Little, Big

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. ( )

This is one of those books that, when I finished it, I made a Noise. (This is something that happens from time to time when I read something that blows a few fuses in my brain.) The Secret History produced a loud, full-throated f-bomb, Idoru was this sort of contented sigh/hum...Little, Big was this weird sort of exhalation noise I make sometimes to simulate an explosion. (There is only one explosion in Little, Big and it is not at the end of the novel.)

John Crowley grabs onto the sort of idea that makes Neil Gaiman money - young love, magic, old-timey houses - and runs with it like you would not believe. This is the first time that I've ever read a novel that had me wanting to highlight passages for the beauty of the language (I have this thing about highlighting books).

Do the five stars above mean that this book is perfect? No (I think that there are some sections of this where Crowley's tendency to embroider and add detail screws with your enjoyment of the novel), but this is a book that really got a rise out of me, if you will, and I figure that that kind of thing should always get five stars.

(I think I mention myself a lot in this review which is kind of weird but in my defense I just finished reading the densest book I've read in a while.) ( )

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. ( )

Fantastic. I think I may need to read it again though. Which I don't see as a problem at all. ( )

This will be an easy review for a glorious book of Fae, story, and four generations of an interesting family.

To say it's lyrical misses the point of the theme, that the deeper you look, the bigger it gets. It's true for this novel as it is true for any one of us. A surface glance might get you caught in a fae's trap, such as a kingfisher for a gas station, but when you get caught in the web of love, children, changelings, careers, more love, story, story, and more story, whole vistas open up before us.

And then there are the doors to the fae. We may be kings of a kingdom on the tips of our fingers or be lost in our imaginations... larger than worlds and worlds, never to wake again. Or we can forever hunt for the door to that imagination made real or we could be lost in fever dreams and lose the very idea of love and family.

Either way, we are all megalomaniacs and the meekest of the meek. The magic is real and the most difficult doors can't be crossed and other doors are larger than whole forests and we'll never see them.

And then, of course, there's the fun plot surrounding a deck of special Tarot cards, sleeping emperors, the takeover of America, and talking animals. :)

Honestly, it's hard not to see the deliberate passing of this particular torch to some of my favorite authors. Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell comes to mind. Both are extremely rich and deep and expertly crafted tales of the fae. And let's not forget Valente's Fairyland series which deliberately picks up the flavor and even some of the naming conventions and outright themes from this book!

None are lessened by this comparison. Indeed, they all compliment each other. I'm in love.

I admit to avoiding this book. It was on my radar for 30 years, and yet I just thought it wasn't for me.

How wrong I was! It was absolutely gorgeous! ( )