Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Little, Big is a neglected masterpeice..!, 8 Dec 1998
By A Customer
Little Big is a long and charming book of the kind now rarely written, gently paced, sensuously descriptive and beatifully narrated and plotted. In density it compares to Lord of the Rings or Gormenghast, which may be the reason for it's relative lack of success. It is not a conventional fantasty, eschewing the cod-Tolkienesque props of much more conventional and imitative work. It is a much more ambitious novel; more in the style of a family saga than an epic quest or coming of age. It proves that there is a vitality in fantasy and it may be re-invented from generation to generation. If you like fantasty - good fantasy, like LeGuin, Peake, Cordwainer Smith, or Geoff Ryman, then this is a book you should not pass up. The closing chapters have some of the most moving passages I have read, comparing to Gawain's death in Le Morte D'Arthur or Fuchia's suicide in Gormenghast. Yet this is not a sad book, too much joy and love are in it for it to be that. Read it. The things that make us happy make us wise :-)
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book i ever read (over the top but true), 4 Sep 2002
By A Customer
I first picked up this book in the mid eighties, and selected it purely on a value for money basis ie. Big fat paperback, dirt cheap. Well, i read it and found it a truly immersive experience. I enjoyed the development of the characters especially Smokey, the novel settings and concepts like Old Law Farm or the many houses within Edgewood. And the circular references kept me flipping back and forth to remind myself where i had spotted characters or names before(ie Church of All Streets which is mentioned in passing in the first chapter, then becomes a major plot feature in the last section of the story).
But most of all is the fine quality of the writing which at times can make you catch you're breath at the originality and pure vividness of a phrase or a metaphor.
I realise that this may sound OTT, i even thought that that i could be mistaken at one point, however i re-read it every couple of years and it still has the power to stun me. And i spot details that i have missed every time. This is a dense and time consuming read which requires some commitment, but i feel it is one of the most well realised and complete novels i have ever read.
happy to see it in print again because my two copies have been thumbed to destruction.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An extraordinary and unique novel, 26 Nov 2000
By A Customer
I first read 'Little, Big' in the dark days of the early '80s, and it was a shining light. Wise, sad, funny, poetic, this is the most truthful 'fantasy' I've read, getting right to the core of human nature, our dreams and follies, and our attempts to find meaning in a world we don't understand. As in all Crowley's books, the world is much stranger than we expect. This present version of the world is ending, and the novel traces one family's involvement with this process in an almost unbearably moving way. Their destiny links them to the fairy realm - a world within ours, yet much larger - manipulated by 'them' in typically amoral and callous ways, yet retaining free will, loving and sorrowing and bringing up kids like anyone else, but with magic oddly intersecting with their lives. Crowley writes such beautiful prose. His writing reaches in and grabs your soul. He is never sentimental, because always truthful. He knows his magic, and lightly slips it over us like a net. And he writes so powerfully about love and longing. 'Little, Big' has at its heart a gripping and devastating love story. I've read this book many times, and never get tired of it. It's rich and full of wonders. 'The further in you go, the bigger it gets'. One of those books that will change your life.
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