When God closes a door, He always opens another one. Such is the spirit of faith shown by the great 19th century Scottish writer George MacDonald as he struggled to provide for the earthly needs of his young family that threatened to envelop them in the slums of poverty while he battled against his recurring attacks of bronchitis. Perhaps through cracks in the walls of his home through which the winter "wind blew like knives", did MacDonald get the original idea of writing a book which later turned out to be his most enduring bestseller, At the back of the North Wind (ABNW).
In those days, the chief form of entertainment and information came from lectures given by the learned, in which the intellectual climate can be said to be more sophisticated and discerning. Though a popular lecturer himself, he is not able to keep up with the demands of extensive traveling due to his health - suffering from exarcebations of asthma and probably chest infections which was prevalent in those days. At the age of 32, he had already lost his mother, two brothers and a stepsister at a time when the mortality rate in the Victorian age was high due to poor living and working conditions.
ABNW probably reveals the best of MacDonald's imaginative genius as well as the simplest of storyform about the wanderings of an ill boy,named Diamond which took place in two worlds, the real world of 19th century Victorian London and the dream world where the adventures began at the back of the North Wind. It is a delightful story that appeals to children, yet can be perplexing to the young minds as in this statement by North Wind, acting on the decree from God, as she was about to cause a ship to sink:
"How can you bear it then, North Wind? For I am sure you are kind. I shall never doubt that again.", Diamond asked (as he was being carried between the bosom and the arm of North Wind).
"I will tell you how I am able to bear it, Diamond: I am always hearing, through every noise, through all the noise I am making myself even, the sound of a far-off song. I do not exactly know where it is, or what it means; and I don't hear much of it, only the odour of its music, as it were, flitting across the great billows of the ocean outside this air in which I make such a storm; but what I do hear is quite enough to make me able to bear the cry from the drowning ship. So it would you if you could hear it."
There is also this most moving account at its conclusion:
I walked up the winding stair, and entered his room. A lovely figure, as white and almost as clear as alabaster, was lying on the bed. I saw at once how it was. They thought he was dead. I knew that he had gone to the back of the north wind.
It is a story of two worlds being merged into one, their presence are felt immediately as if one can pass from one world into another, naturally and without warning. Witness the conversation between the child and North Wind:
"Well, please, North Wind, you are so beautiful, I am quite ready to go with you."
"You must not be ready to go with everything beautiful all at once, Diamond."
"But what's beautiful can't be bad. You're not bad, North Wind?"
"No; I'm not bad. But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad, and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty. So little boys may be mistaken if they go after things because they are beautiful."
"Well, I will go with you because you are beautiful and good too."
"Ah, but there's another thing, Diamond. What if I should look ugly without being bad-- look ugly myself because I am making ugly things beautiful? What then?"
"I don't quite understand you, North Wind. You tell me what then."
"Well, I will tell you....If you see me flapping wings like a bat's, as big as the whole sky, don't be frightened. If you hear me raging ten times worse than Mrs Bill, the blacksmith's wife--you must believe that I am doing my work. Nay, Diamond, if I change into a serpent or a tiger, you must not let go your hold on me, for my hand will never change in yours if you keep a good hold. If you keep a hold, you will know who I am all the time, even when you look at me and can't see me the least like the North Wind. I may look something awful. Do you understand?"
"Quite well," said little Diamond.
"Come along, then," said North Wind, and disappeared behind the mountain of hay.
Diamond crept out of bed and followed her.
He kept writing until well into his 73rd year - even though his health worsened because of his tendency to develop asthma, bronchits and eczema which has also kept him from sleeping well. He said it was foolish to say that after a certain age, a man ceases to grow. As he revealed in a passage from Paul Faber, Surgeon: "A man who does not care and ceases to grow, becomes torpid, stiffens, is in a sense dead; but he who has been growing need never stop; and where growth is, there is always capability of change: growth itself is a succession of slow, ascending changes".
The popularity and the fairy element in his books continued to this day. He attracted the interest of some of the most celebrated literary critics of the 20th century including C.S. Lewis (author of Chronicles of Narnia) and J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings). C.S. Lewis commented, "What he does best is fantasy....And this, in my opinion, he does better than any man.....MacDonald is the greatest genius of this kind whom I know." Poet WH Auden said, "In his power....to project his inner life into images...., he is one of the most remarkable writers of the nineteenth century."
I loved his portrayal of the innocence of childhood, nature and the Scottish mountains, streams and fields. He had an unique approach to dreams and a tender but penetrating wisdom concerning death as can be seen in ABNW.
The legacy of his literary gift lives on, and his major works can be found in The Golden Key.
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