Rhys's Reviews > The Crock of Gold

Surely one of the best (perhaps the best) fantasy novel written in English in the first half of the 20th Century? I know this is rather a large claim. It would place it at least equal to Jurgen by James Branch Cabell, The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison and Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake, but I believe that the claim is not at all outlandish. This novel is genuinely magical. It is also funny and very strange. The way that the world of everyday reality and the world of magic overlap and interact in its pages is very special. The novel is a picaresque, adventures following adventures and not all of them necessarily connecting with any other. But I enjoyed this free and easy approach to the narrative. It reminded me of Lord Dunsany at his most ironical; and in the brilliant episode with the policeman it also reminded me a little of Flann O'Brien.