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Little, Big
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Little, Big
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Little, Big
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Little, Big

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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John Crowley's masterful Little, Big is the epic story of Smoky Barnable, an anonymous young man who travels by foot from the City to a place called Edgewood—not found on any map—to marry Daily Alice Drinkawater, as was prophesied. It is the story of four generations of a singular family, living in a house that is many houses on the magical border of an otherworld. It is a story of fantastic love and heartrending loss; of impossible things and unshakable destinies; and of the great Tale that envelops us all. It is a wonder.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateMay 22, 2012
ISBN9780062124043
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Little, Big
Author

John Crowley

John Crowley was born in the appropriately liminal town of Presque Isle, Maine in 1942, his father then an officer in the US Army Air Corps. He grew up in Vermont, northeastern Kentucky and (for the longest stretch) Indiana, where he went to high school and college. He moved to New York City after college to make movie and found work in documentary films, an occupation he still pursues. He published his first novel The Deep in 1975, and his fifteenth volume of fiction, Four Freedoms, in 2009. Since 1993 he has taught creative writing at Yale University. In 1992 he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 2006 he was awarded the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He finds it more gratifying that almost all his work is still in print.

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Rating: 4.033160356476683 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Little, Big mirrors a soap opera: two American families, linking back to a third family in Britain, are followed over 2-3 generations. Locus of action is a country manse and a city tenement. Key to the myriad social relations is an underlying relationship with the Faery, elusively described but quite definitive in its broad integration with the families. Not only the reader but also family members are confused about the influence and indeed the very existence of the Faery, and this ambiguity suffuses the entirety of plot and setting.This premise, anchored both in ambiguity and (seemingly at random moments) in crystalline but fleeting scenes, provides a diorama in which Crowley builds up a richly detailed world. Turning the last page, the strongest impression is of these layers of detail. It's not that the story is empty, in fact there's a satisfying resolution to the mystery of his labyrinthine plot. And yet, events all seem secondary to the cross-references, literary allusions, and echoes which events leave scattered throughout the text.//If there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.-- attributed to Charles Fort, Lo! (1931)The plot is not driven along in the way of a crime story, nor does any sharp conflict define the action. The novel instead reveals interwoven threads, leitmotifs and recurrent images, layers and connections like frost spreading on a pane. Crowley uses two leitmotifs: Somehow (capitalised) is a recurrent marker, sometimes in narrative description but also in a character's inner dialogue, hinting at something beyond random events. Characters also repeatedly refer to the Tale (again capitalised), hinting at a destiny governing family events, linking family with Faery. They don't fully understand this Tale themselves, it is a secret from one another as much as from the reader.Throughout the story, Crowley references Shakespeare and Carroll, specifically in how the human world encounters the Faery world. It is not merely the novel's ending which evokes A Midsummer Night's Dream but the borrowing of Wood & the City and the namesake for Ariel (The Tempest). And though there are a few droll references to Alice in Wonderland, the stronger allusion is to Carroll's Sylvie & Bruno, with its dual plots in Real World and in Faery.In the novel, characters frequently access the Faery world through non-rational techniques. They are methodically described and followed, but not fully understood -- reminiscent of absurdism. The Tarot is a familiar device; a more inventive role is given to architecture. Both the country manse and its grounds are clearly linked to the Faery, though rationally designed and built, and also through the Memory Palace. (Crowley's concept that practitioners of memory arts can learn new things from the juxtaposition of memories forced through their architectural touchpoints is new to me and quite possibly an innovation of his own.)So how is it this is so? What makes possible these myriad connections and layers? Crowley relies on careful repetition and a circular story structure, then patiently juxtaposes seemingly unconnected characters and events through suggestive prose and coincidence. I think Crowley in part is being mimetic. After all, the world works this way, too. Meaning and significance come from finding connections, and they are there to be found. With his choice to foreground the Faery, and yet retain their elusive nature, Crowley appears to suggest people typically do not notice a great many of the connections surrounding them, perhaps even that some of these are more significant than others. That we should attend to these, open ourselves to their possibilities.