Subject: (urth) Crowley, then ...

From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <katbarx at hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 16:38:35 +0000

Okay. So, after years of seeing people on this list rave about John Crowley, 
I've read
_Little, Big_ over the last few weeks.

And I just.

Don't.

Get it.

I don't mean the story: I was able to follow that well enough, and more or 
less
glom onto what it's about, but ... what's the _point_?

Can someone tell me what I've missed here?

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From: Josh Geller <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 17:15:52 +0000

On Sun, 2003-07-27 at 09:38, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:

> less glom onto what it's about, but ... what's the _point_?

> Can someone tell me what I've missed here?

Which part don't you get?

J.

___

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <katbarx at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 00:56:21 +0000

Josh G quoted me and wrote ...

>Which part don't you get?

Well, it isn't so much a matter of parts. I think I got most of the parts. 
It's
the whole that is escaping me. Or, rather, as I asked: What's the point?

Perhaps my expectations were unreasonably high; I've been hearing the
praises of this writer and this book for many years from people I respect
highly, quite a few of them on this here particular list. And, often, in
context (like a recent post of yours about the proposed Wolfe symposium
-- more about that below) that leads me to expect material of Lupine
density and depth of meaning.

I guess that's what I just didn't see in _Little, Big_. I have nothing _bad_
to say about it: on the level of the sentence, it's as well written as a lot
of work by, say, Wolfe, Le Guin, and Delany -- which I regard as extremely
high prase. Above that level, I thought it an interesting story -- or, I 
suppose,
Tale -- that Somehow never _quite_ caught on fire for me; never reached the
"Oh my God, I have to read one more chapter before I go to bed" level of
engagement. Now, I can reach that level of engagement in a number of ways;
the writers above generally achieve that. So does JK Rowling. _Perdido 
Street
Station_ hit it about halfway through. Spinrad, for all his faults, manages 
to
grab me from the beginning in most of his books (the others never do at 
all).

Somehow, Crowley never did. And I feel certain that the fault lies not in 
his
stars but in me; that I simply missed the level of the book at which the 
real
engagement was available. But, having missed it, I simply can't tell you 
what
it was that I missed.

Which probably doesn't help at all.

So ... I guess the question is, what is it about _Little, Big_ that earns it 
such
high praise among you highly intelligent folks? I feel like I just flunked 
my IQ
test.

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From: Josh Geller <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 01:33:20 +0000

> It's the whole that is escaping me. Or, rather, as I asked: What's the point?

Hmm.

I find 'Little, Big' to be deeply moving. I don't guess I can answer.

Maybe it's like jazz. Louis Armstrong was asked to explain jazz. He
said 'If you have to ask, you'll never know'.

I'd hate to think that is the case. 

'Little, Big' and two other Crowley books 'The Deep' and 'Engine Summer'
are right up there in my favorite books along with TBotNS and Dhalgren
and Bernal Diaz. The last time I compiled a top ten list, Crowley was
the only writer who made it twice.

But there's no accounting for tastes. Maybe you are just not meant to
get it. I sure hope not.

J.

___

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From: Alice K. Turner <aturner6 at nyc.rr.com>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 22:51:11 +0000

Blattid,

It is partly a sort of mood thing. a state of mind that people who read
Victorian children's literature, or loved the fairy paintings of the period,
when they were young can slip into easily, picking up on the many allusions
that come along and the light literary parodies. It is partly a kind of 60s
thing, especially among New Yorkers. I suppose, but catching a rural
nostalgia as well. Some of us get caught by the romance aspects, the love
affair between Sylvie and Auberon and how it comes out in the end with equal
sadness and Shakespearian gaiety. Some of us, back when at least, may have
been struck by the kinkier aspects of the Tale, of which there are a fair
number. And some just like the writing, which can be hypnotic.

But he certainly is not for everyone. Our Nutria feels even more negatively
than you do. And when I tried the book when it first came out, decades ago,
I'm not sure I got through it.Our mantis persuaded me to try again--and I
found that my feelings had changed a lot, and that I was seduced by the
book. And then he and I started writing about Crowley and asking other
people to do so, and the rest is history. Of a sort.

It would be interesting if you told us what you did not like. I can tell you
that I did not like the Russell Eigenblick subplot, though I admit that he
managed to fit it into the conclusion better than I expected.

