Tag Archives: fantasy

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

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I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a book this much.

This novel is an unusual animal: a Victorian novel published in 2004. It has the scope, cast of characters, and wit of Dickens, the social satire of Jane Austen, the thorough imaginative conception of Tolkien. It’s funny, scary, compelling, shivery with otherworldliness. I enjoyed every one of its 782 pages.

Some have complained about the length. I agree with Deb that it could have been published in three smaller books rather than one large one. Others have complained about the extensive footnotes, which sometimes span two pages. But even the footnotes were interesting — often stories in themselves.

The basic gist of the story, set in England during the Napoleanic Wars, is that the faerie magic of ancient Britain is returning to an England long impoverished of anything fantastical. The two “practical” (vs. theoretical)  magicians named in the title begin to re-establish the reputation and practice of English magic not as it has survived in dusty academic circles, but as it’s related in the old mythic stories of fairies and mysterious magician-kings. Jonathan Strange and Gilbert Norrell represent two very different temperaments: Mr. Norrell is secretive, scholarly, manipulative, and dull, whereas Jonathan Strange is more sociable, daring, and at home in fashionable circles. Their relationship takes twists and turns against a backdrop of (among other things) war with France, the antics and enchantments of a wicked fairy, and philosophical disagreements about what kind of magic England needs.

My favorite aspect of the story is the depiction of the magical realm as an ever-present, not-quite-visible dimension of the day-to-day physical world. I came across this title most recently in a biography of C.S. Lewis as an example of the kind of fairytale he would have loved, so it’s little surprise to find that the faerie world bears some resemblance to Narnia in being often inaccessible, yet always immanent. Narnia leaks into Britain through wardrobes, doorways, train stations, and pictures. In this story, the faerie dimension does the same thing, as in this scene:

As Lady Pole said this something happened which Arabella did not quite understand. It was as if one of the paintings had moved, or someone had passed behind one of the mirrors, and the conviction came over her once again that this room was no room at all, that the walls had no real solidity but instead the room was only a sort of crossroads where strange winds blew upon Lady Pole from faraway places.

The fantasy is grounded thoroughly in “reality” — scholarly quarrels, gossiping people, real historic events, physical nature, varied personalities — including such well-known figures as the Duke of Wellington, Shelley, and Byron (whose Manfred is said to be based on Byron’s observation of Jonathan Strange). It has something of the flavor of a George MacDonald tale, in which the holy is both “here” — all around us — and “there” — a part of the unseen spiritual realm. (This book makes no Lewis-like allegorical relationship between religion and magic; it’s pure fantasy. Yet it does lend itself to an imagination colored by Christianity as mine is.)

In any case, I was sorry to see it end. A book like this leaves me in awe of the author behind it. How does one mind conceive such a complicated, satisfying story? Dickens composed his novels serially, and their multiple plot threads and huge casts of characters were shaped in part by the form. This novel apparently took ten years to write, but it hangs together as a coherent whole. And even at 782 pages, it’s probably one I’ll read again.

The Wizard of Oz

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My daughters and I finished reading The Wizard of Oz. I read the book years ago, but I’d forgotten a lot of it. I remembered the movie better, which had made such an impression on me as a child. But even that was fuzzy.

I posted some observations about the book here. The book’s religious overtones were striking to me, partly because most of my Oz books were given to me by a firmly atheistic aunt when I was around 9. But I wouldn’t argue, as some have, that the book is primarily intended as an argument or exposition of Baum’s spiritual leanings.

I see it merely as a fairytale, and one which worked well as a read-aloud. My daughters always pushed for another chapter and my youngest asked frequently how it was going to turn out. (She knows I’ll say, “Let’s keep reading and see.” But she always tries!) My older daughter was focused in on it too.

As an adult reader, I enjoyed the way Dorothy’s friends so obviously were in possession of the traits they sought from the wizard. It was fun to see my daughters processing their insecurity and their willingness to accept meaningless tokens from the wizard. The back of the book contained a few biographical notes and some trivia about the comparison between book and movie. The notes point out that while in the movie Dorothy is always getting rescued, in the books, she’s always doing the rescuing. She’s a spunky, loyal, likable heroine. I would add that in addition to a number of plot alterations made in the movie, it adds considerably to the stress level. The book impressed me as far more low-key than the movie, perfect for reading aloud.

