Little, Big

Where do I begin in attempting to review this remarkable book? I'll apologize in advance for being long-winded but I have much to say about John Crowley's tour de force. It's place might be in the fantasy genre, but it's unlike any fantasy novel I've ever read. First off, it's for intelligent adults, not children, or anyone looking for pure escapism. It's also not a Tolkien type fantasy. The bulk of the plot doesn't take place in an imaginary kingdom, with stereotypical heroes and villains, and exalted but all too obvious themes. It's not allegorical as are the works of MacDonald and Lewis. The fantastic elements, fairies, elves, and such, aren't ubiquitous, but operate for the most part in clandestine fashion, behind the scenes. LITTLE, BIG can rightly be termed realistic fiction with unrealistic elements, and the fantastic elements are often presented with a Carrollian wit. Characters are introduced much the way Dickens would have. Even their names have a certain Dickensian flavor. Most of the major characters are painted with subtle, rather than broad brush strokes, in a way reminiscent of George Eliot. Despite a basic goodness and decency, major characters like Smokey and George Mouse do things that violate certain moral codes, but these transgressions aren't unduly focused on. We discover things about these people that surprise us, but shouldn't shock us. Human weakness in the form of a surrendering to carnal urges serves to counterpoint inherent nobility. The action starts in the middle part of the 20th century, with the very mundane Smokey Barnable, on his way to a place called Edgewood, to marry a girl named Daily Alice Drinkwater, and play his part in the Tale. The Tale is one of the major motifs in LITTLE, BIG, and it ends at the conclusion of the novel. This "Tale" encompassed by the greater fiction of the novel is one of the charming aspects of this book, sort of a myth grafted onto a slice of 20th century American history.What is the Tale? On the surface, it is something a mysterious old woman named Mrs. Underhill may have mentioned to Alice's great grandmother Violet Bramble. It was understood that the Tale involved the family of Violet and her architect husband John Drinkwater, and it wouldn't end for quite some time. LITTLE, BIG tells the story of 4 generations of this family in lavish, beautifully descriptive prose. Part of the plot also involves a distant cousin of the family named Ariel Hawksquill and a sinister individual named Russell Eigenblick. Both will have their own important parts to play in the Tale. A good portion of the story takes place in Edgewood, which is represented by a very unusual house, designed and built by Violet's husband John, and located somewhere in the Northeast countryside (upstate NY?). Edgewood was built not merely to serve as a residence (a quite disorienting one at that), but as a way station between this dimension and the dimension of Faerie. It exists on the "edge" of the 2 realities. Edgewood is actually one of the main characters in the novel, and it's purpose is made clearer at the end of the book. Parts of the story also take place in the Great City (NYC), where Smokey and Alice's son Auberon (named after a great uncle) goes to play his role in the Tale. Auberon's journey is one of self discovery, in which he finds love, then loses it and almost loses his sanity in the aftermath. Crowley is wonderful at drawing parallels between things. In one instance he mentions a time when the Woods were wild and fearsome. Now the Woods are peaceful, and the city is in actuality, the Wild Wood. Smokey journeys from the wild city to the peaceful woods to marry and unwittingly becomes part of something greater and more profound than his humdrum reality, while years later, his only son does the reverse to escape the meaninglessness of his own existence and unwittingly fulfill his own destiny. Beautiful symmetry abounds in this novel. A recurring theme involves the seasons. Each season has a symbolic significance in the novel, and key sections of the narrative have plot elements that reflect the season in which they occur. There are many subtle and clever devices Crowley employs to foreshadow events in the novel. A charming scene in a subway tunnel between Auberon and his lover Sylvie, anticipates future events. Near the end, even something as simple as Smokey reaching for a copy of Ovid's Metamorphosis has a portentous significance which in an offhanded way underscores the Tale's mythic nature.LITTLE, BIG consists of 6 books, divided by 26 chapters headed by epigrams from famous philosophers and literary figures like Cicero, Samuel Johnson, and Virginia Woolf; further subdivided into sections with titles crystallizing thoughts presented in each section. This process of subdivision, rather than confusing the reader, allows one to draw a breath and absorb what is presented without getting mentally exhausted. It's necessary, because Crowley's writing often flaunts his erudition. He'll embellish passages with words that send you scrambling for the dictionary. This may not be a style of writing that pleases everyone, but for this novel I think it's effective. The story held my interest from the beginning, further piqued my curiosity as it progressed, and built anticipation to a crescendo which culminated in a tearful, yet truly sublime ending.Crowley does more than just tell a wonderful story. A fascinating sidelight is the presentation of certain philosophical elements.. historically controversial visions of reality which have seldom been presented in such a beautiful and imaginative way. There are elements of Gnosticism in the Tale; an attempt to link the spiritual with the rational. It brings to mind Hamlet's words to his rational buddy, "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". Whether or not Mr. Crowley is a proponent of, or even believes in such notions is not for me to surmise, although I 'm more inclined to think that the Gnostic and Hermetic ideas are used more as plot devices to flesh out the crucial emotional underpinnings of the story, rather than serve as major thematic components. Smokey represents to me, the rational, pragmatic, reasonable world. Alice and her family, the link to the world of spirit and wonder and imagination. The 2 must join together for the Tale to proceed, just as man must recognize his spiritual as well as rational nature. Smokey's life has little value at the start, but ends with a supreme personal fulfillment. The novel describes concentric levels of reality, the deeper in you travel, the more spacious it becomes. Man lives on one level. The faeries on a deeper level. Who knows what exists on levels further in? Carl Jung, in accord with Gnostic and Hermetic sources, describes man as a unique link between the microcosm (Little) and the macrocosm (Big), a portal so to speak, between 2 eternities, one inner and the other outer. The notion presented in the novel of alternative universes is not strictly proprietary to metaphysics. It has been a valid topic of debate in advanced physics. The notion of death in this book is not a fearful notion. Everything we are made of, including our consciousness, has always existed, and will always exist in one form or other for eternity. The deep thoughts are there, but they do not take away from the things in the novel that have primary importance for us as humans who live in the real world and don't pay much thought to alternative realities.In trying to compare LITTLE, BIG to other works of similar style, I am reminded a bit of One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Garcia Marquez. Both novels make reference to occultism and hermeticism. Both novels contain family trees, and relate unusual family histories through several generations.. but where the Colombian master's Buendia family were almost impossible for me to relate to, Crowley creates characters that are very easy to empathize with. They live and breathe, love and ache, undergo physical, emotional, and spiritual changes, and act all too human even when they become more or less than human. They resonate in your consciousness long after you finish the book. At least they did in mine. I highly recommend this book, and hope more people get to discover it's wonders. Like all great books, this one demands multiple readings. Great books are life experiences..journeys of self discovery, always there to be travelled, each successive venture leading us down more scenic routes to our destination. With LITTLE, BIG Crowley has fashioned his own Edgewood for the reader. We enter through the gates and proceed to a familiar world, one we all know, but nonetheless, a world ripe with mystery, enchantment, and some danger. There are puzzles to solve, and once solved, new ones arise to challenge us. Questions are asked, and once answered, new ones posed for pondering. The world we thought we knew changes into a new world. We leave with new insights, and perhaps a new world view, part of ourselves changed forever as we perceive life from an altered perspective. It may only have been a tale, but it had become our tale. We lived it along with the characters. The experience was just as meaningful for us as for them.

