Little, Big - the Last but not the Least

After some contemplation, I have come to the conclusion that John Crowley's Little, Big is one of the most challenging books I have ever read.  Not challenging in regards to difficulty, but in that it challenged my imagination and entire thought process.  I quickly realized this book was by no means just a simply page turner, but, as the saying goes, the further in you go, the bigger it gets.  I could take nothing at face value - there was always something more, some deeper connection, some hidden foreshadowing or analogy.  It was fascinating, but also frustrating, because I know there were so many things I missed, and yet I do not think it humanly possible to pick up on everything after one reading.  For example, August senior.  I had just assumed he'd walked off the face of the earth, but then after class discussion and further analysis, I learned he had indeed become Grandfather Trout - a rather important conclusion that I did not initially realize because of the complexity with which it was interwoven.  In addition, being a rather left-brained individual, I struggle with such fantastical books.  Hand me a straight up fantasy book and I'll survive because the entire world is "make believe," but in Little, Big, the overlap between the fairy world and reality was a challenge for me to wrap my mind around.  I simply could not really grasp the whole separate spheres but overlap.  So yes, I can honestly say that this novel was one of the more challenging books I have ever read.

There is one aspect of the book that I was absolutely taken with and, despite my best efforts, could not come to a concrete conclusion about.  The Tale.  Is there actually a drawn out plan previously composed that sets the greater world in motion, or is it just what people choose to lean on, afraid of being fully responsible for their own lives?  Yes, I appreciate that there are the fairies and the tarot cards and the analogy of the Fates, but the Tale is so much more.  Here lies my issue with accepting that the Tale is strictly of the inner spheres' creation and reflects on the inhabitants of Edgewood, it is initially stated that the fairies have no interest in human activities, they only care about their own.  Therefore, it seems inconceivable to me that the fairies would care to the point of planning out the human lives.  However, in the book "The Fairies' Parliament," when Lilac is trying to convince Auberon and George to come with her to the other world, it says, "'It won't come out right,' Lilac said softly. 'The Tale,' she said, even more softly" (Crowley 464).  Coming from the fairy world, Lilac must know what is happening there, and here she lets on that the Tale is indeed their greater plan.  However, there is the option of it not turning out right, signifying that humans do still have some control over their own lives. In addition, there is a section titled "Land Called the Tale" when they arrive in the fairy world.  It is described as, "The Tale was behind them.  And it was to there they journeyed" (Crowley 532).  Under this new understanding, I believe that this meant they had escaped the impact of the Tale, because they were at it's origin, demonstrating how the fairy world is the source of the Tale.  I am still not 100% sure what to make of the Tale and how concrete it really is, but in the last book I did come to appreciate it as an impact on the inner world on the outer.

So I guess in closing I would like to just give a little thanks to John Crowley.  He wrote a truly captivating book that expanded my horizons and stretched my brain.  If you ever happen to see this blog, Mr. Crowley, thank you for your incredible work.

A Mirrored Memory

The other day, as I was casually killing a few minutes browsing about the internet, I happened across this website that reminded me of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.  Photographer Tom Hussey was hired by the pharmaceutical company Novartis to create a series of advertisements for a drug that helps patients maintain long term memory during Alzheimer's.

Included in this post are a few samples of Hussey's work for the campaign, but to see more click here.

This reminded me of Alice's adventure immediately due to the power of the looking glass.  In Alice's story, she is transported to another crazy world, while in Hussey's art the mirror provides a transport back to a time that was.  I thoroughly enjoy this, because a mirror is thought of as just reflecting the present, but both Carroll and Hussey see it as a means for taking what is, and bending it to an alternate reality.  In these cases, the looking glass serves as a reminder or what was or what could be, and yet still maintains a bent version of reality.  For example, Alice believes her kitten was the queen - a connection between the mirror world and her life - and the man in the first picture sees his coffee cup as a flask - a connection between his current life and his life in the past as a scientist.

I know this subject matter jumps a bit back to Alice and Through the Looking Glass in our first few weeks of class, but when I saw these images I could not resist posting about them.  Hopefully they can serve as a reminder to us of the beauty and fantasy of looking past the current and obvious.

