Little, Big (Contains Spoilers)

[Greg Stanton]

POTENTIAL SPOILERS -- please don't read this post if you have not read the book, and intend to do so in the future.

I've read this book twice (it is one of my favorites). There is a part at the end which I have never understood, and maybe someone here can help explain it.

After George Mouse confesses to Auberon that Sylvie may be his (George's) daughter, he, Auberon and Fred take off into the woods. George is unable to follow them, and he has a hallucinatory experience involving a watch and a pipe. Anyway, at the end of this experience, he seems to end up back home, at the Old Law Farm.

I read this to mean that because of his involvement with a woman that he suspected could be his own daughter, he was rejected and sent back home.

HOWEVER, he later greets Daily Alice at the river, and he's also present at the banquet.

Any ideas?

 

[Lee]

Hi Greg,

This one of my favorite novels also. I've read it several times, but not in the last several years, so my memory of it may be faulty.

As I remember it, the way I read it was that, first of all, the natural laws of cause and effect, and the linear perception of time, were breaking down as the major shift which is the climax of the book approaches.

Secondly, it makes artistic sense to me that George is present at the feast yet at the same time he's back home at Old Law Farm. It seems fitting, somehow. Perhaps the idea is that the feast, or George's perception of it, is somehow contained within Old Law Farm (or George's perception of Old Law Farm). Or perhaps, since George is a somewhat flawed character, while he has in one sense made it to the feast, in another sense he is trapped in his own head, so to speak, i.e. Old Law Farm.

Thirdly, we must remember that George is a druggie who has probably blown a few brain cells along the way, and so may have lost the ability to go linearly from point A to point B.

Reading over this post, I see that I'm being even more than usually inarticulate. Perhaps that's unavoidable when writing about Little, Big.

 

[Greg Stanton]

Your idea that George is perceiving his new world in the terms of his old one makes the most sense to me.

I have always envisioned the banquet taking place on the lawn of Edgewood -- I mean its "sister" house in Faerie -- though the text never explicitly states this. Maybe, too, George's farm is really its corresponding place in Faerie.

 

[Lee]

I agree, and I think this also makes sense because one of Crowley's stated aims was to pay homage to classic fantasy literature, and such a concept would seem to echo C.S. Lewis in the final Narnia book, where Heaven is shown to be a "bigger and better" version of our own world.

By the way, in case anyone's wondering, tarot plays a major part in this book, so I believe this thread does indeed belong in this forum.

 

[Debra]

A new edition announced for this coming fall, illustrated by the talented printmaker Peter Milton: http://www.littlebig25.com/

eta: Apparently to come in several special editions, some by advance subscription: http://www.littlebig25.com/Editions.html

 

[gregory]

This thread does indeed.....

But could use a "warning: spoilers" in the title, mod please add ?

And the end never worried me; I just assumed it was a time shift; after I got used to those, nothing seemed not to make sense, as you might say..... so by the end my brain was fried, timewise !

It's still in print by the way - someone asked me recently where I got it - well, cheap from bookdepository !!!

ETA from debra's link

The 25th Anniversary Edition is actually three editions, one for every collector’s budget.

EVERY collector's budget ????? the CHEAP one is $95 preordered, $120 after publication.

Thank goodness for trade paperbacks !