-alga

> Okay. So, after years of seeing people on this list rave about John
Crowley.
> --Blattid

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 07:39:20 +0000

> the whole that is escaping me. Or, rather, as I asked: What's the 
point?

I wonder if it is a book that, like LOTR, has been imitated so often 
that it now may seem quaint and derivative to those soaked in the 
literary tradition it started?   There have been few direct ripoffs, 
but the themes - and LITTLE,BIG is a book of moods, themes, and images -
have been imitated often.   In my opinion the whole "Urban fairyland" 
motif, elves in New York, started with LITTLE, BIG. 

hartshorn

-- 

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From: Tom Foster <t.foster2 at ntlworld.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 07:55:46 +0000

Strange; that's almost exactly how I felt when I read it a few months ago. I
had read so many good things about Crowley that I thought I really should
read some of his work. I enjoyed _Little, Big_ a lot, but it certainly
didn't grip me, nor did it fill me with the sort of wonder and awe that I
feel every time I (re-)read one of Wolfe's novels.  I recently bought
_Otherwise_, a book containing Crowley's first three novels. _The Deep_ I
absolutely loved, _Beasts_ seemed disjointed although it had some very good
ideas, and _Engine Summer_ (another book that seems to get a whole lot of
praise in these parts) produced more or less the same reaction as _Little,
Big_

I would love to read _Aegypt_ as I understand it has a strong alchemy theme
to it (a subject that fascinates me), but I can't find it anywhere for
anything resembling a reasonable price (ditto _Love & Sleep_). It would seem
a shame to read _Daemonomania_ before the preceding titles, but it's the
only one of the three that can be bought easily.

Tom

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> Crowley, I've read
> I don't mean the story: I was able to follow that well enough, and
> more or less

--

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From: Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 13:57:19 +0000

"Alice K. Turner" supposed:

> It is partly a sort of mood thing. a state of mind
> that people who read Victorian children's
> literature, or loved the fairy paintings of the
> period, when they were young can slip into easily,
> picking up on the many allusions that come along
> and the light literary parodies. It is partly a kind
> of 60s thing, especially among New Yorkers.

I'd have to agree with most of this and add that LB is
the kind of book that I could only enjoy now after
having read a lot of other stuff that's become more of
a literary memory than something fresh. I personally
enjoyed it because of the strains of Renaissance
philosophy (ie., Bruno and neoplatonism) that ran
through it.

I read in an interview that Crowley began LB as a kind
of a "concept book," intending to just write a book
about a family with their own private religion. And
the fairy stuff began as just a way to make that
private religion more accessible to readers. But then
the fairy motifs took over. In the same interview (I
think), Crowley admitted that it was a book which
didn't have the same universal scope as he tried to
get in his Aegypt series - it was something that was
more of a playing out of a minor personal obsession.

The real reason I so love that book, though, is that
as a kid I was always hunting for fairy hills and
circle dances...which I always felt were just around
the corner. And if the end of that book is any
indication, I may have been right...

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From: Josh Geller <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 15:28:22 +0000

> philosophy (ie., Bruno and neoplatonism) that ran

Well, yes.

If Wolfe is the Catholic writer, Crowley is the Brunian/Gnostic/Hermetic
whatever-you-want-to-call-it Religion Mundi (that's the term!) writer 
(to draw a false exemplar).

> about a family with their own private religion.

All religion is private religion. If you are a member of a particular
sect, all that means is that you get together with other people whose
religion incorporates some of the same stuff as yours.

You know, there are really a lot of people, when you add them
all together, to whom fairies actually are part of their religion.

>                                               And
> private religion more accessible to readers. 

Hmm.

I have an electronic copy of that enlightening book 'The Secret
Commonwealth Of Elves, Fauns And Fairies', by the Rev. Robert
Kirk. It dates from the seventeenth century. If anyone wants to
learn more about this intensely interesting subject, I will be
happy to email them a copy upon request.

I will have to think about that comment of Crowley's some more.

>                                             But then

I thought that was 'The Deep', which I actually prefer slightly
to 'Engine Summer' and 'Little, Big'. But all three of them
rank very high in my esteem. Or perhaps it was my minor personal
obsession that Crowley was writing about in 'The Deep'. How he 
might have managed that I have no idea, as he and I have never
met.
 
> the corner. 

They are not?

.

