Little, Big by John Crowley - April BOTM

[Lani]

Well, personally, I didn't have time to read the book yet, so I will probably try to contribute later, but those with better time management: share your thoughts!

[FicusFan]

Ok I finally finished this sucker. It took me almost two weeks. I wish I could say it was an enjoyable time, but it wasn't. Given all the raves I heard about this book and this author I was expecting a much better book. What I would say about it was: tedious and awkwardly-written.

It was over 500 pages, filled with mostly pallid lifeless characters, with no plot or real story to speak of. The impression was that the reader entered each scene just after the plot had left. There was a big secret that some of the characters knew, and some didn't but none would actually talk about in a direct manner. So rather than a story in the foreground with character, family and setting details used in the background to fill in, this book reversed the process. The odd characters, their family ties and the settings became the focus of the book, and the secret plot scurried around the edges of the background.

Now I am not instantly averse to a plotless book, but if the author goes that way s/he needs something pretty special to replace the plot, and for me the characters and the family and the setting never rose to that level. There were a few patches that were nice, and occasionally a character would shine through, but not often enough for over 500 pages.

The other bone I have to pick is the writing. If good writing is like a high speed train, with each word a car on the train, and the whole thing slips quickly and smoothly from page to imagination where it blossoms into distinct pictures in your mind, then the writing here is as if the train is a broken down old freight and each single word like a rusted boxcar that hits you upside the head. It doesn't flow and I often found myself reading word by word rather than a sentence at a time. There was just no flow or rythm for most of it. I suspect he was trying for quaintness and a victorian feel, but for me it was mostly painful. There were a few passages where I could absorb the feel of the time and place, and fly with his words, but not often enough.

I had the impression that he was using the family and the setting as a carving that he sculpted with his words and the reader was supposed to determine the plot from the application of the characters to the narrative. Almost like a figure pressed into wax and then removed; it still leaves an impression and shape in the wax and from that it can be determined what had been pressed into it. So the reader was supposed to use the impression the characters left in the story to determine what the plot was. But for me the willy-nilly wandering and aimlessness of the characters kept me from being able to see a big picture.

I found the ending to be a letdown. If I have read that many pages and spent that much time with them, then I expect a decent payoff. The mystery was not really unravelled, and the family just changed venue. I am sure if I had read some of the older works that had developed fairy and told the myths and earlier stories, I might have enjoyed this more, but I don't have a deep fairy reference, and so I didn't really enjoy it.

There are some things I liked: The old trout in his pool; the pictures that the first Auberon took of the naked children in the wood: the dark and silver images they would have made on the old fashioned film (art deco or art nouvea). The Stork at the end being home to two beings, Old Aunt Cloud, and Doc who could talk to small creatures.

[Nimea]

I am still reading - am on page 120-something (and I am reading the German translation which has 700 pages with small print).

Funny thing is: I already feel about the book a lot like FicusFan described.

This is going to take a while to finish, really. No wonder I started it almost two weeks ago just to read two other books in between.

[Nimea]

Mmh, still no one else finished with it? Or is there nothing to say about it?

I am not much further in - and really I am wondering if I better quit reading it. I usually don't do that. I always want to finish a book I started.
But . . .

Help. Anyone. Is there anything that would make it worth it to overcome my reluctance?

[Erfael]

Well, I rather enjoyed it. I just haven't had sufficient time yet to come and elaborate on that, so I have been holding off on posting thus far. Heopfully I'll get a big enough chunk of time here in the next day or two to talk about it some.

[lemming]

about halfway through when somehow the tone and mood of it took over for me. When I figured out that the plot wasn't the main character, so to speak, and when I also figured out that the ONLY way to have an enjoyable read of the book was to block out 2-3 consecutive hours for reading... I started to really like it. What was frustrating me was reading little 15-minute snippets in which nothing seemed to happen. This book just demands to be read in bigger bites.

The ending, by the time I got there, was exactly as I suspected--and in some ways was a nice reflection on life. I think I only was okay with it because Little, Big's not terribly long, however--when Infinite Jest pulled the same trick on me I almost hurled it across the room in my fury. (Oh dear, did I give away the ending? It's a mercy. If you read that book, focus on the writing, only, and you'll be happier, I promise.)

I agree that the trout (August?) was one of the best parts. I have only dim memories of it, really--I read it years ago. I just felt compelled to post when I saw all the discouraged people here. There's definitely a chance of being drawn into it! Keep reading.

[ezchaos]

I read this book back in January so it's semi-fresh in my mind. I can agree with much of what has been said here already. Little, Big was probably the most difficult thing in the fantasy genre that I've ever read. At this point, I'm not sure if I really liked it or really hated it. However, I guess the parts I enjoyed did outweigh the parts that I disliked and annoyed.
As FicusFan said, the whole underlying family secret thing was annoying at times. The idea that most of the members of this family knew about this secret, but you as the reader were never clued in till the end (and even then?) go to be a little much.
Actually, the part of the book I enjoyed the most were the ones that took place in the 'City', which I take it was supposed to be New York.
I think I need to re-read this book to fully understand it. Since this isn't a standard sword & socercery type fantasy, I'm trying to get my wife to read it to see what she thinks.

[Jack]

I'm really surprised by some of the reactions to this book. Forgive the meandering tone of what is to follow, I just finished the book last night and just want to drum up some discussion.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book - its generally plotlessness, lack of any clear macro-conflict, its off-handish and hard to pin down tone. All of these are qualities I look for in a spec fic read. I can honestly say, however, that I have never read anything quite like it.