My aunt always insisted that this was far from the best of the Oz books, though it was the most popularized by the movie. It struck me as more hollow, somehow, than the Narnia books or George MacDonald’s fairy tales. I don’t remember the other Oz books any better than this one, but I have a few of them. We’ll probably make a few more trips to the land of Oz before we’re done.

The Children of Hurin

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A deadly peril has come upon us, which only great hardihood shall turn aside. But in this matter numbers will avail little; we must use cunning, and hope for good fortune… For I do not believe this Dragon is unconquerable, though he grows greater in strength and malice with the years. I know somewhat of him. His power is rather in the evil spirit that dwells within him than in the might of his body, great though that be…

So says Turin, son of Hurin. A dragon — no, a Dragon — needs slaying. A great-uncle of Elrond must avenge his father’s injustice at the hands of a predecessor of Sauron who spreads his dark thought over Middle Earth. A family is cursed, shattered, seeking restoration. Turin emerges in this posthumous Tolkien tale to face the evil dragon Glaurung, who is subservient to Morgoth as the one ring will be subservient to Sauron 6,000 years after the action of this story.

That’s Turin, reflected in the eye of Glaurung in Alan Lee’s illustration above. Indeed the gaze of this diabolical entity serves as a mirror for Turin. The excerpt above gives a taste of both this tale’s spiritual suggestiveness and its darkness. It was interesting for me to read this after Waking the Dead, with its references to spiritual warfare. But even without that precursor to my reading experience, it would be hard to miss the cosmic scope of the good vs. evil struggle in The Children of Hurin. Glaurung is an accuser and a deceiver as well as a destroyer.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. The Children of Hurin is a tale from the background mythology of Middle Earth, assembled by Christopher Tolkien, but from manuscripts written by J.R.R. Tolkien and only minimally edited. I found this article by Brian Appleyard offered a fascinating perspective on this work in the context of Tolkien’s other writings. It rightly notes that the timing of its publication (2007) brought the focus from the films back to the books, in which “The modern mind is clearly being dragged by the scruff of its neck away from its literary comfort zone.”

Recently, a couple of people have mentioned that they struggled in trying to read Tolkien. I struggled myself when The Hobbit was assigned in 7th grade; I remember the teacher slapping my graded exam on my desk and muttering, “It’s a good thing you can write, Janet!” Meaning, I suppose, that it was obvious I hadn’t read the book but had entertained her with my flowery writing. (?) It wasn’t till 20 years later that the book drew me in like a lit fuse that burned right on through LOTR.

The Silmarillion, though, is a different story. Tolkien considered it his masterpiece. I’ve tried two or three times, and haven’t been able to read it with its more elevated diction and — oracular? — mode.

The Children of Hurin falls between Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion in its style. The narrative voice is much easier to contend with than The Silmarillion. But the characterization is more flat than LOTR. It reads more like a myth whose characters are static, and move through a series of adventures — it’s a picaresque, I suppose — that carries them to their ultimate fate without changing them.

There were times I wanted to scream at Turin. He’s so predictable, in tragic ways. He seems to go from one bad decision to another. (Can you tell I’m parenting book at the moment?) But… I hate to point out that this is sometimes all of us. Often I’m less of a bildungsroman character in real life, less of a changing and growing person, and more a person who behaves as if she’s already set in stone. Turin may not be an example of flat characterization, but of human nature, in this respect — especially when he’s hampered so often by faulty information and deception. (…again, as we are.)

I have to mention Alan Lee’s illustrations. Alan Lee did the concept art for the movies, and he’s illustrated a number of other books including Black Ships Before Troy. He has captured the mood masterfully in The Children of Hurin, and the illustrations invite you to stop and ponder. They add a whole dimension to the work.

This reading experience was different than LOTR. I remember that I read that trilogy when my first daughter was newborn, and I spent lots of time sitting on the couch feeding, rocking, and burping her — with that tome on the couch beside me, open, so I wouldn’t have to waste a second finding my place again when she fell asleep on my shoulder. This book was less gripping, but more grown-up, and packed with food for reflection. I’m not sure I recommend it to everyone — but for Tolkien fans, definitely.