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this book YEARS ago. It was part of a trilogy that included Engine Summer and something else that I can't remember. I do remember that Little Big was magical. A story about a family who are normal in every way except that they have fairies living with them in their house, and there is interaction between them. I should really go back and re-read it. In the mean time, however, I picked up a newer book of his called The Translator at a yard sale and I'm interested to see what it's all about. Then, while checking some Amazon recommendation, I stumbled upon his 5-book series about Aegypt. If Little Big is anything to go on it could be wonderful. I'm going to look for some reviews to see what other people thought.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Smoky Barnable falls in love with Daily Alice Drinkwater and travels to Edgewood, her family home, a home which holds within it many houses and lies close to the border to the otherworld. Poetic and meandering story about several generations of the Edgewood family, which spreads out before the reader like a cobweb, the story and the family both. It has parts that I liked, but for the most part, the story-lines and characters were too "fluffy" to be engaging to me. Pleased I made it through, but wouldn't necessarily recommend.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I rarely read fantasy, wait I never do. So I read this book anyway. Not altogether my cup of tea, yet it was not all bad either for me. A complex winding plot with many characters, some of which I struggled to piece in and remember their purpose in the plot.No doubt Crowley is an excellent wordsmith with a fantastical mind, no no criticism there. For fans of the fantasy genre this certainly would entice them. For myself I am satisfied to say I read it and gained a bit from the experience, now back to non-fiction.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Das Buch ist ja ein Kultroman der Fantasy, wahrscheinlich auch, weil es so ganz anders ist, als andere Fantasy-Romane. Es geht um eine Familie, die eng verknüpft ist mit den Feen. In mehreren Generationen wird diese Geschichte erzählt. Zu Glück gibt es einen Stammbaum, denn die Geschichte wird nicht immer chronologisch vorgetragen.Das zweite Buch fand ich am besten, vll. auch weil es am einfachsten zu verstehen war. Insgesamt aber musste ich mich ständig aufraffen weiterzulesen. Ein richtiger Genuß war es für mich nicht. Ich weiß aber wohl, dass andere das Buch lieben.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I've put off reviewing this book because I don't think I can well articulate my thoughts on it. I vacillate between rating it as mediocre and as excellent. Ultimately, for its poignant final paragraphs, for its untiring imaginativeness, for the quantity of cleverness—of which, no doubt, a great deal was lost on me—and for its evocation of the wonder and mysteries of make-believe, I have to give it close to my highest rating.

    Little, Big is a multigenerational family saga, of a family with a close but complicated relationship to Faery, though the glimpses of that magical land are only out of the corner of the eye, perhaps dreamed. Though the action spans (I guess) from some time around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries until (I guess) some time later in the 20th, there is an odd, anachronistic feel to the more modern parts, as though they were suspended in time, in some imaginary steampunk era. "The City" from which some of the characters hail and to which some of the characters migrate, though presumably New York, is unrecognizable as such, and almost unrecognizable as a modern city at all.

    The story ultimately assumes mythic proportions, but it is told simply through the everyday events and actions of members of the Drinkwater clan. Some of those descriptions are so apt and familiar that I could immediately relate with them, some so well-put that I immediately recognized experiences or emotions that I could never have put into words, so that by the time some of the more outlandish events took place, I was transported right along with the characters. For example, there are some of the most accurate descriptions I have ever read about being in love: what it actually feels like, how it is experienced and unfolds in one's day-to-day life. And I am firmly convinced that should I ever be transported to a make-believe land, I will experience it exactly in the way George experiences his trip to the Woods.

