Little, Big: Introducing Smoky Barnable (1)
Taking a look at the opening
It’s day one of our Little, Big slow read, and we have just managed to coordinate with Smoky, because it is a “certain day in June” for us, too (though it is admittedly also the last). If you’d like to join, full details can be found here. (Do remember that I won’t be emailing you about this book unless you tell me to; click here and toggle on ‘Slow Reads’.)
I intended to share thoughts throughout the week on the chat, and I may still do that on some days, but I got too excited and wanted to talk through these opening pages with you, so do give the above a listen (you can treat it like a podcast if you have the Substack app). Please do use the comments below for discussion, as well!
I recommend reading your pages first, and then—in an ideal world—listening to the audio with the book open in front of you. But equally, I hope it works for you if you are on the move.
I got a message—which I can’t find a way to reply to—about listening to Little, Big on audio. If you are doing this, you should still be able to orient yourself; I’m sure they have a separate voice reading out the headings (at least on the version read by Crowley himself). So if you just make a note of the heading that begins the next day’s reading, you should be able to stop in the right place, if you are planning on following the schedule.
Books mentioned:
Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G. K. Chesterton
“The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse”; an Aesop fable.
The grumpy review
Here is the grumpy review about the book from 1983 that I found in the depths of the internet!
Further thoughts
Listening back to the audio, I had some more thoughts or things to clarify (so listen first, and then come back to this!):
A Long Drink of Water: Of course I forgot to mention that the reason they all find Smoky’s first comment to Alice so funny (“A long drink of water”) is because of her name! Daily Alice Drinkwater. What is it about Alice (or her family) that might make her thirst-quenching? But also—why this constant mixing up of Alice’s name, getting it back to front, making it the subject of a play on words? What does this tell us about her character? Something to keep thinking about.
Anonymity: The thing that clued me in to the idea that anonymity can be lifted in conversation, or through communicating somehow with another, was this particular phrasing with regards to Smoky’s father: “though his learning was of such a remote and rigid kind that it gave him no conversation and didn’t reduce his natural anonymity”.
Smoky: There’s something industrial about Smoky’s name, too! How does this fit in?
From Midwest: We are clued in that Smoky is from the Midwest both by the profusion of states that begin with ‘I’, but also the fact that he can’t sleep through the traffic in the City, unlike the “long thunder of Midwestern trains”. So while there is a lot of deliberate obfuscation going on, we are offered hints of concrete detail.
George as man, Alice as woman: I wonder if the reason George can only clothe Smoky’s anonymity is something to do with his gender. Friendship is not a strong enough a foundation, especially when it is formed through a bit of masculine debauchery; George is too much the ladies man to make a profound difference in his communications with Smoky. But Alice as a female character, and a potential lover at that, helps Smoky cast off that anonymity from inside—she will really listen to him.
Power dynamics: I love that Smoky sits down at Alice’s feet. There’s a real reverence for her (and her sister!), and it feels like she holds all the power here.
Tomorrow
Page numbers refer to the Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition, and use the subheadings for orientation.
1st July: from The Young Santa Claus (p. 11) up to and including Life is Short, or Long (p. 19) (From “He had gone down the narrow back stairs . . .” to “. . . that he must beg or find but not pay for.”)
If you need a transcript for the audio, please do let me know.
See you tomorrow!
Sooo helpful to listen to your audio after reading & clue in to certain points & questions I otherwise would've let fly by
Really loved the start to this! At only 11 pages in I can already tell this is going to be a good one. So many interesting images to pause on and it seems like it's packed with so many different allusions. I can tell why you thought this would work well as a slow read.
I was also struck by Smoky's description as 'anonymous' or as 'an absence'. I wonder how that is going to play out moving forward in the narration. How will this make him the perfect character to be introduced into this odd family and odd house? His character almost reminds me of Quoyle from The Shipping News who is introduced to the reader in similar terms: 'His earliest sense of self was a distant figure: there in the foreground was his family; here, at the limit of the far view, was he.' (Also fun to trace the similarities between Smoky working as a copy editor and Quoyle's newspaper job.) Are we also going to see him grow into himself? A late coming of age? Is his character going to acquire more 'concreteness' and definition the further we advance into the story? Excited to continue reading and uncovering more layers to this novel!