Little, Big (or, The Fairies' Parliament)
John Crowley
Audiobook
Throughout the story I was constantly reminded of my days when everything was full of wonder and excitement, when everything held so much power over my imagination, when everything made sense or didn’t and it was alright either way. A time before dreams faced reality, before political consciousness and seeing the lies that sheltered me, before being pushed or stumbling into the sheer stupidity of a society I had no part in creating and no power to change.
Even if I wasn’t able to follow everywhere the story tried to lead me, I deeply felt what it was saying. I deeply felt the simple comforts and optimism of new ventures and country living, and I deeply felt the slow change and decline, ultimate foolishness and futility, and inevitable yet sudden death of those things as well.
I find myself longing for what the early parts of the book depict, but realizing that, for me, it will probably always be out of reach. Money and power is increasingly hoarded by the greedy. Nature and privacy are daily encroached upon by rabid and mindless expansion. Technology is constantly made worse and simultaneously more required. Society is crumbling. And I’m growing ever more old and scared and feeble. Coziness is a privilege more scarcely held every day.
I’m not sure what all feelings and ideas and motivations this story wanted to convey, but I felt a lifetime in it, joy and pain and all.
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After writing up this review, I looked at what others had to say, to see if maybe I missed out big time on something. I saw opinions about characters, which I wholeheartedly disagreed with. I saw confusion that frustrated some, but to me felt like was the entire point. I saw all sorts of words to describe the book, but nothing really felt like it said what the book was "about". So, ultimately, I think this is a book that reflects a lot about the reader, and has a lot of power to conjure things within you if you're receptive to it. What an interesting story...