Little, Big by John Crowley Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Little, Big
Book Review: Dream-Like State
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is fascinating in a dreamlike, fantasy way. What it lacks in actual plot it makes up for in originality. However it's so long that about halfway through one starts wishing for a little more action.Book Review: Enchanting, Yet Droning
Summary: 3 Stars
This book has more potential than it realizes, leaving the reader a shell of what could have been potentially outstanding. There exists a dreamy enchantment which fills the pages, likening it to Alice in Wonderland isn't totally erroneous. Yet the book never ties itself together, something required in a dreamy book in order to bring it home. I don't think a book needs to bring anything home, per se. But when you walk down a road where reality and light fantasy fuse together, it begs to be resolved into some sort of discernable entity.
The book never does that, an eventuality foreshadowed by a decided lack of cohesiveness as the story draws to an end. More to the point, the book devolved from an interesting read to a chore, going from hazy walk through an intriguing literary landscape to droning plow through untamed literary wilderness. Again, I don't mind so much when this is the case. But in the end, I felt these loose ends missed the boat for me.
This is a story about Smoky Barnable, a man who marries into a strange yet interesting family that exists in the aforementioned reality haze. Through it all, he never fully buys into it, never adopts this dream as his own. Despite the coming together of "the story" for them, Smoky never truly experiences it, even though he is an integral part of the story. I'm being vague here, because the book is vague. The haze, the coming together, the dream - these are things which lend themselves to the highly subjective perspective of the reader. This isn't so much a straight fiction book and it isn't so much a fantasy book. It's in between, melding parts of both with neither taking the lead, without blending them into a cohesive story. The best way to put it is to assert the book is passive.
Some of this work is probably lost on me, to be honest. I'm sure people who loved this book will agree with that. Yet, if you read the reviews, many people admit the book doesn't have much of a plot. For that matter, there isn't much character development, if any. One reviewer who loved it said the book is about as indescribable as a book can be. Someone classified the book as new age rubbish, which I think is a bit harsh. Still, claims that this book belong in the same breath as 100 Years of Solitude and Ada are delusional.
A lot of writers seem to like this book, perhaps because book's words are so easy to read. Some authors, no matter what the subject matter, have a way with words. Crowley has a way with words, and his words often come out as magical and ethereal. Thus, from that perspective I have to concur that it's a good read. Perhaps this might be an author's author, as the expression goes, who can be appreciated more by those who have to face the onslaught of media scrutiny, where words themselves paint a rich enough tapestry to endear one to the pages. But for me, that's not enough. The story needs to go somewhere, plot needs movement, characters need development. None of that happens in this book.
It appears there is a large crowd which likes the dreamy sequence books, a reading subculture that likes fantasy but wants to do away with the dragon and the sorcerer and so on. It's an understandable desire as a reader, since fantasy now has gone in a direction which is so pigeon-holed that many readers cringe at the word. I don't know if these fantasy-dream books are for me. This book suggests not. But I can see the appeal, and at times I found this to be wavering on being really good. In the end, it was too long and never brought home what I was expecting, which might suggest the problem in the first place, that I had expectations. As another reviewer said, the intriguing hints never evolve into anything but murky illusions. I still enjoyed it, but I was happy when it was over.
Book Review: Haunting , magical ....like music for the soul....
Summary: 5 Stars
It's hard to put into words how gorgeous the writing is in this masterpiece. It was like discovering a captivating portrait in an old attic. The prose is breathtaking, and I re-read many lines, just for the beauty of them.
Please don't miss a book this beautiful and poetic, it would be a shame to not have the experience of reading it for the first time! I envy those who are just picking it up for the 1st time.
Book Review: Hmmmm.
Summary: 2 Stars
I heard great things about this, especially from writers that I trust, such as Ted Sturgeon and Ursula LeGuin. My IQ must not be as high as the others on this site, witness the poor star rating. To my mind, this book was very well written but serving no point, like a great big beautiful car with no engine. The story moves rather inventively back and forth through time, for some purpose other than literary showmanship, I imagine. Sorry to be so vague on the inhabitants of Edgewood and Smoky Barnable and Daily Alice and Grandfather Trout and all the other characters that should be memorable but aren't, but this novel is one vague miasma itself. Not that I am impartial to fantasy; another fantasy novel I read earlier this year, Mikhail Bulgakov's Master & Margarita, was far superior to Little, Big in terms of style, plot and theme.Book Review: Huge & Gorgeous (& a bit too long)
Summary: 4 Stars
The anonymous young Smoky Barnable leaves the City to marry into a very strange family occupying the very strange manor at Edgewood, where a war, or a merging of worlds, or something like it, may or may not be happening.Little, Big is a huge, gorgeous piece of work populated with some of the most endearing characters and touching episodes I've read in a long while. Each of Crowley's characters is affected - sometimes quietly, but always deeply - by the mysterious Something happening at Edgewood. There is a definite force at work, but whether it's good, evil, or indifferent is all part of the mystery. Crowley does have a tendency to be verbose; with a bit of snipping the book could have been 100 pages more to the point. Though the ending wasn't as illuminating as I would have liked, the tale itself was highly satisfying, with many smaller beginnings and endings along the way, and enough triumph and sorrow for all four generations of Edgewood.
I didn't think of it until just now, but Little, Big is similar to Mervyn Peak's Titus Groan. Think of Edgewood as a contemporary Gormenghast driven by otherworldly forces rather than ancient tradition.