Little, Big in The Alternative Worlds

Jun 14, 2007 mark monday rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: super-private-journal, alpha-team, legendarium, secret-histories

sometimes, when dreaming, i am aware of a complex and mysterious history to the at times strange but often mundane narrative of the dream itsef. i'll be running away from something, against some dark background, a house or castle or a school, who knows... although the drama of running is clear, there's often a feeling that so many things have already happened before i started running, things of which i'm only dimly aware, a whole story has happened or is happening in which i'm only getting bits sometimes, when dreaming, i am aware of a complex and mysterious history to the at times strange but often mundane narrative of the dream itsef. i'll be running away from something, against some dark background, a house or castle or a school, who knows... although the drama of running is clear, there's often a feeling that so many things have already happened before i started running, things of which i'm only dimly aware, a whole story has happened or is happening in which i'm only getting bits & pieces or what feels like the end. i guess it's what makes some dreams so hard to explain - simple or inexplicable events occurring that have an emotional depth and meaning that is near impossible to describe in passionless terms.

other times, passing by my work's drop-in center, i'll exchange words with a visitor, a person usually dealing with life changes or the possibility of life ending (that's the nature of my workplace). they'll say some simple pleasantry or even give a brief phrase to show how they're doing... and there's a whole world in what they say, an entire journey expressed, nearly intangible emotions conveyed. but of the details of that history, the why and how of it, and the place they seek or the place they fear to go... inexpressible.

that's what reading Little, Big was like for me. so many little moments in a family's life, in the lives of people connected to that family, in the city in where the family lives. and all these moments live in a world with a background and a future that is vast, mystical, dreamlike, one that cannot be expressed with any kind of logical or linear description. sometimes the moments are so personal and delicate... other times they are whimsical and brimming with magic, or strange and full of some kind of barely understandable threat... sad moments, and tragic ones, and moments filled with delight... and in the end, they become grand and they sweep the characters and the reader towards what almost feels like an understanding of the purpose and destination of it all. almost!

the novel is about an enchanted family, their loves & lives & history. it is also about the end of an age, the beginning of another, witches & changelings & fairies & enchantments, loneliness & forgetfulness & sorrow, love, the past and the future, and new york city. there are no real villains, there are no traditional heroes. the writing has a dense but fragile beauty. there are layers upon layers. there are mythical beings that come alive and realistic characters that become as myths. i sighed in amazement, many times, at the wonder of it all; it is like a dream made half-real. it is a unique book. ...more

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Jul 11, 2008 Terry rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

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 ju ...more

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Aug 16, 2008 Sandi rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, 2008

There is no way one could ever adequately describe “Little, Big” by John Crowley. It is an epic of minute proportions. Its 500+ pages skip back and forth through several generations and between the “real” world and the fairy world. The reason I put the word “real” in quotes is because the real world of “Little, Big” bears no more resemblance to our world. While this novel has a lot of characters, they are more like sketches than sculptures. You never get a sense of any solidness to them. They fl There is no way one could ever adequately describe “Little, Big” by John Crowley. It is an epic of minute proportions. Its 500+ pages skip back and forth through several generations and between the “real” world and the fairy world. The reason I put the word “real” in quotes is because the real world of “Little, Big” bears no more resemblance to our world. While this novel has a lot of characters, they are more like sketches than sculptures. You never get a sense of any solidness to them. They float through their lives, controlled by powers they don’t understand. The entire book has a dream-like quality to it, and dreams are indeed an important part of the story. There is a passage in Book 6, Chapter I that pretty much sums up the whole book. It’s part of young Auberon’s mental process as he’s working on scripts for a popular soap opera.

“Why hadn’t anyone before caught the secret of it? A simple plot was required, a single enterprise which concerned all the characters deeply, and which had a grand sweet simple single resolution: a resolution, however, that would never be reached. Always approached, keeping hopes high, making disappointments bitter, shaping lives and loves by its inexorable slow progress toward the present: but never, never reached.”

“Little, Big” isn’t exactly the kind of book you can read in one sitting or a few. It needs to be nibbled at, not devoured. Fortunately, the format is very conducive to reading small bits at a time. I have to confess that I found myself sneaking peeks at what was happening ahead. Since the book meanders back and forth through time, reading ahead really made no difference whatsoever. It actually helped quite a lot to read the ending about halfway through the book because the events made much more sense in context of the ending. Because this book meanders and because it really doesn’t have much of a plot, I don’t even know if you could consider knowing the ending as really spoiling it. (Don’t worry, I won’t give away the ending.)

The one thing that really struck me about “Little, Big” is that I really had no concept of where I was in time while reading this book. It seemed like both the city and the country were frozen in time and the only way to determine the “when” was by observing which characters were around and/or picking up on subtle clues, like a Model T or a Buick station wagon with wood trim.
...more

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Feb 03, 2011 Simon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, fantasy-masterworks

This is one of those books that is hard to talk about. Maybe best to describe by analogy.

So imagine a tangled ball of wool with which you are following a strand as it winds its way in around the other strands, in and out of the tangle until eventually you find the other end of the thread, somewhere not too far from where you started.

The narrative flows a bit like that. It nips back and forwards in time, hops from one character to another, spanning several generations of a sprawling family as we ...more

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Sep 19, 2012 Nicky rated it it was ok

Shelves: fantasy

I’ve had Little, Big on my reading list for sooo long, and it definitely sounded like something I could love — a house bordering on the otherworld, rich writing, a whole tangle of family and connections to the otherworld that isn’t understood by all characters, and indeed is revealed slowly to the reader as well… For a while, I was captivated, definitely. Crowley’s writing is lovely, made me almost smell the rooms of the house, the dew-damp ground outside, etc, etc.

In the end, it reminded me a l ...more

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Aug 15, 2007 Brooke rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2008, fantasy

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 prol 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. ...more

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Dec 20, 2010 Kevin Xu rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

one of the hardest book i had to read in my life

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Aug 08, 2011 Michelle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, historical-fantasy, book_club, award_winner, ebook, lit_fic

dreamy, and meandering, and ultimately overlong and disappointingly boring, 'little, big' is a book with plenty of potential and no drive at all. there's a subtle twist of magic through the history of a family, some of which can see fairies or spirits or supernatural elementals... but apparently, the rules of seeing them make them utterly unknowable and unexplainable, and so we the readers are left just as much in the dark as the ungifted members of this family. the language in here is frequentl ...more

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