A masterpiece, hands down. A tour of Western esoteric and classic thought wound into a tangled web of deeply resonate and powerfully rendered characters. I haven't been moved by a novel like this in ages.

Much like many of the other reviewers, I find it difficult to put down why this book is so good in many respects, but not so good at times. I would say, first off, that I truly don't think that this book is primarily concerned with fairies, save as a sort of thematic trope. In any event, Crowley himself has asseverated (after being asked by so many readers) that he does NOT believe in fairies. I would say that, like Proust, Crowley's main concern is with memory and its elusive, magical quality.-Witness the number of times that memory (or the loss of it, or the regaining of it, partial or wholly) is mentioned throughout the book -Just an example of this theme is the quote from St. Augustine (p.343 of my edition):"The fields, the caves, the dens of Memory cannot be counted nor the kinds of things counted that fill them...I force my way in amongst them, even as far as my power reaches, and nowhere find an end."For whatever reason, the book comes to sparkling life for me when Sylvie "leaves" Auberon and he is left to ebriously roam the city for a year in desolation, spiritual and otherwise, meditating (again, much like Proust) on love and memory. It's the richest, most rapturous part of the book, where "magic" is seen to be in the world we daily inhabit, in our loves and memories----in our lives, that is.As for the rest-Edgewood and the family and all its doings and undoings, all I can recommend is that the reader carefully bookmark the family tree at the book's beginning and try to keep up with things as much as is possible, and it will NOT be possible to keep up with them all. In this sense, the book is, as another reviewer has remarked, a sort of quagmire, especially towards the ending of "The Tale" or, shall we say, the Little, Big.Summing up: A genuine, neglected piece of true literature that, while not a masterpiece exactly, surely deserves much more attention and serious consideration than the literary world (save the wonderful Harold Bloom) has afforded it.