--

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From: Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 15:13:25 +0000

Not to get too far off of Crowley, but...

Josh Geller <brunians at brunians.org> pontificated:

> All religion is private religion. If you are a
> member of a particular sect, all that means is that
> you get together with other people whose religion 
> incorporates some of the same stuff as yours.

I'm not sure it's quite so categorical as that. By
"private" I would assume that Crowley meant highly
idiosyncratic and a kind of belief that really wasn't
open to someone's "choosing" -- just as Smoky can
never really "choose" to believe (although the people
who settled in the area a few generations before Smoky
could be said to have "converted"). But I don't think
it makes sense to call all religion "private,"
especially since institutionalized religion enters the
"public sphere" in a way that my own quirky beliefs
don't. Maybe it's more a matter of degree, but to call
all religion "private" blurs an important distinction
between a public, "official" and even political use of
religion that, for example, private Theosophists might
not quite be capable of experiencing.

Besides, Severian's New Sun was going to redeem an
entire world, not just himself.

> You know, there are really a lot of people, when you
> add them all together, to whom fairies actually are
> part of their religion.

I certainly hope so, but who are you thinking of in particular?

--

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From: Adam Stephanides <adamsteph at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 14:54:32 +0000

-------Original Message-------
From: Josh Geller <brunians at brunians.org>
Sent: 07/27/03 07:33 PM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: Re: (urth) Crowley, then ...

>I find 'Little, Big' to be deeply moving. I don't guess I can answer.

I would go along with this.  I too find Little, Big deeply moving; but if you don't, I don't think that there's any "key" which will make you like it better.

>But there's no accounting for tastes. Maybe you are just not meant to

Tastes do differ.  There are a number of highly regarded writers (LeGuin and Delany, to name only two, in the SF field) whom I don't "get" and probably never will.

--Adam

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From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <katbarx at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 16:11:49 +0000

Alga,

Thanks -- this is probably the single most helpful response of the many this 
(as always)
generous group has provided. As it happens, I'm _not_ up on Victorian 
faery-lore; my
attitude towards such has always run in the general direction of Tolkien's, 
who generally
loathed it: though I don't go as far as he does in thinking Shakespeare made 
a travesty
of Faerie. The books of "fairy" stories (as opposed to fairy-stories) I was 
given as a child
either annoyed or terrified me. I preferred the latter, and still do. My 
taste wrt Faerie is
for the pre-Victorian, even pre-Elizabethan, style, a twilit and parlous 
place, the Faerie
of "Tam Lin" and "Thomas the Rhymer."

>managed to fit it into the conclusion better than I expected.

Well, to tell the truth, there was nothing I did not like, or at least 
nothing I
disliked. It was just that I was disappointed; after all the commendations 
of
Crowley in general and _Little, Big_ in particular by -- well, especially by 
yourself
and Mantis, both of whose tastes I have come to respect very highly -- I was
expecting something blindingly revelatory, rather like the first time I read 
_tBotNS_,
_The Silmarillion_, _The Moon is Down_, or _Carrion Comfort_. Instead I got
something ... pleasant but uncompelling.

The obvious point of comparison to Wolfe, I suppose, is that the writing is
quite dense in places -- _Little, Big_ took me quite a while to get through,
which was only compounded by its failing to grab me by the throat and make
me read it.

Shrug.

Certainly not enough to put me off Crowley, but enough to decide me not
to tackle the copy of _Aegypt_ that's been sitting on the shelves for I 
don't
know how long. (Who was it that wanted a copy? We can talk.) _Especially_
if it's heavily dependent upon alchemy, a subject to which my general 
reaction
has been "Life's just too short for this."

I think I'll try the collection, though. _Novelty_ I think.

--

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From: Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 16:15:10 +0000

Speaking of old Faerie epics, I keep reading
references to the Huon of Bordeaux cycle. Does anyone
know of a good edition/translation of these stories?

--

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From: Terry Lago <tlago at chass.utoronto.ca>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 16:31:07 +0000

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:katbarx at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 12:12 PM
To: urth at urth.net
Subject: Re: (urth) Crowley, then ...

Alga,

(as always)

a travesty

yourself

_tBotNS_,

Shrug.

