For a long time I lived in the fictional world of Saul Bellow, but Chicago being somewhat challenged in the more subtle, sensitive things of existence, I have packed all my belongings and moved into the fictional world of John Crowley.  It is a big enough world to hold me evidently, since I can't seem to find much material that interests me which has not already been treated in some manner within it.

That's ok.  It's good to know to whom your Ass belongs. 

John Crowley, in Endless Things,  not only recreates the wonderful transformation of Lucius, but blends it seamlessly into the vast machine of his Aegypt Cycle, with far greater consequence and historical hilarity.  None other that Giordano Bruno in Ass form is set loose on Europe, his agenda still subversive as ever, emerging finally as a mysterious founder of the Rosicrucians.  Such fictional stuff is even tastier than Sacher Torte! The deeper meanings of this may take some time to sort out.  That will not be attempted here.

I will say, however, that the White Goddess seems to me to speak through the fictional Rose characters in the Aegypt Cycle. Further, without too much squinting, the four books (The Solitudes, Love & Sleep, Demonomania, and Endless Things) might be seen at root as a kind of extended dedication to the White Goddess. Pierce Moffet plays the oblivious seeker of truth (himself perhaps an Ass), and it is by seeking (serving) women, all of whom are "Roses"  that he finds wisdom to become his authentic self.  I suggest this knowing that it is only one of many overlays one might apply.