Book Review: Little Big
Saturday, 3 December 2005 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daLast week I finished reading Little Big by John Crowley, recommended to me by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lovecraftienne and numerous people who commnted in her post about the book. I will return the favour by recommending it here, especially if you are looking for a well written fantasy novel. Even if you're not especially, go read the first few pages on the Amazon site, it might just draw you in.
In style and substance, parts of it evoked Garbriel Garcia Marquez for me, particularly 100 Years of Solitude (which also happens to be about a house and the generations of family who live in it). Another shared theme is exploring boundries- between sleep and awakening, between the past and present, between 'real' and 'imaginary', even between city and country. As for plot, Little, Big has the advantage over 100 Years, which (I felt) was more about being lyrical than providing a cohesive story. Little, Big is lyrical and the story strands tie together well over the span of 550 pages. There were few strands I wish Crowley had spent more (or less) time on. I would have loved to spend more time in the first generation in Edgewood, perhaps as additional layered revelations toward the end, instead of exploring the Emperor plot as much. But that's a minor quibble.
I read the bulk of this novel at my parents' house, which itself is a sprawling house by a woods in the middle of nowhere, and it was occasionally spooky how Crowley's descriptions felt like there, but multiplied to grander extremes. Among the superficial details, I've got a brother who dabbled with tarot, my father married into a different class of family, they moved from the City to go back to the land. Of course my parents land lacks fairies or clockwork zodiacs in the attic. Probably for the best, because I don't feel particularly like having a Destiny or feeling like there are layers upon layers of secrets around the house. Though, the book handled those aspects particularly well- I felt like I could've been the young Auberon, a spy in his own house who eventually "goes native"; and is there any young person on the verge of leaving home who doesn't feel like they had a destiny for bigger things?
It may be the best fantasy novel I've read, and that's including Tolkein. I certainly didn't finish Tolkein and immediately want to start again at the beginning.
Yeah, so thankslovecraftienne. :)
lovecraftienne and numerous people who commnted in her post about the book. I will return the favour by recommending it here, especially if you are looking for a well written fantasy novel. Even if you're not especially, go read the first few pages on the Amazon site, it might just draw you in. In style and substance, parts of it evoked Garbriel Garcia Marquez for me, particularly 100 Years of Solitude (which also happens to be about a house and the generations of family who live in it). Another shared theme is exploring boundries- between sleep and awakening, between the past and present, between 'real' and 'imaginary', even between city and country. As for plot, Little, Big has the advantage over 100 Years, which (I felt) was more about being lyrical than providing a cohesive story. Little, Big is lyrical and the story strands tie together well over the span of 550 pages. There were few strands I wish Crowley had spent more (or less) time on. I would have loved to spend more time in the first generation in Edgewood, perhaps as additional layered revelations toward the end, instead of exploring the Emperor plot as much. But that's a minor quibble.
I read the bulk of this novel at my parents' house, which itself is a sprawling house by a woods in the middle of nowhere, and it was occasionally spooky how Crowley's descriptions felt like there, but multiplied to grander extremes. Among the superficial details, I've got a brother who dabbled with tarot, my father married into a different class of family, they moved from the City to go back to the land. Of course my parents land lacks fairies or clockwork zodiacs in the attic. Probably for the best, because I don't feel particularly like having a Destiny or feeling like there are layers upon layers of secrets around the house. Though, the book handled those aspects particularly well- I felt like I could've been the young Auberon, a spy in his own house who eventually "goes native"; and is there any young person on the verge of leaving home who doesn't feel like they had a destiny for bigger things?
It may be the best fantasy novel I've read, and that's including Tolkein. I certainly didn't finish Tolkein and immediately want to start again at the beginning.
Yeah, so thanks
lovecraftienne. :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: Sunday, 4 December 2005 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 4 December 2005 08:20 pm (UTC)"I like to go out dancing / My baby loves a bunch of authors /
We've been livin in hovels / Spendin' all our money on / brand new novels"
Only, they mis-spelled bell hooks' name.
OK, I'll stop. :)