Phantastes

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This is the book that C.S. Lewis read one day on a train and felt his imagination had been “baptized.” I read it back when I was in college and it didn’t capture me. But recently, after reading more of George MacDonald’s books and being intrigued, I decided to try again.

I thought I didn’t remember it, and it’s partly true; it was mixed up in my memory with Lilith, another of MacDonald’s tales I read around the same time. But I was surprised to stumble across not episodes, but sentences that I remembered exactly from my previous reading of this book.

This time, it captured me. I still wouldn’t say I can “explain” it (which is part of the reason I like it), but I felt I grasped more than I did before. I’m sure certain scenes will stay with me, waiting to be explained by experiences I’ve yet to have.

What it is: “A Faerie Romance,” its title proclaims. It concerns the journey of a young man named Anodos (Greek for “the path up” or “the march up”) through Fairy Land. His journey begins on his 21st birthday, when he inherits the key to an antique desk of his father’s, and discovers a secret compartment at its very heart out of which pops a fairy maiden claiming to be (maybe) his ancestor, and suggesting that some surprises are in store. The next morning his room is transformed, and his journey begins.

I remember studying a novel written about a hundred years before Phantastes — Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown — in which enclosures functioned as mind symbols. So that’s what I thought of when Anodos unlocked the desk. Judging from the nature of the adventures that follow, I think MacDonald may have been using the same symbolism. Fairy Land has a labyrinthian quality, full of mysterious and complex palaces, tales within tales, door that open into different worlds, and encounters and re-encounters with various characters. He meets his shadow there. He considers questions of love and death there. And ultimately he’s tested and learns true humility there. I read one review that said Anodos gives up his ideals at the end, but I disagree. His ideals are tempered, but surely he doesn’t give them up.

That’s a paltry summary. There’s really no way I can summarize this tale. It has a dreamlike quality. But as I said, some of its episodes will stay with me. For instance, there’s one tale Anodos reads during his stay at a mysterious castle in fairyland about a young man with a magic mirror. Every night a woman appears in his apartment, but he can only see her in the mirror. It’s an absorbing story that, like many episodes, explores the nature of love and passion. Will he rise to the occasion and set her free? In the episode that’s perhaps most decisive for Anodos, he witnesses a religious ceremony in which white-robed youths are presented to a majestic figure on a throne — who turns out to be made of wood, and the chamber behind his chair contains a raging wolf that must be killed. What does the wolf stand for? Another decisive plotline has to do with a marble lady Anodos calls to life. She represents his ideal of beauty, but will she return his love — if indeed it’s love that he feels?

These are the kinds of questions the story raises — and many more, both metaphysical and practical. Now that I’ve read more MacDonald, I can recognize some characteristic features, and I enjoyed being able to fit this tale into my mind’s slowly growing network of books by this author: The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, The Golden Key, The Light Princess, At the Back of the North Wind, and Lilith. I also enjoyed the illustrations by Arthur Hughes, praised in the preface by MacDonald’s son Greville as part of the reason he supported this re-issue of the book in 1905. I recommend it for fans of MacDonald, and for fans of fairy tales in general.

At the Back of the North Wind

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Any story always tells me itself what I’m to think about it… I never can tell what they call clever from what they call silly, but I always know whether I like a story nor not.

So says Diamond, the angelic little boy at the center of George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind. He’s a small boy whose age is never given, but he’s already ahead of me, because I can’t quite make up my mind whether I “like” this book. It’s considered one of MacDonald’s masterpieces, so its literary quality isn’t a question. For what it’s worth, I stumbled across this page, which puts this book in the company of other popular reads in 1908. Though it was published in 1871, it was in illustrious company thirty-seven years later. Time has only increased its stature.

But do I like it?

Diamond, the son of a coachman, meets the North Wind, personified, and is carried off with her on several adventures. The two have various metaphysical discussions, and Diamond comes to love and trust her despite observing that some of her acts are good, and some terrible — like sinking a ship. Even the evil things lead to good and are shown to be part of a larger purpose. It’s a theodicy wrapped in a fairytale.

Or should I say, several fairytales. The first copy I picked up at the library was abridged, and I held out for the unabridged version. How could I read a book with large chunks snipped out, like Thomas Jefferson’s Bible? I wanted the whole work as its author had envisioned and labored over it.