    After writing this, I think that whatever misgivings I have about this book that made me want to rate it less highly are probably not worth mentioning. Their source is, I think, the same dreamy (and distancing) quality that makes the book succeed at what it does so well. The un-pin-down-able quality that kept me Somehow confused, that kept my feelings about the characters Somehow vague, that made the narrative seem Somehow out of focus, also made the magic possible and is rather the point of the whole book.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    An urban fantasy novel about a family with a mystical connection to the world of Faerie.I found the novel to be pretty tedious and the climax was not worth the long slog to get there. In the first part of the book, very little actually happens as the author establishes the history of the family and their magical house. In the latter part of the book the plot accelerates but the characters are so boring, unlikable, and vague that I didn't really care what happens to them.A few specific gripes:- The characters all have stupid names like "Smoky Barnable" or "Ariel Hawksquill".- The book's characters constantly hype up how magically indescribable the faerie world is, but when we actually get there its pretty mundane.- The entire subplot with Russell Eigenblick was basically irrelevant to the main plot line.I thought a few ideas were intriguing, like the concept of magical architecture and the advice-giving fish, but they couldn't save the book from it's overwhelming dullness. Not recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Crowley has created a fantasy that sings with a unique realism. People seem to either love or hate this novel for some reason. I tend to prefer the people who love it..."Is your mind so big that it can encompass galaxies or is the universe little enough to fit in one's head?"
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I gave up. It isn't awful, just not very compelling. I don't hate the characters; I simply don't care enough about any of them to continue spending time with them.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A man of New York City marries into a family from the country who have a remarkable relationship to the world of fairy. That other world is always present in the story's background, sometimes more explicitly, and yet John Crowley can do the literary equivalent of making things visible in the corner of your eye that disappear as soon as you look directly at them. I relate entirely to the male family members who try to catch those glimpses by every means, surrounded by the female members who seemingly always understand more than they're letting on or else are just wiser about not questioning. The language and style of this novel are fantastic. They force a slower read if you don't want to miss any hint of what's happening, or all of the fun allusions to Thorton W. Burgess, The Wind in the Willows, the House that Jack Built, Alice in Wonderland, etc., or those glimpses of fairies that might be more than just your imagination. There's a strong resemblance here to Morgenstern's "The Night Circus" (mystery abounds, conflict is muted), Helprin's "Winter's Tale" (the city and the country, those who do and do not marvel at magic) and Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" (opening doors between worlds, while deeper workings are afoot), in almost that sequential order. And yet it predates all of them, and wins in comparison with each. This felt like discovering some ancient predecessor dinosaur that is more impressive than all the dinosaurs I know, a clear antecedent that the others only imitate. Crowley here presents more plot than Morgenstern, more logic than Helprin, more mystery than Clarke. I don't love everything about it - the pace is often slower than I preferred, conflicts too easily brushed aside - but I loved and appreciated a lot. It achieves what surely no author can purposely aim for but only succeed at by happy accident, that feeling so evasive since childhood and difficult for any adult reader to experience, the sensation that stepping through the looking glass is not so very impossible or far a journey after all.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is not an easy book to read. It sneaks up on you. Image being in a
    room and seeing something move out the corner of your eye. By the time you turn, it is too late. What ever you saw is gone. The events of the book are much like that. Things happen, words are said, and events too
    queer and strange to be common place happen when you least expect it. Read this book on a hot summers day with a thunder storm coming and
    be amazed at a world that may be not that far away.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    what a bizarre and brilliant book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Words to describe the overall impressions of this story (for me) are "whimsical", "languid" and "abstract". It is a sweeping tale that defies the usual straightforward story telling. It defies an awful lot of things actually so the first piece of advice is to approach any read of this book with an open mind. The story will tell its tale in it's own due time, with its own voice and meandering manner. The story is very fluid in format, flowing between characters, settings and generations. What makes this rather abstract story work so well for me is the wonderful voice Crowley has given his characters: an interconnected family of loose relations that appears to just float through life with a combined air of bafflement, acceptance and bemusement of the circumstances/powers/influences that move them and the world they inhabit towards a predestined conclusion. A world where rooms have names, like the "Gothic Bathroom", the "Invisible Bedroom" and where the house, Edgewood, is very much a character of this tale. While this is, in essence, a story about the relationship between the Drinkwater family and the fairie world, it is so much more than that. It is a perfect summertime read, preferably while lying in a flower strewn country meadow or a sun lite wooded glen, away from all the hustle and bustle of urban life. The story is timeless in quality and should be enjoyed in an equally timeless, uninterrupted environment. The audiobook I listened to was narrated by the author, which worked rather well as the author conveyed both the languid tone of the story as well as the fun bits: the real to life characterizations of manner and turns of phrase he had imbued in his characters. My only quibble with the audiobook was I wasn't expecting the rather disembodied female voice to chime in with the section titles. That was just a tad weird at first, but I got over the strangeness and began to use here voice as indicators when I could pause the story. As I mentioned above, this story needs to be approached with an open mind. There were times when I thought about abandoning the story - seriously, where exactly was this peculiar story going? - but I am thankful that I decided to stick it out. I can see why this story is considered to be "a neglected masterpiece" with the closest achievement on par being Lewis Carroll's Alice stories. This is a story I am happy to have experienced and will be adding it to my very, very select 'future re-read" list. This is one story I know will stand the test of time, regardless of when it is read.