It's been awhile since I read _Little, Big_ and I was relatively unimpressed
by it myself. (Though I do plan on re-reading it one of these days and see
how it fares.) I think in many ways you had (more or less) the 'right'
reaction to it though...at least in as much as it seems to me that Crowley
was more trying to do a novelistic equivalent to a tone-poem. I think he was
more trying to convey a mood, along with certain artistic ideas in the
'story' or a family and their tangled supernatural dealings.

As to _Aegypt_: I just finished reading it a few weeks back and I thoroughly
enjoyed it. I'm now wishing I could track down a copy of _Love and Sleep_ so
I can keep on going. It is once again a fairly plot-lite book, centring on
the lives of a few characters and their inter-relations (with the main
character being a disillusioned professor of history who finds that some of
the make-believe stories of his childhood may in fact have a firmer basis in
reality than he had at first thought.) Basically it follows the main
character, Pierce Moffet, as he searches out the secret history of the
world. In does indeed have a lot to do with Renaissance alchemy and has a
subplot centring around the mystic philosopher Doctor John Dee and his
attempts to communicate with Angels as well as the Giordano Bruno and his
own discoveries which seem to mirror the ones being made centuries later my
Moffet.

All in all a good story I thought.

T.

--

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From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 16:51:03 +0000

I have no idea what you think a reasonable price might be. If you want a 
physical edition of the book, then you might try Bookfinder. I looked up 
Crowley on Bookfinder recently and they had copies of both the books you 
want starting at about $30. Of course, those books may be sold by now and 
this doesn't include tax or shipping.

<http://www.bookfinder.com>

I don't consider eBay a good place to find books, but if you check it 
periodically, you can occasionally get a great bargain.

<http://ebay.com>

If you are willing to read the books on a computer screen and you have a 
Microsoft Windows PC (not Macintosh or Linux) or a Pocket PC (not a Palm), 
then you can order electronic editions for $8 each. (Actually AEgypt seems 
to be available in a Palm compatible edition as well.)

<http://www.electricstory.com/authors/john_crowley.asp>

IHTIIOSSUTY*.

William Ansley

*I hope this information is of some slight use to you.
(I just felt like coining my own 'net acronym.)

--

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 01:33:21 +0000

discussion of LB a few years back.
         Since alga brought me up, I'll confess to starting the whole thing.
         I loved *Engine Summer* and *Great Work of Time.* I wanted to like 
LB, but the ending horrified me. Instead of being glorified in any kind of 
way that I MYSELF would like to see, they were gradually and to me 
horrifyingly reduced to mere archetypes, flat 2-dimensional playing cards, 
stript of all human depth, fated to eternal repetition.
         When I finished the book, I ripped it in half and threw it across 
the room. Yes, I found it very effective.
         But what was Crowley doing? Was my response his intention? I 
thought at the time that it was.
         For me, it was an anti-gospel novel. And initially I took it that 
Crowley deliberately set out to do just that, to horrify the reader and 
point him/her back to the Christianity that the characters leave behind a 
generation before the novel begins. I read it as revealing the appalling 
consequences of turning back to the pagan world.
         alga and others persuaded me that there was more to LB than that, 
and that if I did not like the book, it was not Crowley's intention to 
leave the reader appalled.
         I remain unsure of what Crowley's intention was, however. Was it 
just to write an interesting novel? Or does he see something good and 
wonderful in what happens to his characters? Is he arguing that a collapse 
back into an infantile and pagan world is what we all really need, and that 
the depth of character into which human beings have grown during the last 
several millennia is something to be rejected? Or is LB basically an 
experiment?
         He says he wanted to write a novel presenting a "fairy religion." 
He has done so, and very effectively. I continue to think LB is a brilliant 
and effective novel. But for me, it is a very effective horror novel.

Nutria

--

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From: Josh Geller <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 03:11:41 +0000

On Mon, 2003-07-28 at 18:33, James Jordan wrote:

>          I loved *Engine Summer* and *Great Work of Time.* 

Did you like 'The Deep'?

>                                                       I wanted to like 

I do not agree that this is an accurate description of what
happens to the characters. 

> thought at the time that it was.

Are you seriously stating that this book horrified you because its
ending did not agree with your religious ideas? I find that hard to
believe coming from one of your demonstrated perspicacity. Also, 
although I understand that you are a practicing Calvinist religious
(and thus deeply embedded in error from my point of view), I have been
struck before by the depth of your tolerance of foreign religious ideas,
something that I have not always met with among the Protestant clergy.

