JOHN CROWLEY’S NEW FANTASTIC SPACE: RECONSTRUCTING THE REALM OF FAERIE IN LITTLE, BIG by Pami Beveridge A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL May 2016 Copyright 2016 by Pami Beveridge ii iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to express her sincere gratitude to her committee members for their guidance and support. The author is grateful for the resources and tools provided by the committee members. Special thanks are in order for my advisor, Dr. Thomas Martin. Without his deep knowledge of the fantastic, and his patience, encouragement, and persistence, this manuscript would be merely fantasy. I am eternally indebted. Thanks for seeing me through the infundibulum. iv ABSTRACT Author: Pami Beveridge Title: John Crowley’s New Fantastic Space: Reconstructing the Realm of Faerie in Little, Big Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Thomas Martin Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2016 John Crowley’s Little, Big is an innovative piece of fantasy writing. This thesis aims to prove that Crowley’s innovation lays the groundwork for new avenues in which fantastic space can be manipulated and constructed. Deep study in Euclidean geometry, modern physics, and occult astronomy reveal a new fantastic space, and a new concept for the threshold of Faerie. Crowley’s fantastic space is constructed as infundibular; with layers of concentricities that funnels his characters to their final destination of self- actualization and the heaven-like realm of Faerie. Crowley amalgamates the boundaries of Faerie and the primary world in an unusual fashion that is noted as Coalesced Fantasy: a fantasy wherein there is ultimately no dichotomy between Faerie and the primary world, as there is no division between the fantastic and science. This deliberate aim to blend boundaries is to establish an All in One theory. Faerie and the primary world v oppose each other as antithetical conical space, and Crowley’s Edgewood house serves as the threshold to allow man to access the divinity and vastness of Faerie. Faerie (Divinity/macrocosm) and man (microcosm) exist in and amongst one another; everything is connected and every path intersects, spinning on a hyperbolic plane in this new, quantifiable space. vi DEDICATION This manuscript is dedicated to my loving family, including my parents, and close friends who listened to my ideas, no matter how much of a fantasy they seemed. Particular thanks are in order for my patient, and persistent husband, David. Thank you for pushing me the extra mile, and believing that I had what it takes to see this project through to the end. This work is also dedicated to my daughter, Abigael. I want you to know that whatever you put your mind to do, you can make happen. Remember, magic happens all around you. All you need to do is believe. Finally, my grandmother, Louise. Thank you for always supporting me in my dreams. I believed in myself because you believed in me first. Thank you. JOHN CROWLEY’S NEW FANTASTIC SPACE: RECONSTRUCTING THE REALM OF FAERIE IN LITTLE, BIG LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... ix I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1 II. ESTABLISHING EUCLIDEAN/NON EUCLIDEAN SPACE ........................................ 8 III. THE HOUSE AS A THRESHOLD ................................................................................... 13 IV. THE AXIS MUNDI ............................................................................................................. 18 V. “THE FURTHER YOU GO IN, THE BIGGER IT GETS” ............................................ 22 VI. ON YEATS’S A VISION ..................................................................................................... 29 VII. THE MICRO AND MACROCOSMS OF PARACELSUS .......................................... 34 VIII. YEATS, THE THIRTEENTH AXIOM, AND THE AGE OF ARIES: “THE KEY TO FAERIE” ............................................................................................................... 38 VIIII. THE SPACE IN-BETWEEN ......................................................................................... 50 WORKS CITED .......................................................................................................................... 58 viii FIGURES FIGURE I: THE INFUNDIBULUM ................................................................................ 10 FIGURE II: THE INTERSECTION OF TIME AND SPACE ......................................... 21 FIGURE III: THE SITUATION OF CROWLEY’S SPACE ........................................... 33 FIGURE IV: ANTITHETICAL CONES ON HYPERBOLIC SPHERE ......................... 