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    A good argument for religious literacy in America, but I'd hoped this book would spend more time filling in the gaps in our understanding on religion rather than pointing them out. It's not a bad book at all, just not the one I'd hoped it would be.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A massive, epic book that spans decades and generations of a family that lives next door to fairies and magic. Fascinating and sharply drawn, and yet obtuse enough that I am not quite sure what to glean from it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Toothsome, decadent surrealist romp of an almost East of Eden nature. Weaves in Shakespearean references and even British mythologies with a deft hand. Worth the time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh this is one of those books that are so difficult to review. All books don't suit everyone, like music, or food, and this is one that I think you must either love or hate. It's like reading a Grimm's fairy tale, as narrated by the little prince, it's the reading equivalent of Elsa Beskow's paintings or those wonderful (fake, I know, but still wonderful) Cottingley fairy photos. I think the only book that I've ever read that had the same sensibility was Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. Or perhaps some of Neil Gaiman's short pieces (I am a fan of Gaiman's novels, but it's in his short stories he reaches this sense of both gravity and whimsy at the same time. I wonder what he thinks of this book?)

    It's big and sprawling, covering decades and generations, and yet it's always intimate. The language is gorgeous. The story is at once mystical and completely easy to follow, there is foreshadowing aplenty if you care to see it, and the whole thing is simply delightful.

    To anyone who ever imagined their were fairies at the bottom of their garden, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Whenever critics describe a book as "ambitious," I'm always wary. Ambitious is sometimes just another word for "really, really long," and a good portion of the really, really long books I've read could have done the job better in fewer pages. John Crowley's Little, Big is called "the best fantasy written by an American" by one critic, but the A-word by another. Is it too long? Maybe just a bit, but the places where it dragged suffered from an unsympathetic character more than an unnecessary prolonging of the story.Little, Big tells the story of the Bramble/Drinkwater family, which has so many children and cousins and other various branches that the family tree drawing in the front of the book can barely capture a small portion of it. The main family members live in Edgewood, a country house that is many houses built into one. Faerie, both the place and the creatures, has selected this family for its "Tale," and the novel follows several generations as it moves closer to the end of this Tale, seemingly on a predestined track.Every event in the 500+ pages ties in to the Tale, but the story moves along at a sleepy pace. I enjoyed the ride until Auberon's portion of the story in the final third of the novel (not Uncle Auberon, who is encountered earlier and is far more interesting). He flees Edgewood to live in the City, falls in love, loses his loves as is preordained, and becomes a pitiful, wandering drunk for a year. I couldn't bring myself to like or care about him and went a couple of days reading only a few pages at a time because I was so bored with his part of the Tale. I wanted to go back to the characters we had spent the first 2/3 of the book with. Luckily, they become more relevant again after Auberon sobers up, and the last 150 pages went by very quickly.If you're a fantasy fan, be warned that although the fantasy elements are pervasive, they are also very subtle. "Subtle" could actually be used to describe the entire book -- there aren't very many Events or things that Happen. Reading it is like taking a lazy stroll on a perfect day where the scenery is pleasant and pretty but lacking landmarks and forks in the path. I'm glad I read it, but I can't see myself rereading it in the future.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Ok, some Crowley I love and some Crowley...not so much. Unfortunately this one, the book that most consider his masterpiece, falls into the latter category for me. As always Crowley's mastery of prose is readily apparent, but you know what? This is a pretty dull book. Granted the kind of long, ambling family history that Crowley is writing here is rarely full of slap-bang action, but the pace here is often glacial and while there are, as always, sparkling moments studded throughout the book I just kept waiting for _something to happen_! I plan to re-read this, hopefully sometime soon, to see if time has changed my opinion of _Little, Big_ since it's been quite a few years since I read it, but I have to admit that given the size of the tome, and the number of other books on my to-read list, I sometimes cringe at the thought.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I kept wishing this book were more like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell so badly that it severely disabled my ability to enjoy what I was reading or even observe it in any objective sense. An okay novel that is damaged, I think, by its "fable" tone--the characters seemed unknowable, inconsequential. And I never could get over or forgive the name "Smokey Barnable."
