Little, Big by John Crowley Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Little, Big
Book Review: Just Amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of my most favorite books. The tale of Smokey Barnacle and the Drinkwater family is one of the best trips into fantasy I have ever made. Crowley is a most unusual writer and I find something new everytime I read this book. The Drinkwater family in the big house at Edgewater is very accepting of the strange things that have happened over the years. Smokey fits in easily and marries Daily Alice. They have a family and a life that is a pure joy to read. There is a subplot that is less interesting than the daily life at Edgewater. There are remarkable charactors, like Alice's cousin George Mouse, and her sister, Sophie. This book made a Crowley fan of me, and this is his best work.Book Review: Little Big is a big hit!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I really thoroughly enjoyed this book. I was totally lost in the whole story. The fairies, the talking fish, the many-sided house....I am not a big fantasy book fan, but when I read this book I was fascinated. Just the thought of all that was happening and all the pictures in my head....I was lost in Crowley's world from page 1. My dad gave me this book to read and I loved it so much that he ended up giving it to me. I will treasure this book always and forever.
I recommend this book to all fantasy fans. This is a must read book. May you read it and get lost as I did!
Book Review: Little, Big
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my favorite novel of the 20th Century, after Proust's; and though I'm no authority I'm inclined to call it the best, as well. Many others love it to blazes: Harold Bloom, James Merrill, Michael Dirda, Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, Matt Groening, Michael Chabon etc. As you can see by the other reviews here, Little, Big is a book you either completely fail to get or superglue to your hand and heart.
Giving further information is silly. If you're one of those who have been waiting for it you won't want anything ruined. And I can't think of a less describable book. It's nothing like any possible summary of it: The subject matter and manner of approach are both so strange, yet astonishingly inclusive of the familiar. You'll have to read it to see what I mean.
It begins particularly slowly, so please don't put it down until you've reached the end of the first part (about a hundred pages in). By then you'll know.
If you do like it, or don't but want to give Crowley another chance, check out his Aegypt series (unfindable in stores but available in most libraries) or the early novel Engine Summer in his collection called Otherwise.
Book Review: Magic and Memory
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Book Review: Not Free SF Reader
Summary: 2 Stars
I started this, but absolutely not my thing. The writing would seem to be ok, but at several hundred pages of what was going on here, no thanks. This particular Fantasy Masterworks edition had the incredibly annoying and twee indentations of different scenes time after time. That destroys any reading flow, at all.