35 FIGURE V: TWO DIMENSIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF THIRTEEN CONES ............ 44 FIGURE VI: DESCENT TO THE DIVINE VIA THIRTEENTH CONE ....................... 48 FIGURE VII: YEATS’S WHEEL RESEMBLING RELIGIOUS MANDALA .............. 53 ix I. INTRODUCTION After reading John Crowley’s postmodern fantasy novel Little, Big, Ursula K. LeGuin proclaimed that it was a book that “all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy” (P.S. 2). This statement deserves close consideration. LeGuin saw a key difference in Crowley’s landmark novel. With so many different interpretations of fantasy, what did Crowley create in Little, Big that “calls for a redefinition”? Crowley challenges the conventional idea of fantastic space, a challenge he features in the title himself. In this novel, Crowley creates a generational epic that complicates the known boundaries of Faerie as conceived in the traditional fairy tale. The novel shows us how the traditional liminal boundary of Faerie can coexist with a more esoteric postmodern understanding of concentric space. In effect, Crowley combines them in a fantasy world that resembles an M. C. Escher piece more than something one would read in Perrault or Grimm. In Crowley’s postmodern fairy tale, the marvelous appears next to the real in infinite parallels on a hyperbolic plane, both converging to one concentrated point, which opens up conversely to the vast infinity of Faerie. Because of the fashion in which Crowley constructs his space, LeGuin’s call for a “redefinition” rings necessary. Crowley’s fusion of time and space cannot be confined to any one subgenre current fantasy labels have to offer, which our analysis will prove. This means that Crowley’s novel must be classified in a new subgenre, which we will confirm at the end of this analysis as “coalesced,” where the elements are fused together. 1 In regards to LeGuin’s reference to a “redefinition,” Crowley's innovation of restructuring the space in which fantasy is situated holds implications for humanity’s place in the world. While it does not in any direct way guarantee that fantasy's engagements with the real world will yield a positive outcome, the novel rewrites the boundaries separating fantasy and reality by including in our reckoning of the fantastic certain esoteric features of the most recent science. The inclusion of precise physics and geometries allows us not to imagine the realm of Faerie as we have done in the past, but actually to grasp it as a tangible feature of space as we know it. It has a shape, a structure: it is in principle measurable and quantifiable along with our own space. It is more a part of nature than it has been before. The sociological implications are not immediately clear since memory master Ariel Hawksquill’s attempt to overthrow dystopian leader Russell Eigenblick fails, suggesting in this tale that not all fairy magic can trump the destructive forces of which humanity is capable. The boundaries that Crowley draws between the ordinary world and Faerie are so thin that they scarcely serve as boundaries at all, but point to a fundamental wholeness available to humanity—that All is One. Whether humanity will wake up to that possibility before it is too late, Crowley leaves unanswered. This thesis explores the meaning of fantastic space, parallel worlds, liminality, and concentricity in Little, Big. It demonstrates that Crowley has indeed created a new fantastic space in his novel: one that surpasses previous notions about how fantastic space is constituted, and how the border separating our world and the realm of Faerie is traversed. Crowley’s Little, Big helps redefine how we assume fantastic spaces should be assembled and reached by fantasy characters in a postmodern world. Such features as 2 liminal boundaries, portals, gateways, and intrusive creatures are only part of the intricate infundibulum Crowley creates. The infundibulum is the key to his postmodern fantasy: it is a funnel-like structure of space and time. In short, it is the conical universe in which Crowley’s fantastic space exists. It can be traveled through; it is constantly spinning (or at least it should, which creates conflict for Crowley’s characters); and it is infinite. The infundibulum has a single concentrated point at its end like the opening at the end of a funnel. This aperture becomes a place of self-actualization, a heavenly space, and the threshold to the realm of Faerie. Crowley’s character Dr. Bramble describes this realm as being filled with … fairy maidens who capture the hearts of, and can apparently lie with humans, and who are the size of human maidens. And there