But I did find myself getting impatient with the tales within the larger tale: dreams various characters report in detail, rhymes and poems, stories told. I’m not sure I gave them the careful attention they needed. One of these tales-within-the-tale, the story of Daylight, was pulled out and published independently.

I also didn’t like the ending. (Spoiler ahead!) Perhaps part of MacDonald’s accomplishment in writing the book was to make peace with the ending for himself, for it’s been noted that Diamond resembles MacDonald’s son Maurice, who died young.

It sounds silly, but I didn’t like the way the book left me feeling cold, either. The chill of the North Wind — who insists herself, and Diamond agrees, that it’s not cold when she’s carrying you — just seemed to pervade the book for me. The cover of the paperback version I read, unlike the one I posted above that contains Jesse Willcox Smith’s wonderful illustrations (someday I’d like to have some of those Books of Wonder on my shelf), depicted an arctic landscape with little Diamond in his nightshirt and bare feet peering across.

However, these are for the most part superficial distractions. The core of the book is deeply satisfying, and it would be an interesting tale to discuss in a setting where you could chew on some of the episodes for awhile. As always, I enjoyed MacDonald’s strong, clean, dense-with-meaning writing — though I’m not so sure others would agree; I’ve gotten the impression that he’s valued more for his unique imaginative gift than for his literary one. And unlike my experience with The Princess and Curdie, I felt the symbolism worked without becoming overbearing.

So I’ve hemmed and hawed my way to a verdict: I liked it. But don’t let it fool you into expecting a lighthearted fairytale. This is one I’ll surely read again someday, and I have no doubt that it will yield more — well, diamonds.

The Golden Key

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These days I use the library as much as possible, but every once in awhile I come across a book I simply must have. George MacDonald’s The Golden Key is such a book. It’s an allegory, written for children and only 78 pages long. But it’s compact and mystical enough that I know I’ll want to return to it often. And I know there are scenes in it I’ll never forget.

This one, for instance, when Tangle (the heroine) and Mossy (the hero) make their way across a wide plain covered with shadows on their way to find the source of the rainbow, to which Mossy has found the golden key:

They had never seen any space look like it… It was no wonder to them now that they had not been able to tell what it was, for this surface was everywhere crowded with shadows. It was a sea of shadows… No forests clothed the mountain-sides, no trees were anywhere to be seen, and yet the shadows of the leaves, branches, and stems of all various trees covered the valley as far as their eyes could reach… As they walked they waded knee-deep in the lovely lake. For the shadows were not merely lying on the surface of the ground, but heaped up above it like substantial forms of darkness, as if they had been cast upon a thousand different planes of the air. Tangle and Mossy often lifted their heads and gazed upwards to descry where the shadows came; but they could see nothing more than a bright mist spread above them, higher than the tops of the mountains, which stood clear against it.

It’s not long before the two begin to discern the shadows not just of objects of nature, but of an unfolding human drama:

Now a wonderful form, half bird-like half human, would float across on outspread sailing pinions. Anon an exquisite group of gambolling children would be followed by the loveliest female form, and that again by the grand stride of a Titanic shape, each disappearing in the surrounding press of shadowy foliage. Sometimes a profile of unspeakable beauty or grandeur would appear for a moment and vanish. Sometimes what seemed lovers passed… Sometimes wild horses would tear across, free, or bestrode by noble shadows of ruling men. But some of the things which pleased them most they never knew how to describe.

About the middle of the plain they sat down to rest in the heart of a heap of shadows. After sitting for a while, each, looking up, saw the other in tears: they were each longing after the country whence the shadows fell.

‘We must find the country from which the shadows come,’ said Mossy.

‘We must, dear Mossy,’ responded Tangle. ‘What if your golden key should be the key to it?’

That’s more than I usually quote, but part of the reason I blog is to remember such passages.

It’s not just that I can trace the line from that passage backward to Plato, or forward to C.S. Lewis. It has more to do with what my father describes of his conversion. As a young man who believed Jesus was a commanding teacher but not the son of God, he remembers an old man directing his attention to Psalm 22. It’s a prophetic Psalm that describes crucifixion, written by David about two centuries before crucifixion was practiced. It bumped around in his brain for years, along with a growing collection of irreconcilable, unpigeonhole-able data, which paved the way for his eventual surrender to the truth of Jesus’s claims about who he was.

