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Little Big for Little Folk
Alice Turner · 29 Apr 2000, 22:37
· from urth-v0028.mbox · original
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From: "Alice Turner" <akt at attglobal.net>
Subject: (urth) Little Big for Little Folk
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2000 22:37:40
Message-ID: <urth-v0028-0938 at digest.urth.net>
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This is the piece I wrote for NYRSF. It's not long for a piece, but it's lo=
ng for a post. Sorry, but it contains enough that seems to be relevant to t=
he questions coming up that it's easier for me to post it than to paraphras=
e it. I should tell you that some of the particulars are mistaken--astonish=
ingly, the lamppost and the Gladstone bag. I'm not going to take them out, =
though, because I subscriber to the idea that the reader (me, in this case)=
brings something to the party too. In general, however, I got a thumbs-up =
from JC himself.
---
Daily Alice=E2=80=99s Childhood:
Little, Big for Little Folk
by Alice K. Turner=20
=E2=80=9CI never had a childhood=E2=80=A6not like you had. In a way I ne=
ver was a child. I mean I was a kid, but not a child=E2=80=A6.=E2=80=9D
=E2=80=9CWell,=E2=80=9D she said, =E2=80=9Cyou can have mine then. If yo=
u want it.=E2=80=9D
=E2=80=9CThank you,=E2=80=9D he said, and he did want it, all of it, no =
second left ungarnered. =E2=80=9CThank you.=E2=80=9D
=
Little Big, Bantam, p 80=20
Toward the end of the first section of John Crowley=E2=80=99s Little Big, o=
n the day after the great picnic at which Smoky Barnable marries Daily Alic=
e Drinkwater, the newlyweds don rucksacks to go on a hiking honeymoon. By n=
oon of the next day, they have reached the edge of an old-growth forest, an=
d it has begun to rain; they plan to take shelter with Alice=E2=80=99s cous=
ins, the Woods. Alice finds what she thinks is a shortcut through the brush=
, but it is dark, and the two become separated. Smoky blunders along till =
he comes to a glade in which stands a miniature cottage, five-sided like Ed=
gewood, the grand, eccentric house where the Drinkwaters (and now Smoky, to=
o) live, =E2=80=9Cbut all colored, with a bright red tile roof and white wa=
lls encumbered with decoration. Not an inch of it hadn=E2=80=99t been curle=
d or carved or colored or blazoned in some way. It looked, odder still, bra=
nd new.=E2=80=9D He approaches and =E2=80=9C[t]he little round [green] door=
, knockered and peepholed and brasshinged was flung open as he c!
!
ame close, and a sharp small face appeared around the edge.=E2=80=9D =20
=E2=80=9CIs this the Woods=E2=80=99?=E2=80=9D Smoky asks tentatively, and h=
e is warmly welcomed by name by his host, who is wearing a striped nightcap=
and presents =E2=80=9Cthe longest, flattest, knobbiest hand Smoky had ever=
seen.=E2=80=9D
The inside of the cottage seems larger than the outside (=E2=80=9Cthe furth=
er in you go, the bigger it gets=E2=80=9D), and the room contains =E2=80=9C=
a grandfather clock with a cunning expression, a bureau on which pewter can=
dlesticks and mugs stood, a high fluffy bedstead with a patchwork quilt=E2=
=80=A6=E2=80=9D also a table with a splinted leg and =E2=80=9Ca domineering=
wardrobe.=E2=80=9D And three more people: =E2=80=9Ca pretty woman at a squ=
at stove, a baby in a wooden cradle who cooed like a mechanical toy wheneve=
r the woman gave the cradle a push, and an old, old lady, all nose and chin=
and spectacles, who rocked in a corner and knitted quickly on a long strip=
ed scarf.=E2=80=9D This last is introduced as Mrs. Underhill.
