Little, Big

My experience with this book began a very long time ago. I know I was recommended it strongly, I remember seeing the book in someone's hand, but I can't remember who recommended the book, where or why. I just know that it happened.

It's quite apt then, that 'Little, Big' is about memory. It's a book about worlds and histories that may or may not be true. It's about how the past, present and future can play tricks on us and how we interpret the world. For me, it's more than deja vu, or forgetting, it's a sense that my being recommended the book happened and didn't happen.

So what is 'Little, Big' about? I could tell you, I could provide a synopsis, of the multi-generational large family tree centred in an old strange house and how they protect (or are protected by) (or maybe neither is true) by fairies who are barely seen, but always known. I could run through the cast of characters, their relationships, their trials and troubles and loves but it would all seem a little meaningless because having finished the book I still don't know.

As I sit here and type, I am asking myself if the fairies and the mythology and history around them are like a cloud for something else, something darker. And I will leave a gap due to potential triggers

[ looking for fairies blanks out the paedophilia of an uncle, looking for fairies blanks out the pain of being a terrible partner and an alcoholic, fairies blamed for children's disability and infanticide, fairies blamed for despotic tyrants, fairies being the reason for the local rapist to wander freely before disappearing ]. All those things I mentioned are not in the book, but are inferred by the book. A sense that families can tell stories and lie and create false truths to cover up the things they would rather not face. Because fantasies are easier than truth?

Though I have suggested there is a darker reading of the novel, there is a part of me that thinks I could read this novel five times and feel differently about it every time. I realised about a third of the way through that I wish I was documenting (a rather incestuous) family tree as I read, and also how much I enjoyed working out the connections or trying to guess them before they were revealed.

There is a sense of separateness to the book - there is a feel to the book that separates the almost fantasy realm of the house of Edgewood far, far away from New York City, and I feel Crowley is prophetic in how he predicts New York turning to shit, but America too, and in 2026 it is hard not to see the despotic tyrant President, installed by shadowy figures, who doesn't realise he is a fool as anything but Donald Trump. At Edgewood, life carries on in a strange amalgamation of a pastoral life that has gone and a tension with modernity. It feels like a 'turn of a century' novel at times that by the time the next century rolls on it is far behind rather than looking to the future.

A central premise of the book is that within our world there are secret doors into another world which is contained within it, which is also bigger than our world, and within that world there are even smaller doors to even bigger worlds inside it and so on. Edgewood, the house is 'bigger on the inside, than the outside' and I feel this book is too. The first half of the book is a bit of a family history (with added looking for fairies, or little encounters with them) and it all feels a little bit twee, a little bit magical. The chapters are usually very short. I remember thinking that I loved the book and was in love with Crowley's writing early on and I could read him forever. The book is long at 580 pages, but it feels longer. The novel takes a turn and moves towards a 'present-ish' day sometime in the 70's and the plot feels more linear, more rooted, more focussed and less gentle. The book feels bigger, deeper, more to it, more of a story going on. It feels like a 'novel within a novel' almost and then as the wider story develops, this too is a 'novel within a novel'.

I feel like I have read something special. I feel like I have really enjoyed the book. I feel like I love Crowley's writing, his use of language and weaving of magical and mundane. I found I wanted to learn more, and indeed care about almost all of the characters in the book. As some teenagers become middle aged and older I found it a pleasurable delight to think about the passage of time and aging.

But there is something niggling me. The novel has a conclusion of sorts, and it's one that can be interpreted in many ways, but I am not sure I feel satisfied. The 'book within a book' that is the heart of the 'modern' story at times lags and I struggled to maintain attention, at times feeling it was a bit of a slog rather than a joy. Stylistically I think this is intentional, perhaps representing the feeling of wandering off the woodland path and finding the ground muddier, and the undergrowth denser before you are lost, for this is a novel that asks you to get lost... I also found some scenes difficult to read, particularly in relation to child sexuality and the relationships of adults to it. Crowley skirts a dangerous line at times and I don't think he veers into the distasteful but I am left with a feeling that the glamour of fairies masks something rotten.

I would wholeheartedly recommend this magical realism tale of fairies and family history in a world endlessly changing. It will be a rewarding and challenging reading experience but will frustrate at times and maybe not satisfy.