George MacDonald’s tales have a similar effect. The edition I read contained an afterword by W.H. Auden, who points out wisely, “To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal. In The Golden Key, for example, any attempt to ‘interpret’ the Grandmother or the air-fish or the Old Man of the Sea is futile: they mean what they are.” To me, this doesn’t mean that MacDonald’s stories have no symbolic significance; it means that they have many facets of meaning. The imaginative vision in this story gets somehow under, or behind, my rational understanding of certain important realities and sheds a vital — and very beautiful — light on them.

The flyleaf quotes J.R.R. Tolkien’s observation that “The magical, the fairy story… may be made a vehicle of mystery. This is at least what George MacDonald attempted, achieving stories of power and beauty when he succeeded, as in The Golden Key.” Though there are things my daughters won’t “understand” here (there’s plenty I don’t “understand”), I can’t wait to read it to them and, in so doing, give them a gift — a golden key that stirs their longing for a larger, more glorious world.

Beauty

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“You are being polite,” he said.

“Well, yes,” I conceded. “But then you called me beautiful last night….”

“You do not believe me then?” he inquired.

“Well — no,” I said, hesitantly, wondering if this might anger him. “Any number of mirrors have told me otherwise.”

“You will find no mirrors here,” he said, “for I cannot bear them; nor any quiet water in ponds. And since I am the only one who sees you, why are you not then beautiful?”

Why, indeed? These lines from Robin McKinley’s Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast capture two things I like about the story: the heroine’s discomfort within her own skin, and the gentle challenge to her paradigms of beauty. I read it years ago, but I didn’t remember anything about it other than that I liked it. I read through it again this week, and much though I enjoyed revisiting it, it leaves me feeling restless in a couple of ways, too.

The narrator is the slightly unconventional Honour: her hands and feet are large, and she’s physically strong, loves horses, loves to read, and is part of a riches to rags family drama. She thinks she’s ugly, but her ugliness is never very convincing. The beast in the enchanted splendour of his palace, with his unfailing wisdom and gentleness and generosity, would have been more interesting if he’d made a misstep or two somewhere along the way. But these things didn’t keep me from enjoying the story. I liked the way Beauty struggled as much with her appearance as the beast struggled with his, and I also liked that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” wasn’t confined just to how the beast looks, but to Beauty, the castle itself, its books, many aspects of life. McKinley does justice to the power of our inner eye, and to the way it’s strengthened and clarified by sympathy and love. 

I found myself wondering about the fairy tale that this one retells. One question is, what’s the original source of this story? What was the earliest known version? I’ve seen the Disney movie, and I was familiar with the story before that somehow. But I’d like to do a little digging to find out more. I started here, and think I’d like to find a few older versions to see how the story has evolved.

Another question is, are there any versions out there of more seasoned, middle-aged Beauties and Beasts? (I may have seen the motif here and there in movies, though right now I’m drawing a blank.) I wonder if there are any formal retellings of the original fairy tale, in the spirit of this one, that don’t make youthfulness and physical attractiveness prerequisites for Beauty, and even for the Beast at the end.

One other thing. Is the pattern ever reversed? Part of the text of the above link points out,

‘Beauty and the Beast’ tales, which all require a woman’s patient tolerance of an ugly mate, have no companion tales in the modern period in which the obverse obtains, that is, a man who must love an ugly wife. In the medieval period, however, numerous companion stories circulated, the most famous of which is the Wife of Bath’s story in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales…

Surely there are some modern ones out there, somewhere…? The way I’ve understood the story is that it’s about the power of love to transform beasts into royalty – in the eye of the beholder, and perhaps in actuality, too. But I can’t at the moment recall ever reading a version of Handsome and the Beast.

I liked Beauty, and I enjoyed reading it as I always enjoy reading Robin McKinley. I liked her characterization of Beauty as a young woman feeling like an ugly duckling and learning the deceptiveness of mere eyes. But at the same time, I’d like to find a truer and more convincing vehicle of the oft-repeated idea that beauty is what you are inside. It’s often said. But it’s hard to find evidence that it’s really believed — not just in our supposedly shallow, media-drenched culture, but even in our old and established stories.