May 17, 2004

Little, Big

Just finished reading John Crowley's Little, Big (discovered via this post I think). It was superb. I didn't figure out the significance of one character's name till about the last page (no telling). About halfway through I thought that the book reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude, being the saga of a family at the meeting point of our world and the magical one. About two-thirds of the way through I riffled through the reviews at the beginning and saw that one of them made the same point.

So in an attempt at saying something original: The ending reminded me of Donald Barthelme's The King. In tone as much as content; both have something of the form of a happy ending but are intensely sad. Anyway, go read.

Posted by Matt Weiner at May 17, 2004 04:07 PM
Comments

Delighted you liked it, Matt. 'Tears brased from my eyen' (or however Barthelme puts it) when I got to the end myself. Crowley is unbelievably good. Next you need to read "Beasts" and "Engine Summer" and "The Deep", which I think you can find handily bundled in a big fat volume.

Posted by: jholbo at May 28, 2004 11:05 AM