Undisentanglable convolvulus
23 October 2014

Do you recognize the phrase I’ve taken as the title for this update? It’s my favorite phrase from Little, Big. (You’ll find it on page 388 of the new edition.) Indeed, it may well be my all-time favorite two-word phrase. Once you disentangle its pronunciation, you may find, as I do, that it is an incredibly delicious, sensual phrase to speak aloud, or intone, or whisper, or sing. Feel how it shapes the mouth, like a catalog of kisses.

Alas, for much of the last four months, we’ve been wrestling with what has sometimes felt like a frustratingly undisentanglable convolvulus of problems and technical issues with the art reproductions. Now, at last, I am happy to report that we have found the master disentangling thread and have even started pulling it, ever so gently — the thorny knot is starting to unravel. But the added work load is not inconsiderable.

Reaching this point has involved close consultations with our top candidate printer, in the course of our work on an art print test designed to help us calibrate the art reproductions for the book as a whole, and with recognized experts in the relevant publishing and graphics programs; we’ve retained the services of the latter to work with the digital art files, an essential move.

Our work is on-going, and as I indicated above, the path forward is clear once more, the convolvulations disentangled here, pared back there, trimmed into gateways of almost topiary precision, standing wide, the newly-revealed vista awaiting a first kiss.

Ron Drummond
Publisher

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| John Crowley Interview |

| What a pickle: An update on the signed editions: 4/1/24 |

| Title-Page Spread |
| Sample Chapter 1.1 | | Sample Chapter 6.2 |


| Suppose One Were a Fish |

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What a pickle: An update on the signed editions: Update 4/1/24
Is it far?: Update 4/4/23
Ahead and behind: 1/21/23
Circumstances / Quite close: 12/6/22
She's here, she's near: 10/5/22
the virtual end: 9/22/22
waiting for the promised structure: 7/5/22
He thought wildly of printing them all on lantern slides: 5/4/22
Midnight in Montreal: 9/15/21
new old letters and signs: 8/16/21
a narrow curl of steep stairs: 2/14/21
Her looking upward was infectious: 4/22/20
as natural and unaccountable as bloom and branch: 11/16/19
some vote or say: 6/12/19
Just about over / Not all over: 9/15/18
Project Update: 1/03/18
so good to have it all at last, start to finish: Update 9/21/17
as they stand waiting to be called forth: Update 1/4/17
a streak of presence surrounded by a dim glow of absence: Update 8/29/16
As though she continued to wake: Update 12/21/15
Fifty-two pickup: Update 8/10/15
What has and what must yet: Update 2/22/15
Undisentanglable convolvulus: Update 10/23/14
For information still to come: Update 6/12/14
At the prospect of having this book: Update 2/2/14
In the way they fade without disappearing: Update 9/15/13
What he would always have chosen to do: Update 4/23/13
What place it was she was to go to: Update 1/1/13
The Ivory Buckle of the Winter Solstice: Update 8/15/12
Another Milestone Is Reached — Update 4/6/12
The Blackstone Little, Big — Update 1/2/12
Update 11/23/11
Suppose One Were a Wish: 12 October 2011
Update: 15 September 2011
The Remaining Tasks: 3 August 2011
The Final Lockdown Pass Continues Apace: 30 June 2011
Final Lockdown Pass Still in Progress: 31 May 2011
Final Lockdown Pass in Progress: 23 April 2011
Making Progress: 23 February 2011
The Home Stretches: 1 December 2010
The Home Stretch, 5 October 2010
Summary of Progress on Little, Big through September 2010