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Original, Trite.Epic, Weak.Boring, Lively.Rambling, Unspoken.Significant, Inconsequential.Simple, Overwrought.Compact, Frazzled.Vivid, Tasteless.Vague, Determined.Wonderful, Blah.Little, Big.A two-word summary of Little, Big is in the title: a book of opposites. My review could be summed up in those words too, but I'll expound a little.I've been looking forward to reading this novel for nearly a decade. I'd read some wonderful reviews, loved the cover, and eagerly anticipated a well-written epic family saga. I thought this would be the novel that would lighten my heart toward the Fantasy genre, a genre often plagued with plot-heavy tales of yawn. You can argue that it was my hopes for this novel, my unattainable expectations, that kept me from embracing it, but truth is that Little, Big wasn't what it promised to be. The plot was epic, but it was also fragmented into insignificant episodes. The book was original and magical, but within the constraints of what readers have come to expect. The multi-generational family tree was gorgeous and intriguing, but the characters were so paper thin my memory of them blew away with each turn of the page. And character actions and decisions—none of it made sense to me. It felt as though Crowley relied so much on the fantasical elements of the novel—look, a talking animal; over there, is that a fairy; behold, an exploding baby—that he hoped the reader would be distracted from characters and a plot that made sense.In the end, Little, Big was everything and it was nothing. Some of the best scenes were written so well that it's difficult to say this book failed, but as a whole it did fail to reach me. My favorite moment, surprisingly, was the Christmas scene. Cliché, perhaps, but Santa felt more real to me than the fairies or any of the other characters ever did. I'd love to read a book about that Santa. Only at that moment did I really feel I was beginning to understand the Drinkwater clan; their letters and traditions were fantastic; then it slipped away, and I slogged through another four-hundred pages where the littlest, most inconsequential things were made big, and everything that mattered was made little.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    My rating of this title is based on my personal experience with the book and not on the quality of the writing or the story. There is no doubt that this book is a huge accomplishment of creativity and a very intricately woven story. I personally struggled with the reading of it. I found it to be excessively wordy and a bit choppy in style and I frequently grew impatient with it. I was however, compelled to continue reading because I was so intrigued with the storyline. This is most certainly a book that should be read multiple times. I believe there is a richness to the story of which I missed a great deal of simply because I was struggling with the process of getting through it. I would definitely recommend this to people who like a very involved complex story and who have the time to read this book slowly and thoroughly the way it deserves to be read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Comparisons with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude are apt, although I think that novel was a little more together than this one. The last third of Little, Big was a bit of a challenge to get through. Too many stories going on at once and all sort of pulled together in a rather haphazard way, in my opinion. But for the most part, this was a delightful tale, and I really enjoyed entering a fanciful world for a while. Explored questions of fate and free will, which I always find satisfying to ponder.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The reader enters the world of the Drinkwater/Barnable family who live in an enchanted wood in a house of many doors. They have a tale to live and a destiny that is tied to the Faery world. The reader who falls into this romantic world of dreams and enchantments and comes to the end, may find a strong desire to begin the tale again.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Sui generis. A masterpiece. Indescribably beautiful. What more can one say?