Little: A Novel - Edward Carey

Because I’m in the middle of having both eyes cleared of cataracts, I have been unable to read for the past week, and it may be another three weeks before I’m cleared (or able) to read for more than a few minutes at a time.  Frustrating as the whole process is, though, it will be worth it in the long run because it includes the placement of intraocular lenses in both eyes that just might give me the best eyesight I’ve had since I was about twelve years old.  I’ve been forced to turn exclusively to audiobooks in the meantime, and the good news is that just exactly when I needed it most, I stumbled upon one of the best audiobooks I’ve ever read.  

Simply put, the audiobook version of Edward Carey’s Little: A Novel, as read by the remarkable Jayne Entwistle is an incredible experience.  The plot and characters are wonderfully crafted, but I doubt I would have enjoyed the book quite as much if I had read its printed version.  The novel’s narrator is Marie Grosholtz, and when we meet her the seven-year-old understands very little of the world around her. She sees, though, that she has inherited her mother’s rather prominent nose and her father’s jutting lower jaw, a combination of physical characteristics that will forever keep her from being considered an attractive woman.  On top of this, Marie is so tiny that it is only a matter of time before she is forced to start answering to the nickname “Little.”  Jayne Entwistle tells Marie’s story in a little girl’s voice and accent; a voice so perfectly rendered that Marie comes alive and you find yourself wanting to listen to her all day long.

Reader Jayne Entwistle

Marie’s story begins in 18^thcentury Switzerland where she lives an adequate enough lifestyle with her mother and soldier father until the family’s circumstances take a sudden turn for the worse, one that leaves Marie fatherless.  Desperate to find a new home for herself and her little girl, Marie’s mother jumps at the chance to become the live-in housekeeper for the eccentric Dr. Curtius in Boerne, Switzerland.  Dr. Curtius, an anatomist who creates lifelike models of internal organs to be used by medical students in their studies, is so pleased to learn that the little girl is neither frightened nor sickened by the details of his life’s work that he begins to feel a kinship to her.  And that turns out to be a fortunate for Marie, because when the doctor is forced to flee his home in Boerne for a fresh start in Paris, he brings Marie with him.

Author Edward Carey

Thus, begins the rest of the long, but seldom happy, life of little Marie Grosholtz and her rather ineffectual protector, Dr. Curtius.  But what a life it will be!  Before it is over, the two will witness the French Revolution to a degree much closer than both would have preferred, and Marie will spend some months in Versailles as instructor to minor royalty - where she becomes a friend of sorts to Louis XVI himself.  Despite her great artistic ability and her sound business-head, Marie’s greatest talent will prove to be that she is a survivor.  She is someone who manages, time after time, to overcome circumstances that would have been the end of weaker persons. But survive Marie does, and when she is finally forced to marry in order that she be able to afford to keep her wax works open, she takes the hand of François Tussaud, a civil engineer who proves not to be nearly as wealthy as he has led Marie to believe he is.  But Marie, ever the survivor, thus becomes Madame Tussaud, and the rest is history.

Bottom Line: Little is a fictionalized version of the life of a woman who beat all the odds to become an artist and businesswoman who is still well respected almost 260 years after her birth.  Madame Tussaud’s wax museum has had many imitators over the past two centuries, but the Madame still sets the standard for the rest of them.  Little Marie Grosholtz became a very big woman, and this is her story.  This Dickensian novel is a treat not to be missed.

(From what I understand, the printed version of Little is illustrated by some of Marie’s drawings.  Despite this, I recommend that this one be experienced via its audiobook version because of the superb narration provided by Jayne Entwistle.)