"No, I understand now," Auberon said, calm in the woods - it was so simple, really. "I didn't for a long time, but I do now. You just can't hold people, you can't own them. I mean it's only natural, a natural process really. Meet. Love. Part. Life goes on. There was never any reason to expect her to stay always the same - I mean 'in love,' you know." There were those doubt quotes of Smoky's, heavily indicated. "I don't hold a grudge. I can't."
"You do," Grandfather Trout said. "And you don't understand."
Little, Big is not the type of book I normally read.
I rarely reread books.
I almost never buy books.
Two Thousand Four, the year I originally read Little, Big was a tough year. Despite doing unimportant work that was being done only to placate unimportant managers, I was almost fired for taking scheduled time off. My scheduled time off was for deer hunting - and I couldn't buy a vision of a deer that year despite spending more cumulative hours in the woods than I had in many seasons.
I had seen some references to Little, Big and so I got it from inter-library loan to read during the last few wretched days of the year.
I haven't read very much this year, but I've reread several books. One book that kept calling was Little, Big by John Crowley. Because my local library system doesn't have this book, I bought it used from Amazon. Used books from Amazon are amazing; I think the near-new book cost a couple dollars with a similar amount for shipping. If I was going to reread it, I knew I needed to keep this book on hand, since inter-library loans take too much time when it involves books that are outside of my norm. It sat on a shelf for much of the year until some time off this past week (coincidentally also due to deer hunting - although more successfully than 2004).
I know the 2004 and 2016 books are the same script, but the 12 years difference illustrates how time and place affect what is actually contained in the words. Things now are both bigger and smaller than they were in 2004.
Concepts from the book that I took away as critically important in 2004 were present but played a diminished role in the Tale overall. The entire story flowed so much more completely than it did during the first embodiment. And while, like much fantasy fiction, there are extended passages of descriptions and alliteration, it adds to the story in a way that sawdust filler does not in much fiction. I recall parts of the book as a hard slog on first read. This past week, I put off other important stuff only so that I could finish the book.
"Grow up? No. Well. In a sense. You see it's inevitable, or refuse to. You greet it or don't - take it in trade, maybe, for all you're going to lose anyway. Or you can refuse, and have what you've got to lose snatched from you, and never take payment - never see a trade is possible.”
There are synopses of the book elsewhere, so no need to recreate one here, but the Tale follows a family through many generations. Love. Loss. Marriage. Death. Infidelity. Birth. Hints of incest. Wealth. Poverty. Power. Astrology. Fish.
My biggest dislike with the book? Why does so much fiction have to be set in fucking New York??? Other places really do exist - even a few states that start with the letter I. The book does end both in and not in New York.
Looking through the list of books I've read over the last decade-plus (yes, I keep a list), there are quite a few which might be considered fantasy fiction - which surprised me. I didn't think I read fantasy fiction... But Little, Big remains the only one I've read twice as an adult.
The end of the Tale is much more coherent than I recall from my first reading - so much so that I sometimes can't help but wonder if the book hasn't greatly changed, grown older or moved to a new place, in the last 12 years.
I'm not sure if I'll ever read Little, Big a third time. But if it does call again, I'll keep a copy waiting. I'm sure it will be both bigger and smaller.
The cold compassion of bartenders, he came to see, was like that of priests: universal rather than personal, with charity for all and malice toward almost none. Firmly situated … between sacrament and communicant, they commanded rather than earned love, trust, dependence.
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