Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land - John Crowley

"Abendland (Evening Land): There is always a West into which the heroes of the older age may go. Just beneath this word, in the small dictionary that I have, is another, Abentreuer, which means generally an Adventure, but is more exactly or loosely a journey West. Where dawn comes, of course, as everywhere. No end to the West till those who journey thence come round again at the last."

So writes Lady Ada Lovelace in a set of annotations to a long lost novel by her estranged father, the poet, Lord Byron. In Crowley's novel, Byron set pen to paper sometime between 1816 and 1822 and wrote The Evening Land, his only work of prose fiction. The manuscript falls into Ada's hands in the twilight of her life and she dutifully edits and annotates the novel for the father she never knew, before destroying the manuscript at the request of her emotionally manipulative and controlling mother. The notes and letters associated with the novel are sealed away for 150 years until they fall into the hands of a modern woman who calls herself Smith, working on a detailed biography of Ada Lovelace for a Women-in-Science website. The notes, along with page after page of numbers, transcribed meticulously by Ada as she was dying of cancer, form a central mystery for Smith and precipitate her reunion with her own estranged father.

The novel is told in three layers: The Evening Land, Byron's lost novel, presented wholly for the reader; Ada's annotations, in which she tries to explain Byron's literary and historical references; and the electronic correspondences between Smith; her father, Lee; and her lover, Thea. The Evening Land occupies the majority of the book and is a sprawling novel about a half-English, half-Albanian boy, Ali, sired by a mad, adventuring English lord, and eventually adopted and transplanted to the British Isle. The tale is wildly inventive, if rambling, as Ali encounters one improbable scenario after another. The novel features drafty Scottish abbeys, dank English prisons, brave heroism on the field of battle, duels, unexpected reunions, midnight liaisons, and even a zombie for good measure.

Crowley is a master stylist, and he is masterful here as he weaves the three threads of his story. I am no Byron expert, but The Evening Land is effective at evoking that period of literary history –– between Austen and Dickens – when the novel was novel. The prose is, at first, overly rich with literary flourishes. After only a few pages, though, even a modern reader can sink into the flow of the text to hear the story within. Crowley's modern sections, told through email, are as modern and authentic as The Evening Land is romantic and ornate.

The story outside the story, is largely one of characters who exist outside the narrative. Central to the novel is Byron himself. Left to the context of history, The Evening Land might have been the source of unending speculation and criticism, but here, Ada (our other great unseen character) seems to be looking for some message from her father. Crowley uses Smith and her father both to tell their own story, but also to provide a modern reader (who likely has no particular knowledge of Byron, his life or poetry) a context for understanding the story he is trying to tell. These parts can be largely expository, but they help in understanding the subtle yearning in Ada's notes and in Lee's identification with the novel to understand his relationship with his own daughter.

The outer story also features ancient computers (the so-called Difference Engine), secret ciphers, and mysterious strangers. (Crowley has Byron write himself a cameo into The Evening Land, just as Crowley writes himself into the framing story.) However, this is no Lord Byron Code. This is a story about art and style and characters. The book is largely an effusive love letter to Lord Byron and a celebration of his literary legacy through homage. But most of all, it is a grand Abentreuer, and a splendidly told one at that.