Book Review: a writer's opinion

 

Little, Big by John Crowley

 

I’m not sure now why I first downloaded this novel onto my Kindle. I'd never heard of it before I downloaded it, so I’m guessing it was a recommendation on my Kindle based on other fantasy novels I’d read. Anyway, for whatever reason, I bought it, and promptly forgot all about it - until a few weeks ago,  when I came across it by chance while flicking through the library on my Kindle, and decided to read a bit, reluctantly, as I was pretty sure I’d hate it.

              I was wrong. 

              This book wrapped itself around my brain and I wasn’t able to put it down once I’d begun to read. It isn’t always easy to grasp the length of novels when you’re reading on Kindle but I soon realized this is a hefty novel, but that only made me happier because I knew the pleasure of reading it would last longer.

              Crowley published the book in 1981 and it won the World Fantasy Award in 1982. As I’d never heard of it or its author, I knew nothing of this background as I read. In fact, I assumed it was a recently-published novel. I think this helped as I was without expectations about it. I was drawn in by the weirdly convoluted writing style at the beginning but had no real intention of reading much of it, so I was surprised to find myself enjoying the peculiar narrative. As I read on, I found myself increasingly drawn in until I was hurtling through the text like an addict.

              So, why?  It is very difficult to describe Crowley’s style. He frequently uses very long, complex sentences, with odd syntax, sentences which bend and twist and fold back on themselves. He loves unusual words (desuetude, congeries, machicolations, etc). There are some passages which go too far, where the purple prose starts wearing thin, but generally I found his style utterly captivating. He broke every writing ‘rule’ I’d been taught on my MA in Creative Writing. I have since read reviews on Goodreads and Amazon which have suggested that some readers find his style utterly tedious and virtually unreadable, but others, like me, find it compelling, magical and entirely appropriate to the tale he is telling. He is the ultimate ‘marmite’ writer.

              I think his writing is enchanting, and I use that word very deliberately. It enchanted me, which is absolutely fitting for a book about enchantments, about the confluence of humanity and faerie, the collision and interconnection between different worlds. It is partly a book about a dystopian future, partly a story of conflict, partly a tale of secrets that pass down through generations. The reader is mostly placed in the position of Smoky Barnable, the story’s first protagonist, who never quite believes in the existence of the faerie realm and never quite gets to see it. We are outsiders, hovering on the edges of the multi-generational ‘Tale’ the Drinkwater family appear to be living. The city itself, an unnamed New York, is described in a way that makes it mystifying, depressing, gorgeous and terrible, all dark alleys and thoughtless crowds and sinister political groups who manipulate the world. Edgewood, the mysterious house out in the country where the Drinkwater clan live, is even weirder, though not always as frightening, and often idyllic, though there is always a darker element lurking in the background. It's name suggests its positioning on the edge of the wood, in that border country between the forest (the location of so many fairytales) and the mundane reality of the human world. In my locale, there used to be an institution called 'Middlewood' for those with psychiatric problems, and people would give dark warnings about it like 'She'll end up in Middlewood' - it was one of those talismanic words always uttered very slightly under the breath. Edgewood reminded me of this.

Little, Big is a story about humans and faeries, but it is not in any way a nursery tale. This is a book for grown-ups, drawing on Lewis Carroll, Shakespeare, Arthurian legend, the tales of Thornton Burgess, and the Cottingley Fairies, among many other allusions. It is a fascinating family drama echoed by the soap opera that the second protagonist, Auberon, ends up writing for TV. The story has many interwoven layers of plot, moving back and forth through time, revealing secrets in arcane glimpses. It reminded me very much of Gabriel Garcia Marques’s A Hundred Years Of Solitude, though I enjoyed it much more.  The magic realism is there, for sure, but there is also real magic twisted through the fabric of these ethereal pages.

 

RATING: Little, Big *****

Key:
*****      highly recommended - a 'must-read'
****         good - well worth taking the time to read
***           ok - will help to pass the time in a boring situation
**            not very good -  just about readable but flawed
*             not recommended - boring, offensive, badly-written or deeply flawed in some other way