From: "Alice K. Turner" 
Subject: Re: (urth) Crowley
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2003 03:07:35 -0400

bee,

>>Little, Big can be especially bewildering if
>>you are not familiar with the symbolic devices
>>he develops in his earlier novels.

Hmm. By this time I suppose I'm pretty conversant with Crowley but I don'=
t
know what you mean by this. LB does not seem to me to pick up on themes f=
rom
his three earlier books, other than details like cards and games. Not do
they seem to have a lot in common. What am I missing here?

Going back through our correspondence, the only other (possibly) relevant
thing I said was

>>Although Crowley is certainly intrigued,
>>if not obsessed, with occult matters
(you urthlings have convinced me that Gnostic
themes in particular are explored in his novels),
>>I find it hard to pinpoint
>>where his actual sympathies lie. Smoky, like
>>the protagonist of the =C6gypt series, frequently
>>encounters strange goings-on--even falls in love
>>with a semi-fantastic creature or two--but never
>>really buys into the whole supernatural mindset.
>>I suspect that one of the reasons Crowley mines
>>the occult so heavily is because it is such a
>>convenient metaphor for fiction in general. If
>>there is a single dominant theme in Crowley's
>>work it is the creation and perpetuation of
>>stories. Crowley may believe in certain things
>>that others consider fiction; he may not. I dunno.

Crowley emphatically does not. So he says with considerable vigor in the
interview printed both in mantis's chapbook and in the
booklength -Snake's-hands- and also, slightly differently, in Locus of 20=
01
or so. But you are correct that he finds it a useful and even beautiful
metaphor.

-alga



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