I say lack of any clear macro conflict. What kept me reading was the ever-changing micro-conflicts, starting with Smoky and his journey to Edgewood to marry Daily Alice. The three Lilacs, how exactly is it that Smoky is most definitely the real Lilac's father? Does it really matter that his seed was not the one with conceived the child? Do the phenomenon surrounding the Edgewood house take any stock in such physical concerns?

And then there is the matter of who is the book's "hero". From all appearances at the beginning, it seems that Smoky is the hero, the fulfillment of the still mysterious promise, everyone thanking him at the wedding and such. Then at one point Smoky kind of fades into the background, and almost an entirely new tale (some pun intended) begins with the story of Auberon, and suddenly I was convinced that Auberon would end up as the true hero of the story. But by the end, when Smoky gets the orrery running, and is coaxed into leaving the house by Sophie and Lilac, there is that line described his angina, that space that opens up within him that is usually filled by pain before receding, but this time is filled with all the people of Edgewood, which makes me realize his entire life, for some unknown reason that neither the characters in the novel nor us as readers can or should even seek to understand, was meant for this moment, to take all of these characters inside of him. This theme is heavily reminscent of the avant-garde/existential theme of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, a play whereby here were these characters, set in their ways to tell a certain story for no given reason, in search of an author to be true to them. Crowley does not seem to be the author to guide his characters, to make sure that their actions have some great meaning. This idea is illustrated in the scene when Mrs. Underhill has setup the banquet, and is telling the now "asleep" Barbarossa the whole "why is the sky blue" bit when he asks why it is he has to do what he does. Like the people of Edgewood, and like Fred Savage said, only the brave win the fair, and only the truly brave can live in the moment, to have, as Aunt Cloud says, patience and hope.

I never felt like Crowley was teasing me while I was reading the book, as I was pretty much overcome with wonder at the confident way he displayed his images, his fantastical was not written in a fantastical, "ooh, ah, look at this!" kind of way, but a "here it is, take it" kind of way. I think this book might draw so many negative reactions because our minds like to be able to take something and break it down into easily recognizable parts. Even a book as bizarre as Perdido Street Station can be broken down to "heroes kill da monsta'". Little, Big does not allow us this. That is why I think this book receives such polarized critique.

But if I had to attempt to pigeon-hole what Crowley was all about, I can only say it reminds me of the whole existential modern drama movement, a movement which attempted to understand the meaning of stories, but having said this, I don't Crowley is attempting to understand anything. So neither will I, I suppose.

Anyway, again, I apologize for the sentence fragments and poorly structured paragraphs above, I just kind've let what I was thinking spill out. I would promise to write a more structured review later, but I don't know if I will ever be able to.

[Billy Rhomboid]

I am repeating some of my comments in the 'what are you reading in 06' post here, (forgive me I'm new here.)

I first read Little, Big when I was a kid on the basis that I liked the title ( I was little and liked pretending I was big - hmmm, never said I was bright)
I have to say at that age it was pretty heavy going, but we were raised on dour Russian authors with our sa;ted porrage so it wasn't too bad, and it pretty much blew me away. much more so than (heresy approaching) LoTR/Hobbit/Narnia etc and the other fantasy I was exposed to at that time. With the exception perhaps of Alan Garner's Weirdstone of Brisingamen, which had simlar resonance.


I picked up a copy again a couple of years ago and blitzed through it again, out of nostalgia more than anything.

And i have to say I disagree massively with some of the views expressed here:
foremost concerning Crowley's style. IMHO though his style is beautiful - there are some really evocative passages, but he never descends into sentimental slush or sloppy thought.
No, easy-reading it ain't. But there's nothing wrong with that. It's good to have to try sometimes. Reading something word by word rather than a sentence at a time should not be a pejorative. Most writers write that way after all. If I were to compare Crowley, it would be to someone like Faulkner. Fantasy it may be, but it is very much literary fantasy, and very fine literary fantasy at that.
That said, I'm not in a great hurry to read it again. A little literary fantasy goes a long way

[Amaunette]

I am about 150 pages into "Little, Big." I picked it up because someone recommended it on the "top ten fantasy books" recommendations page, and because the Amazon.com summary intrigued me. I must say it's not at all what I expected. And I'm not done with it, not by a long shot, but I have the fortune of being sick in bed for most of the day, and I find I like it the longer I get the chance to read it.

In any case, it has just ocurred to me that this book shares a lot of things in common with "A Hundred Years of Solitude," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So perhaps "Little, Big" is actually magical realism? I can't quite describe why they seem so similar to me. Perhaps its the dreamlike state in which sometimes tragic things happen to the characters but the story moves on (as the characters are only part of the Tale, not beings-in-themselves). Also the rather large amount of sex/incest/adultery reminded me somewhat of "Solitude," though I can't pinpoint a specific occasion since it's been awhile since I've read it.

I tried to find a definition of magical realism to test my theory, but the only concise one I found is:

"A chiefly literary style or genre originating in Latin America that combines fantastic or dreamlike elements with realism."

Certainly this book combines fantastic elements with real ones, and dreamstates are very important to the plot.

Can anyone who has read both of these books please comment on their similarity?

[werewolfv2]

its a decent read but by no means (in my view) worthy of all the praise sucked up.

allot of what FicusFan goes for me also.

[AJ_]

This is one of my favorite fantasy books. I've lost track of how many times I've read it over the years. John Crowley's writing is just beautiful. Each time I read it I find something new to think about.