The religious viewpoint represented by John Crowley is not by any means
that of an orthodox Christian. I can say this with some confidence, as
the religious views he represents are tolerably close to my own. Now,
you must understand, that from my point of view, you and Dan'l are both
heretics: the Roman Catholic Church has been in error since they
condemned Bruno and burned him at the stake. They are scheduled
to come around at some point in the future, possibly before Hell freezes
over, though were I a gambling man I'd want long odds on that last 
point. You Calvinists have been in grave error since long before that, 
both from the RC point of view and from ours, and from our point of
view, your errors are far more serious than theirs. But everything is 
relative, and I have no problem flatly stating that from the point of 
view of an orthodox or even a protestant Christian I represent an 
heretical point of view. 

Now where in the North or the South was I?

Oh yes:

Why in the four Worlds would John Crowley represent a Christian
glorification? What possible motivation would he have for doing so?

> consequences of turning back to the pagan world.

I don't know what you mean by paganism, but the viewpoint represented
by Crowley is that of the religio mundi, which is not exactly at all
quite the same thing as any of the definitions that I think of for
pagan. So I must ask, here, what you mean by 'pagan', and how you 
feel JC represents this 'pagan' viewpoint. 

>                                                               What do 

Decidedly not.

> several millennia is something to be rejected? Or is LB basically an 

James, what are you talking about? What is this 'infantile and pagan
world'? What do you mean exactly?

The people who got transformed into playing cards were the Emperor's 
men. The family moved on, they went to repopulate the other World.

Except for Smoky. He died. Perhaps he got your Christian glorification.
It's hard to say, like it always is.

Aside of all this, and unrelated to anything else that we might be
talking about, were you aware that the doctrine of metempsychosis was
condemned accidentally? The council (I forget which it was, but it was
a fairly late council) condemned Origen's opinions as heretical, because
they did not like his Platonic doctrine that the glorified body is
spherical. Metempsychosis was not really an issue, but once Origen was
condemned, all of his opinions became suspect, although as everyone
knows he still had a tremendous influence on early Christian thought.

It happened at about this same time, that the doctrine of once-for-all
death and resurrection became very popular because of the whole of its
usefulness in social control. 

> and effective novel. But for me, it is a very effective horror novel.

What's horrible about it?

You spend a greater or lesser amount of time under Hill, you have a
life, you go back under Hill for a while, you have a life. It's
just the doctrine of metempsychosis, sometimes (inaccurately) called
the doctrine of reincarnation.

The beautiful thing that JC did is that he made it so that the other 
World was dying, the Gentry were dying out, and they needed some new 
people to come in, so the whole thing could go on. And the family went 
to the other World, and now it goes on. Perhaps this kind of thing needs
to happen every so often. It's not horrible. It's very beautiful.

.

--

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From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at forlesen.modck.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 04:19:36 +0000

Well, for what it's worth, Dan'l and James seem to me to have pretty
unusual reactions to LB.  My experience with the novel is that when I
introduce it to someone, they either say:

(1) Eh, well written but I was just bored our of my skull by page 100.
What's the fuss?

or

(2) WOW!  Fantastic!  Where can I get more?

It's one of my very favorite novels, and while I can see James' point
(I certainly didn't finish it wishing it were true, or thinking 'what
a lovely religion, if true'), it seems "beside the point" of the novel
to me.  Whatever that point is.  I'm pretty sure it's not the 60's New
York aspect, or the hippy aspect, or Victorian children's literature
(all I've read except Lewis Carroll was post-first-LB-read), or
wanting to find fairies...  And I'm not sure it's just a taste for the
writing, since some of those who've disliked it have fine taste in
prose.  I think Alice is right, in the end, pointing to a _mood_.  If
you are caught up in that mood, you'll love it.  If you aren't, which
seems pretty independent of religious or even "aesthethic" opinion,
you won't care for it much.

--
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

--

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From: Andy Robertson <andywrobertson at clara.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 05:55:42 +0000

> stript of all human depth, fated to eternal repetition.

This is, to me, an astonishing reaction, yet on reflection I can understand
it.   One of the notworthy things about LITTLE,BIG is that ultimately it
does not conceal or soften the traditional cruelty of Fairyland.

    hartshorn

--

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 16:08:22 +0000

Josh,

>Did you like 'The Deep'?

