Somewhere
to Elsewhere:
Spatial Negotiations
and Spectral Crossroads
(Not yet scheduled)
The work of John Crowley inscribes itself at
the
crossroads of multiple genres. Part fairy tale, part fantasy; part
magical
realism and romance; part bildungsroman and family saga his many novels
defy
easy categorization. Common to them all, however, is the theme of an
American
Elsewhere, eagerly sought after by all Crowley’s protagonists.
Outsiders and
outcasts, all, they seek to find their place and destiny in a landscape
that is
bewildering to them, both because it is recognizably American, but also
because
it is so obviously Other.
In Little, Big
(1981) the transition from Somewhere (familiar) to Elsewhere (Other) is
the
literal starting point of the plot. The protagonist’s journey through a
recognisable New York geography toward a house in a completely
otherworldly
woodland scene begins a tale laden with intricate intertextualities
with
Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream and the novels of
Lewis Carroll. The goal of his journey – a
marriage,
and a
heritage – echoes numerous fairy tales, and this intertextuality is
made
explicit by many meta-references interspersed in the narrative. The
reader is
invited to read the Edgewood house as a metaphor for an alternate
American
reality: Much larger inside than it appears to be from the outside, the
mansion
accommodates numerous classes of inhabitants, representing various
states of
alterity (living, dead, potential). These spectral crossroads between
past, present
and future serve as a metaphor for cultural diversity. The novel thus
advocates
a politics of tolerance towards Otherness and cautions against a
monolithic or
unitary interpretation of reality.