Now at this point the kind of reader who takes up Little, Big to start with=
must surely be feeling some sort of, well, perhaps not a shock but surely =
a nudge of recognition. We=E2=80=99ve been here before. We know this place,=
these people. And not just generically, either, in some cases specifically=
. That cottage, yes, certainly a fairytale cottage, but isn=E2=80=99t it p=
erhaps one of those bright, cheerfully askew cottages that John R. Neill dr=
ew so charmingly for L. Frank Baum=E2=80=99s Oz books? And surely that is B=
ilbo Baggins=E2=80=99s door! And the affable Mr. Woods, doesn=E2=80=99t he =
also go by the name of Mole? Or is he perhaps Mr. Badger, another formidabl=
e digger? Is the nightcap pinched from Lewis Carroll=E2=80=99s Red King, o=
r is it too from The Wind in the Willows? The rather Dickensian baby, hmmm,=
a better-tempered baby than the one belonging to Alice=E2=80=99s Duchess, =
and not likely to turn into a pig. But a Sheep was last seen knitting that =
scarf on the other side of the looking glass.
Mrs. Underhill, whose name also recalls J.R.R. Tolkien=E2=80=99s Bilbo, sug=
gests several powerful old ladies from Victorian children=E2=80=99s literat=
ure (I=E2=80=99m thinking specifically of the books of Charles Kingsley and=
George MacDonald), but we learn later she is Mother Goose herself, and a g=
reat deal more than that.
As for the furnishings, perhaps a sharper memory than mine will recall the =
exact table with the splinted leg or the blue-flowered plates. (I=E2=80=99d=
love them to belong to Wendy=E2=80=99s kitchen in Peter Pan, as I can=E2=
=80=99t find any other reference to Barrie.) The cunning clock=E2=80=94hick=
ory, dickory, I ought to know that, but there are almost too many grandfath=
er clocks in British children=E2=80=99s books. E. Nesbit, maybe? The bedst=
ead with the patchwork quilt=E2=80=94well, it=E2=80=99s not an exact fit, b=
ut I=E2=80=99m thinking of A.A. Milne and the counterpane on which so many =
adventures happened.=20
But the wardrobe! That=E2=80=99s almost too blatant a clue. We all know wha=
t=E2=80=99s on the other side of that. A lamp-post! It=E2=80=99s the portal=
to the magical land of Narnia.
When a mortal goes to the Other World, conventional wisdom has it that he m=
ust not eat or drink a single thing=E2=80=94remember Persephone, let alone =
Tam Lin, this tradition goes all the way back to Sumeria=E2=80=94but the ru=
les are different in Children=E2=80=99s-Book Land. Just about the first thi=
ng a mortal always does there is to sit down to a nice tea. With buns (actu=
ally, C. S. Lewis=E2=80=99s Mr. Tumnus served soft-boiled eggs with sardine=
s and toast, toast with butter and honey, and a sugar-topped cake). Of cour=
se, crafty Crowley may have it both ways. Smoky eats a delicious bun iced w=
ith a five-pointed star, that star referring to the pentacle of five towns =
of which Edgewood is the exact center. And that, perhaps, is what seals his=
fate, for Smoky will never leave that pentacle again, not ever.
In response to their query, Smoky tells the Woods and Mrs. Underhill that A=
lice has given him her childhood for a wedding gift but he can=E2=80=99t se=
e how to use it, as he doesn=E2=80=99t believe in the fairies that the Drin=
kwaters seem to take for granted. Mr. Woods approves of this gift, however.=
He tells Smoky that he must have a bag to put it in. First, though, he pro=
duces a necklace of gold and drapes it twice around Smoky=E2=80=99s neck. N=
ext, =E2=80=9Ca red hat, high-crowned and soft, belted with a plaited belt =
in which a white owl=E2=80=99s feather nodded.=E2=80=9D And finally, =E2=80=
=9Ca faded and mouse-chewed Gladstone carpetbag.=E2=80=9D
The first two of these gifts seem a little generic to me. Gold figures in a=
ny number of fairytales, not always benignly, and fairy gold is particularl=
y tricky, always, including here. The hat=E2=80=94could that have belonged =
to Puss in Boots? In any case, it seems to signify adventure and romance, a=
s the gold does riches. Both are extraordinarily heavy. But the bag is some=
thing else again, though it must have been away from its former owner a lon=
g time for any rash mouse to dare to chew it. And what a bag it is! Certain=
ly it can hold a childhood; that bag has been known to hold whole universes=
. That Gladstone bag was last seen firmly attached to the capable hand of M=
ary Poppins!