         Yes, I did.

         Then, thou hast responded to severall things I wrote. Let me say 
that I was giving my PERSONAL reaction to LB. And my initial one. alga and 
others set me straight about some things.
         Sure, I'm an evangelical Christian. So, I would not "like" a novel 
that ended in a homosexual marriage. At the same time, I might wonder what 
the author intended me to feel. Did he/she want me to be happy at the 
homosexual marriage, or were there clews in the novel that indicated I was 
not supposed to be happy about it.
         I really was not sure about LB, and that's what initiated the long 
discussion that can be read in the archives, and what I was getting at in 
my post. I sure don't want to open up another discussion of LB. I think it 
was pretty thoroughly gone over a few years ago.

>happens to the characters.

         Maybe not. It's how it seemed to me, and still does to a large 
extent. But that's fine. You're probably right and I'm probably wrong!

>ending did not agree with your religious ideas?

         No, in fact the reverse. I suspected, wrongly, that Crowley was 
writing a cautionary tale, showing the gradual corruption and lessening 
(shrinkage) of human beings who turn "back" from "Western civilization" 
into an occult world.

>I find that hard to

         Thanks. I'm tolerant in some ways, not in others. But I did not 
dislike LB because of intolerance, but because it horrified me personally. 
It was a personal reaction.
         Jewish people don't like the great comedy "The Merchant of 
Venice," because they don't accept Paul's statement in Romans chapter 11 
that was taken (at the time) as a prediction that the conversion of the 
Jews would usher in the Millennium. Shakespeare wants his audience to be 
happy about the conversion of Shylock's daughter, and the "spoiling of 
Egypt" of Shylock's goods. Jewish people, however, are not going to view 
the play as a religious comedy, but as a tragedy.
         So, for me, LB was a tragedy, not a comedy. My initial question 
way back when was what Crowley intended.

>the religious views he represents are tolerably close to my own.

         Yes, that became clear to me in the discussion we had here. I'm 30 
years away from reading through all of Francis Yates, and the materials 
from her circle, so I was a bit slow to pick up on Crowley's perspective. 
And I had not read AEgypt at the time I read LB.

>feel JC represents this 'pagan' viewpoint.

         By "pagan" I meant a world in which people are strictly governed 
by archetypes and cycles. I should think hermeticism (religion mundi) to be 
a kind of sophisticated paganism. I did not mean an "insult" by calling it 
pagan.

>world'? What do you mean exactly?

         It seemed to me that the family were "reduced" to a kind of 
timeless and cyclical existence, like children. Timeless cycles are what 
Eliade has analyzed in contrast to Judeo-Christianity's eschatological 
linear time. That's the kind of thing I had in mind.

>men. The family moved on, they went to repopulate the other World.

         It looked like "both" to me, that these were two complementary 
portrayals of what became of the family. As I say, that's how it looked to 
me when I read LB. On reflection, I think you are right.

>It's hard to say, like it always is.

         alga argued that Smokey's death is essential to opening the door 
to the move of the rest of the family into fairyland, so that Smokey is a 
kind of hermetic version of Christ. Makes sense to me.

>to happen every so often. It's not horrible. It's very beautiful.

         Okay. Just think of me as a Jew watching *The Merchant of Venice*!
         Josh, I have no axe to grind here. I initially wondered what 
Crowley intended in LB. I shared that to show how the discussion began a 
few years back.
         I hope this clarifies things.

Nutria

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From: Josh Geller <brunians at brunians.org>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 16:47:03 +0000

On Tue, 2003-07-29 at 09:08, James Jordan wrote:
> Josh wrote:

>          Yes, I did.

It's about my favorite J Crowley, mostly.

> others set me straight about some things.

Very good. 

> was pretty thoroughly gone over a few years ago.

I will check out the archives. 

Meanwhile, I would like to respect your desire not to open another
discussion about 'Little, Big', and so I will not respond to your
points below. Perhaps after I have read the archives I will have
something to ask you or someone else, but not now.

Thank you for being so gracious.

J.

___

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 16:53:18 +0000

>Thank you for being so gracious.

Josh,
         alga and mantis are two resident experts, and there are others. If 
all of you folks want another round on Crowley, that's fine with me. I just 
don't have much to contribute.

Jim

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