George MacDonald

A Scottish Calvinist, C. S. Lewis said of him that from George MacDonald he learnt the beauty of goodness. Often subtly ironic, often strangly surrealistic, MacDonald's work holds something for nearly every age group.

The Complete Fairy Tales

Literary Quality:
Christian Morality: Excellent
Age Appropriateness: Children/Pre-Teen

A collection of his shorter original fairy tales, including The Golden Key and The Light Princess. MacDonald is a master of revealing Truths through the guise of the otherworldly.

The Princess and the Goblin
The Princess and Curdie

Literary Quality:
Christian Morality: Excellent
Age Appropriateness: Children/Pre-Teen

A duology chronicalling two children's lives as they battle goblins and death, as well as learning about human nature. Almost allegorical, terribly exciting and chock full of excellent morals, these two books are heartily recommended.

Phantastes

Literary Quality:
Christian Morality: Excellent/Good
Age Appropriateness: Teen

Penned by preacher-turned-novelist George MacDonald in 1858, Phantastes is an unusual work even for fantasy. It begins when 21 year-old Anodos wakes up in his bedroom to find his furniture alive: his wooden dresser sprouting ivy, green carpet taking the form of grass swaying in a breeze, and basin to wash in overflowing to create a babbling stream. The room he was accustomed to had faded, transformed into the starting point of Fäerie-land and his dealings therein.

The story rambles about loosely, from an affectionate beech-tree to an old farmer who disbelieved myth, from a “palace of marble and silver, and fountains and moonshine” (MacDonald 74) to a dark chasm that Anodos descends into to rescue his maiden. Throughout Phantastes MacDonald keeps the pace and characters uneven, as if slight bewilderment were the intended effect for readers. A boat of unknown origin saves Anodos from drowning in the aforementioned abyss; with the protagonist rocked to sleep, the dinghy comes to shore on an island. Upon waking, gardens of color and a most “organic” cottage – “There was no path to a door, nor, indeed, was there any track worn by footsteps in the island. The cottage rose right out of the smooth turf” (MacDonald 128) – are seen by Anodos.

The woman who answers at the young man’s knock is a bundle of paradoxes: sagging in skin yet beaming with her eyes, aged by all appearances while possessing a voice beautiful as music. Anodos’ feelings at seeing her are immediately compared to one of the strongest human bonds, mother love. In the Old Woman the man is comforted, embraced, and – proving the depth of their connection vastly more than the other two – tested. Through four doors Anodos journeys, each centered in one wall of the soothing lady’s cottage: enchanted doors leading to scenes from long ago and lessons for time not yet experienced.

“For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Jesus Christ,” says I Timothy 2:5. Yet in this fantasy creation reality is skewed. Certainly “divine” would not describe the Old Woman: Anodos is able to sneak past the sleeping Old Woman when he opens the door of the Timeless. Yet she mirrors the spiritual dimension. A buried past of guilt is reflected when Anodos steps through the first door – the day of his brother’s death, over a decade past, is relived. Comfort alone does the woman give, yet her cottage’s prophetic nature of revealing hidden things cannot be discounted (nor severed from the ancient lady’s persona). In having another “mediator” play out fictional relationships to God and man, the expectation of the true Mediator can be all the more real.

~ Josh M. Shepherd, (c) March 8, 2002
Originally from Dallas, TX, Josh M. Shepherd is a freshman student at Oral Roberts University. He writes for ORU’s student paper The Oracle (of note: Essays on Middle-earth).

(c) 2000 - 2007
Updated 22 July, 2007
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