Episode 187: The Affirmation of Imagination: On John Crowley's 'Little, Big,' with Erik Davis

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2025

⏱️ 94 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Crowley’s Little, Big is, at once, a family saga, a fairy tale, an occult thriller, an idyll, a dystopia, as well as a meditation on myth and history, the real and the fantasy, memory and imagination. Little, Big is also a book that JF and Phil have been planning to discuss for as long as Weird Studies has existed. In this episode, they are joined by writer and scholar Erik Davis to explore the enduring charms and mysteries of one of the greatest—and most underrated—American novels of the late twentieth century. Order Christian Bunyan's Weird Studies poster here. Visit Weirdosphere for more details on Erik Davis's ongoing course, The Three Stigmata of Philip K. Dick. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES John Crowley, Little, Big Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain Eric Davis, interview with Neil Gaiman and Rachel Pollack David Lynch (dir.), Lost Highway America, “The Last Unicorn” John Cooper Powys, A Glastonbury Romance J. R. R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality Lord Dunsany, Irish novelist Special Guest: Erik Davis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:02.0	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:20.0	For more episodes, or to support the podcast,
0:23.3	go to weirdst. This is Phil.
0:53.9	I want us to all stop for a moment and dig,
0:58.0	Eric Davis. Dig, as in to like to understand. To understand or to appreciate. Dig. It's like,
1:05.3	no, it's more like in music, you dig? You know what is a quarter tone? Like you get a note in there
1:10.5	between C and C sharp and that's its own sound, you know? I mean, you dig? You know what is a quarter tone? Like you get a note in there between C and C sharp,
1:12.1	and that's its own sound, you know? I mean, you can't call it C because it isn't. That's like
1:17.2	Dick. Dig means dig. So yeah, let's dig Eric Davis in that special way. He's the note between
1:24.9	C and C sharp. He's got his own wavelength, his own sound, that resonates through all his work as an intellectual,
1:32.8	music journalist, essayist, scholar, and pioneering Weirdosphere podcaster.
1:38.6	I mean, he practically built the intellectual weirdosphere.
1:42.3	He's a deep thinker and a brilliant writer. He's been everywhere
1:46.1	and talked to everybody. He's so hip he won't even eat a square meal. If you know, you know,
1:53.3	and if you don't know, you're about to find out. Because this week, Eric joins us to discuss
1:59.0	John Crowley's masterwork a little, in an all-timer of an
2:03.0	episode. Little Big is one of the books J.F. and I bonded over in our very first meeting, and from the
2:10.0	beginning of Weird Studies, we have known we would end up doing an episode on it at some point.
2:15.5	Now, at last, here it is, and it feels fitting that Eric would be
2:19.4	joining us for it. Little Big plays a special role in Eric's life. It was set to be released in a special
2:26.5	deluxe edition with art by Peter Milton almost 20 years ago, but an improbable series of disasters,
	...

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