(no subject)

[skygiants]

varadia recommended me John Crowley's Little, Big many, many months ago. (And I actually meant to read it right away! Except that library demand was so high that it took about seven or eight months for the library copy to make its way to me. Which I guess is a testament to its quality, at least!)

Anyway, the first thing to say about Little, Big is that it is a gorgeously, gorgeously written book. Seriously, the prose is some of the most beautiful I have ever read, and it's probably worth the read for that alone.

As for the plot - well, there is sort of a plot, but most of the meat of the story is about waiting. Four or five generations of a family with a very faint link to a kind of fairyland, around which there is a vague sense that some kind of important story is eventually going to happen in which the sum of their lives and choices will play some kind of important role. Some of them believe in this more than others; none of them really know specifically what, or how, or what kind of sacrifices they'll have to make, and that sense of waiting and importance basically shapes their lives. For me, this was completely fascinating for about two-thirds of the book. I was 100% absorbed in the prose and the just slightly surreal atmosphere and the mostly-ordinary characters with the hint of mythology about them.

And then we get stuck in the story of Auberon, the skeptic son who goes to the Big City, falls in love with A Girl (who is mostly defined by the fact that a.) she is Puerto Rican with a Big Slutty Dramatic Puerto Rican Family, b.) she is drop-dead gorgeous and sexy, and c.) she has a Destiny over which she has no control, which did not exactly thrill me), loses The Girl, and sinks into a morass of hideous obsessive self-pity, and at this point despite the gorgeous prose Crowley basically lost me - the whole book is dense, but for me this section was a slog instead of a gorgeous ramble.

Which is kind of a shame, because I could not quite get back into it even for the ending, and I have a feeling that if I'd still been completely in the book the way I was at the beginning the ending would have worked a lot better for me. And I wish it had, because it was really very cool! It's just, to fully appreciate it, I suspect one has to be completely involved in the world and the prose, and at that point I wasn't anymore. I will probably reread it sometime and skip the bit that lost me, just to see if I can get a better sense of the ending that way.

(Not reading it on a bus may help too.)

Comments

[gules]

yes. yes, this.

i'm a total whore for mythology and magic and epic, and little, big has all those things—plus, as you say, probably the most gorgeous prose i've ever read, nnnngh—but latina!girlfriend is SUCH A CARICATURE. *rageface*

your thought abt skipping that section is a good one, actually, because although the ending did, in fact, blow me away i think it might have packed a much greater punch without the pages and pages of "when will this enddddddddddd?"

in conclusion, IAWTP. ♥

[skygiants]

It is so sad, because, I mean, she had the potential to be insanely cool - I mean, she is basically Titania, if she were a real 3-D person how awesome would a hardcore citified Latina version of Titania be! - but instead Crowley commits the double crime of falling back on a pile of stereotypes for her and giving her no agency, and. Argh! It is good to know I am not crazy for thinking that section is just not good. And it is such a shame, because so much of that book is so gorgeous.

(Also he does not win back any points for the fact that the only other character in the whole thing who is not Pasty White European is . . . the homeless black guy who has Hidden Wisdom and Teaches Our Characters Pseudo-Magical Lessons. WAY TO AVOID STEREOTYPES, JOHN CROWLEY.)

[agentclaudia.livejournal.com]

Oo, I read this for my freshman seminar (which was... hot damn, three years ago already).

I too read most of it on a bus, or at least at the bus station.

I've forgotten most of it except that it was mostly good. I didn't remember Auberon's relationship as being any more hard to get into than the others, but this is because I am incapable of giving a shit about at least 95% of romantic relationships in fiction (this figure moves close to 100% in real life).

[skygiants]

I can definitely see it being a book you would read for a class - I'm kind of curious as to what a prof would way about it, actually! Do you happen to remember any of the stuff you discussed? (I wouldn't, if it was three years ago, but perhaps you have a better memory than I do.)

I am cool with a lot of romance in fiction, but I think I have very little patience these days for Drunken Despairing Angst and Self-Pity unless people get thoroughly called on it, and in this case Auberon never did. In fact, the book kept emphasizing how None Of It Was His Fault, He Was Done Wrong By The Universe, which just made me want to smack him more and think that Sylvie was lucky to get out of there! And it never quite blamed Sylvie for it, but the narrative was not great to her in general. All of which added up to a lot of frustration for me, and, er, rants all over LJ, apparently.

[the_croupier]

That's exactly it. Exactly.

I love the first 2/3 of Little Big. Just a wonderful book--and then that last 1/3 happens. Honestly, it's like someone slipped in a bunch of pages from some completely other book.

I've read the first two books of his Aegypt cycle, which is better. But Crowley just seems like a writer who ought to be much, much better than he is, and yet, somehow, isn't.

[skygiants]

It really is! And it's so frustrating because that section goes on for so long, when there is so much more interesting stuff we could be reading about than Poor Auberon's Drunken Angst-fest.

I am most curious about his short novels, and I think if I pick up something else by him I may try those - in the hopes that the shorter format means that he can exercise his style, which really is beautiful, without letting a hundred pages of sheer frustration slip into the middle of his book!

[the_croupier]

You know, they might be. I've always meant to read the collection of three novellas--used to be called, misleadingly, Three Novels, but now I think it's repackaged as Otherwise--anyway, I've heard they're wonderful.

And the short story collection, Novelties and Souvenirs, that's another one I've been meaning to try.

[skygiants]

The selection of novellas is I was thinking about picking up - though of course, with my current backlog, it will probably be a while before I get there. Anyway, if you get around to either of those collections before I do, definitely let me know what you think!

[the_croupier]

If that happens, I shall!

Though at the moment, I have an alarmingly large pile of manga on my readomgreadnao table.

Also Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds, which I started a few weeks ago and have been meaning to pick up again soon.