Fairy food consumed, fairy gifts bestowed, Daily Alice=E2=80=99s childhood =
reading graphically displayed, Smoky is sent on his way, through the back o=
f the wardrobe, of course. Politely, he pauses to thank his host.
=E2=80=9CForget it,=E2=80=9D says Mr. Woods.
And Smoky does, immediately. Nothing but a creeper is twined around his ne=
ck when he catches up to Daily Alice, dead leaves festoon his hair and he c=
arries a long-dead hornet=E2=80=99s nest with a bright ladybug who flies aw=
ay home.=20
=E2=80=9CWhat on earth,=E2=80=9D she says.
And he says, =E2=80=9CI=E2=80=99ve been in the Woods.=E2=80=9D
?=20
There are many other references to children=E2=80=99s books throughout Litt=
le, Big. Grandfather Trout=E2=80=99s plight recalls stories from all over t=
he world of humans metamorphosed into animals, but also the medieval creatu=
res of Crowley=E2=80=99s earlier novel, Beasts, the folktales of magical fi=
sh that grant three doubtful wishes, the animal stories of Thornton W. Burg=
ess, and, rather specifically, Kingsley=E2=80=99s The Water Babies. Hans Ch=
ristian Andersen=E2=80=99s storks also turn up. (Crowley has a nice knack f=
or gentle parodies of his elder authors; he does it with Kingsley in some o=
f the trout sections, Andersen in the stork sections, and, of course, with =
Burgess=E2=80=94see the sidebar. He=E2=80=99s not trying to rival James Joy=
ce; it=E2=80=99s done with a whisper-light touch.)=20
Lewis Carroll is present throughout, and credited. His immortal Alice is in=
voked in Daily Alice, as are Sylvie and Bruno from the (far from immortal) =
pair of Carroll=E2=80=99s books bearing their names. Homage is paid to Sha=
kespeare=E2=80=99s Midsummer Night=E2=80=99s Dream, which could be called a=
play for children of all ages. Classical myth gets a nod, with Charon the =
ferryman, the Gate of Horn beside which the changeling child, Lilac, dreams=
, and Fred, the unlikely dryad. Victorian fairy paintings and the illustrat=
ions of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac shade the landscape. Even Santa Cla=
us, that jolly old elf, makes an appearance.
I should say a word, too, about Russell Eigenblick, a.k.a. the Emperor Fred=
erick Barbarossa, in a subplot that reads as though it had slouched in from=
Beasts (I wish it had stayed there). It refers back to a kind of turn-of t=
he-century boy=E2=80=99s adventure book, now more commonly a book for grown=
boys, as manufactured by Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlam et al (many al), even =
by Stephen King. In it, the heroes, boys or men, thwart a Dire and Malevole=
nt Plot to Take Over the World. Here, supernatural complications on both si=
des thicken that plot; the d=C3=A9nouement is, technically, deplorable, a l=
iteral deus ex machina.=20
But it is the set-piece that I admire most, the deceptively homely visit ch=
ez Woods that Smoky will never recall, that Alice will never encounter, tha=
t loads on Smoky the burden of family life with the Drinkwater clan that he=
so obediently, and indeed gladly shoulders. Crowley is good at set-pieces,=
and this one is one of his best. A world of reading is invoked in just a f=
ew pages, an homage to the past, to the writers who shaped our imaginations=
as well as his own.
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