Questions for John Crowley

1. The Washington Post Book World commented that Little Big is "... a love story of very great intensity..." However, I take it to be an intense story that involves more sexuality as opposed to love.  What role did you intend for love to play in this book?  Is it a love story or a story that involves sexuality?

2. Do you believe in the Tale?  If not, was it challenging to write a novel so centered around it?

3. In regards to the faeries, why is it that only some people can see them, and those that can see them are not necessarily those that most desire to see into the inner spheres?

4.  Jumping back to the beginning, why did you start of the entire book with Chesterton's quote "Men are men, but Man is a woman"?  Did you intend to make this a book that largely addresses and questions gender roles?

5. On the contents page, it says:

LITTLE, BIG

or,

The Fairies' Parliament

is that an alternate title you came up with?  Does it / how would The Fairies' Parliament fit as a more adequate title of the novel?

6. Do you genuinely believe that the further in you go, the bigger it gets?  Was there something in your world that occurred to cause you to make this realization, or did it just work with the book?  Was this the primary basis when you initially began writing the book?  How did it evolve over the writing period?

Be Happy

"The Things that Make us Happy

Make us Wise." (Crowley 22).

This quote from John Crowley's Little Big stopped me dead in my tracks while reading.  Especially in the reading for a college class - where we are supposed to be gaining wisdom, but do not associate it with happiness - I was unsure what to make of it.  

It brought up three questions:

1. What is happiness?

2. What is wisdom and how does is vary from knowledge?

3. How does happiness create wisdom?

So I guess the first step is to figure out what is happiness.  At this point it would be easy to jump to the dictionary definition, but it is too broad.  There are so many types of happiness; one can be joyful, excited, gleeful, blissful, ecstatic, pleased, and the list just goes on and on.  Therefore, I suppose the question of "What is happiness?" might just be a bit too broad.  

However, I do believe we can then ask the different question of what makes us happy?  I think it is safe to say that happiness comes with non-material goods.  Looking back on my life, I find, and I hold this to be true for humanity as a whole, that true happiness comes with interactions.  Whether these interactions are between people or with the environment or with some sort of challenge being faced, it is what pushes us and we are able to overcome and grow that makes us truly happy.  That can be a friend just being there for you and having a good laugh.  It can be reaching the top of a mountain in spite of its steep terrain.  It can be finally solving that math problem you have been staring at for days.  It is when we are challenged and growing through success that we find true, lasting happiness.  Material goods can help us on our way and be a tool to be happy, but ultimately they cannot push us and encourage us in the way that others and ourselves can.

This then leads to the question of wisdom.  I distinguish between wisdom and knowledge and wisdom in the way that wisdom has to do with understanding, whereas knowledge is recitation of fact.  As August puts it in Little, Big, "Now knowledge was there to be had, real knowledge, knowledge of how the world operates and what must be done to operate it.  Operate" (Crowley 102).  August is out to know, but he lacks the curiosity to understand what it is that way.  In my opinion, knowledge is comprised of fact, and wisdom goes deeper than the facts to discover how they work together and why it is.

So how do the things that make us happy also make us wise?  Experience.  It is the experiences that make us happy that also make us wise.  In doing the things that make us happy (as discussed above), we create a greater understanding of the workings of the world because we are experiencing them first hand.  In addition, when something makes us happy, we are naturally drawn to it and want to know more about it in hopes of maximizing our happiness, and, therefore, discover more about it and its inner-workings and begin to understand it, growing wiser.  However, sometimes our understanding boils down to the appreciation that it cannot be fully understood, and there we are wise in learning the vastness of the world and the limits of our own human minds.  

I believe it all boils down to experience.  It is what Dr. Bramble seeked in regards to the fairies, a first hand experience, and yet he could not get it.  Therefore, he knew some facts from Violet, but he failed to appreciate the whole existence because he could not see for himself.  He has knowledge, but not wisdom.  In the end, happiness is an outcome of experience, and an advocate for more experience, so the things that make us happy allow for a deeper understanding that makes us wise.