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Much like Freedom this book has had me thinking. Little, Big is neither mind-alteringly transcendent; nor, is it’s quality perplexing disproportional to its popularity. It is written very well and is very unpopular. This an equation that makes sense to me. The prose shine like Danny in the Overlook Hotel. And I love that, but this was the first book in three years of the 2nd Wednesday Book Club that I could not force myself to finish before our monthly meeting. And that meeting was a great one. Our discussion spilled out into email for days after. For some reason though this text was unsatisfying for me.Out of respect to the text and my fellow book club members, I forged on and finished the book. My original criticisms were assuaged somewhat. The sexualization of the teenage girls was more justifiable as they were more and more clearly associated with nymphs. Nymphs are sexual beings. Though male gaze is prevalent, overall the book is sex positive and I like that. We need more sex positive books. By the end many of female characters are elaborated upon and this was good, but the problem, the real problem was that the book would not end. I finished it but I had to force myself. Crowley establishes a tone and a world, a magickal tone, a magickal world, but once it is established the book goes nowhere. It is obvious though that going nowhere is part of the game, and there won’t be a conclusion. This too could be great, an ambiguous pleasure/pain ending, but if getting there is torture it is not really worth my while. The ending too is not that ambiguous. The book just slowly deflates.A co-worker told me the he judges a novel by whether or not he will bother to finish it. I said I judge a novel by whether or not it turns my blood into starlight. Little, Big is wall-to-wall starlight. And maybe for me, it was a little too close to home, like someone sleeping in your own bed. Some of my book club members touted the book’s many esoteric and occult references as linkages to Western literary left hand path, and therefore argued Little, Big deserves a place on said path. Sure, but that doesn’t mean it was an enjoyable read.I’m open to the possibility that there is a overarching structure, some formal resolution, but I missed it. As it stands now, the parts do not equate the whole, and the book fails its potential to be a profound gestalt portrait of the joys of domestic life imbued with an intentionality of spirit and the resulting love of the arts. (Magickal?) Or maybe this frakker just needs get his gnomes out of my heart.Book has the best demonic creepy doll scene ever. I wear the horns in waking life.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I've put off reviewing this book because I don't think I can well articulate my thoughts on it. I vacillate between rating it as mediocre and as excellent. Ultimately, for its poignant final paragraphs, for its untiring imaginativeness, for the quantity of cleverness—of which, no doubt, a great deal was lost on me—and for its evocation of the wonder and mysteries of make-believe, I have to give it close to my highest rating. Little, Big is a multigenerational family saga, of a family with a close but complicated relationship to Faery, though the glimpses of that magical land are only out of the corner of the eye, perhaps dreamed. Though the action spans (I guess) from some time around the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries until (I guess) some time later in the 20th, there is an odd, anachronistic feel to the more modern parts, as though they were suspended in time, in some imaginary steampunk era. "The City" from which some of the characters hail and to which some of the characters migrate, though presumably New York, is unrecognizable as such, and almost unrecognizable as a modern city at all.The story ultimately assumes mythic proportions, but it is told simply through the everyday events and actions of members of the Drinkwater clan. Some of those descriptions are so apt and familiar that I could immediately relate with them, some so well-put that I immediately recognized experiences or emotions that I could never have put into words, so that by the time some of the more outlandish events took place, I was transported right along with the characters. For example, there are some of the most accurate descriptions I have ever read about being in love: what it actually feels like, how it is experienced and unfolds in one's day-to-day life. And I am firmly convinced that should I ever be transported to a make-believe land, I will experience it exactly in the way George experiences his trip to the Woods.After writing this, I think that whatever misgivings I have about this book that made me want to rate it less highly are probably not worth mentioning. Their source is, I think, the same dreamy (and distancing) quality that makes the book succeed at what it does so well. The un-pin-down-able quality that kept me Somehow confused, that kept my feelings about the characters Somehow vague, that made the narrative seem Somehow out of focus, also made the magic possible and is rather the point of the whole book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Not an easy review to write, this. I’ve been reading Little, Big for the last month, taking it slowly, as the book really deserves a thorough read. Despite that, I still feel like I should reread the whole book – not because I didn’t understand it, but because