In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate the World

In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate the World
                                                       by Simon Garfield

What is it about small things that fascinate us? There’s nothing like a dollhouse or a tiny anything, that will bring our noses closer and closer to see it well. To see if the miniaturist got it right. We want to see the detail, the tinier the better. If you doubt, then look up images of Queen Mary’s Doll House and you’ll be awed.

Author Simon Garfield says that the premise of his book is that “the miniature world reveals and illuminates a bigger one.” He starts by reminding us that for awhile big was the thing, then we turned to the fascination of miniature – the smaller the better (he makes us really WANT to see a flea circus) and now we are back to big again – how big does a home television screen really need to be? But it’s not size, he says, it’s really scale. He addresses the miniature world with this in mind: a miniature must be a reduced version of something that was originally bigger. He explains the fascination with miniatures is really a matter of control. We can more easily understand that which is too big to see until we see it all at once, laid out in front of us with the chance to manipulate it. That makes sense when you come along with him.

We begin our time with the author when he takes our hand and leads us in 1889 to the top of the top of the Eiffel Tower. From that perspective the big world became small, miniature, immobile, a model of itself.

We learn that the only way to make people understand the horror of a slave’s journey was to make a miniature of a slave ship. We can shape the outcome of war by playing with toy soldiers, we marvel at just how small a book can be, and paintings, and who knew Rod Stewart was an avid model railroad enthusiast? And if you are lucky enough to see it in person you can only stare with true fascination at Queen Mary’s doll house, a project that had 1,500 people involved in it’s making.

We even take a trip to Las Vegas where one would think there isn’t anything in miniature, but there they are, a working volcano, a pyramid, a rainforest and, look! The Eiffel Tower.

I can say with real fascination that I’ve never considered miniature in relation to true size until I read this book. Take a look around you and notice what you may already embrace in miniature. Toy soldiers? Gingerbread houses? Trains? Buildings? Crafts? You’ll love this book.