Little Big (edit title)

3 of 3 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 5 stars

“Infundibular means like a funnel; a character in John Crowley's terrific novel Little, Big (that comma is extremely important!) uses the word to define a metaphysical situation of smaller worlds within larger, where, paradoxically, "the further in you go, the bigger it gets." This idea could easily be used to describe this strange and wonderful story, which traces the life of the Drinkwater family through four generations in their odd, many sided house in upstate New York. The story is tricky to summarize without giving away any hint of the surprises within, but this much is safe to say - it involves an extremely unremarkable man from the city marrying into a family whose members may or may not be part of a long and secret tale plotted and directed by fairies. Crowley litters hints and clues about what is actually happening here and there throughout the book, and the wonderfully odd ending, although not quite what the characters and the reader have been led to expect, has been carefully prepared and constructed the whole time. In the cards, as one character would have it. The strength of the book is that it constantly downplays and pushes to the corners the fantastical elements, and focuses on the life of the family it follows, which Crowley captures in clear and moving detail -

"What Smoky liked about his girls' growing up was that, though they moved away from him, they did so (it seemed to him) less from any distaste or boredom than simply to accomodate a growth in their own lives; when they were kids, their lives and concerns could all fit within the compass of his life, which was then replete; and then as they grew up and out, they no longer fit, they needed room, their concerns multiplied, lovers and then children had to be fitted in, he could no longer contain them unless he expanded too, and so he did, and so his own life got larger as theirs did, and he felt them to be no further from him then ever, and he liked that."”

RyanG wrote this review Sunday, July 20 2008. ( reply | permalink )