Full of darkness and pain, myth and story, but satisfying and beautiful in its circulatory.

Beautiful Dream

I loved this book. I had read reviews, and couldn’t wait to listen. Dar Oakley’s story is beautiful and sad. Having recently experienced the loss of loved ones, I found this story sweet and comforting. Not everyone may feel that way, but I’ll listen again.

Seamless

The author did his research so well and used enough well-known folklore. It seemed like this story was already written long ago to be retold now. He does a good job reading. I truly liked it.

Like crows? You'll love this book.

A wonderful tale of a long-lived crow. This book is a meandering history, not a 123 plotted story.

A story you not soon forget…and gladly so.

A story of life, love, and death…as told by an ancient crow, and a man. It’s a pretty damn good tale.

It is not Watership Down.

I know it is wrong to compare one book to another, but this one never kicked it onto gear. still a bird lover will find it appealing.

Magical and beautiful

I haven’t felt this captivated by a piece of fiction in so long. This book reminded me somewhat of Watership Down, how the author so beautiful created a whole other world that was Crow, instead of Rabbit. It’s a beautiful story about death and magic. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes magical realism and imagining a more magical world just slightly adjacent to our own.

Fabulous

Taken literally. Do not read if you confuse fable with fake armored battles or shining swords. This tale of the first crow is truly wonderful.
And while you're at it, get Crowley's "Little, Big." Also fabulous.