it is just such a rich, textured story. Although nominally a fantasy novel (it won the World Fantasy award in 1980), one would be hard-pressed to find any of the usual, well-worn fantasy tropes in this book. Crowley is such a shrewd writer that he can seem to aim towards typical fantasy narratives, but then swerve away from them, leaving the reader alternately lost, bemused and, finally, delighted. I’m sure that many readers will, unfortunately, give up on the book because it can be difficult, in the sense that it refuses the broad way of genre fiction, rather taking the odd turn-offs and twisting paths that real magical writing demands.I feel a little daunted in writing this review because I read Roz Kaveney’s review in the back of the Harper Perennial edition of the book, and I feel that I cannot possibly match it. I would advise anyone interested in Crowley or Little, Big to read this review if possible. Rather than trying to emulate it, I’m only going to give a personal response to the book.So, let me just say this – it is a brilliant, beautiful thing of art, this book. Some people have accused it of tweeness, perhaps because of the element of Feyness in the book. Admittedly, there are echoes of Lewis Carroll in the book, and it does contain trace elements of magic. But don’t be fooled – Crowley’s writing can be deadly serious, and he doesn’t mince words when it comes to heartache and disillusionment. The Faeries are there in the book, but they remain a fleeting, flitting presence for the most part, and when they do play a significant role, there is always an ambiguous quality to their doings – they are neither benign nor inherently malignant. What they are, is Weird, in the good, old meaning of the word.This book is about a lot of things – family, for one, America, for another. But despite these big themes, the book remains anchored on arresting and revealing character portrayals. We have the (apparently) main character, Smoky Barnable, who comes to the house at Edgewood near the beginning of the novel, and never becomes quite settled in his new life with Daily Alice Drinkwater and her extended family, a family that is closer to the edge of some surreal otherworld than is quite normal. Or safe. The novel follows Smoky and his family’s adventures at Edgewood and in the unnamed City (modelled on New York), sometimes reaching back into the past to illuminate the present story.As someone who quite enjoys the speculative genre, I loved the book’s complex relationship to the idea of fantasy writing. But that doesn’t mean that one has to like fantasy to like this book. It is beautifully written throughout, and as Kaveney writes:The prose has a supple tough-minded energy, a luxuriance of conceit that renders the book full of lines and passages that have the air of being quotations from some famous book one has not read.There is also an inherent seriousness to Crowley’s themes that lifts the book miles above the seemingly exhausted world of postmodern fiction. Although the book plays some metatextual games, these never burden it with too much ingenuity – as Kaveney also says, ‘Crowley is not Joyce, demanding a lifetime’s study.’ Thank God for that. In the end, I felt, despite the niggling suspicion that I missed a few things along the way, that I still came away enriched and enchanted. And for that alone, I thank Mr Crowley.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I'm little disappointed with this book. Even though the title is Religious Literacy, it really just touch Christianity with brief description of other major religions. This book could be better titled Secularization of American Education. It did went into superb discussion about history of importance of Christianity in the United States public life. It also explains very well how American public education became secular (in short too many different sects couldn't agree on right doctrine to teach so religious instructions was removed all together.) I'm very skeptical of the author's proposal to re-introduce religious studies in public school. While it would be great for all educated citizen to know about Christian past of this country, In my view the challenge of creating a religious studies class without turn to proselytizing Christianity simply cannot be overcome. Even in the author's book we can already see the the bias toward Christianity, with wide coverage of different Christian sects while other religions received less coverage. In short, this is not my favorite book, I probably won't read it again; it still contains a lot of fascinating history of religious education in United States.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Everyone should know their religious history. This helps us understand the debate about separation of church and state, teaching religion in public schools, and helps us to know ourselves.