Many years ago , a young Oxford student named CS Lewis, who was to become the author of forty books including the bestseller, Chronicles of Narnia, reluctantly purchased a novel by George MacDonald called Phantastes, a Faerie Romance at a secondhand bookshop while waiting for a train. A few hours later, he knew he was on his way out as a sound atheist towards a progressive belief in a monotheistic God. Lewis, the literary critic acknowledged his debt to the Scottish novelist, by saying that 'I had never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him" ,"Now Phantastes ... had about it a sort of cool, morning innocence ... What it actually did to me was to convert, even to baptise ... my imagination."
More than a master, CS Lewis, have been known to look upon George MacDonald, as his heavenly guide. The 19th century Scottish master storyteller can be considered a pioneer in fantasy fiction in his time. His works may have lapsed into obscurity among our present generation of readers but he has been an inspiration to writers like JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams,G.K. Chesterton and Madeleine L’Engle. The mention of fantasy in our modern times may conjure up notions of magic, witchcraft, dungeons and dragons, the good versus evil and so on. However, MacDonald's work of fantasy was of the old nature, where both the good and evil nature is intrinsic in the character of the hero of the story. Many have considered fantasy and myth as worthless stories made up as lies. But lies they are not. According to Tolkien, 'Far from being lies they were the best way, sometimes the only way, of conveying truths that would otherwise remain inexpressible. We have come from God and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God'.
When MacDonald wrote Phantastes in 1857, he described it as “a kind of fairy tale, in the hope that it will pay me better than the more evidently serious work.” It was the turning point in the literary career of the visionary novelist. The story is about the adventures of a young man, named Anodos, as he enters into an archetypal fairyland where he encounters evil spirits, horrifying creatures and also beautiful beings. Sometimes it may seem that he is wandering aimlessly in the mysterious land but there are always lessons to be learned, including some profoundly deep spiritual insights and concepts of love. He often falls prey to temptations due to pride. His vulnerability to human love continues to haunt his mind until the book's end. MacDonald stood head and shoulder above other fiction writers because he was able to convey moral teachings through a series of paradoxes - how in order to live, one must die, how treasured things must be given away in order to be found. And he did this through a beautiful, though sometimes twisted storyline filled with pathos. It's something like an 'Alice in Wonderland', written by his family friend, Lewis Caroll, but meant for grownups
The book is heavy with symbolism. This is one of the concepts which I picked up as I read through books by both CS Lewis and MacDonald over the years. By symbolism, a person tries to see something else through the senses, to find a meaning that is more real than is apparent. It is hoped that when others see the responses to natural beauty for example, through literary or artistic means, they would also recognise similar responses of their own. Here is an excerpt from Phantastes to illustrate the point:
Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality?— not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is fairer still. Yea, the reflecting ocean itself, reflected in the mirror, has a wondrousness about its waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn towards itself...... In whatever way it may be accounted for, of one thing we may be sure, that this feeling is no cheat; for there is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning. Even the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land..... The moon, which is the lovelier memory or reflex of the down-gone sun, the joyous day seen in the faint mirror of the brooding night, had rapt me away.
The other concept, in which I am a strong advocate, is called romanticism. As Lewis explained, "It is the attempt to reach religious truths by means and techniques traditionally called romantic." It is not anything new, but a presentation of truths in modern terms. The image of the beloved is the image of divine beauty. This interplay between reality and pictured reality is closely interwoven with a certain joy, that is man' longing for eternal home.You find these themes recurring in Phantastes:
I sat long by the fire, meditating, and wondering how it would all end; and when at length, wearied with thinking, I betook myself to my own bed, it was half with a hope that, when I awoke in the morning, I should awake not only in my own room, but in my own castle also; and that I should walk, out upon my own native soil, and find that Fairy Land was, after all, only a vision of the night. The sound of the falling waters of the fountain floated me into oblivion.
The circumstances in which children are born in a certain part of the Fairy-Land are rather peculiar - more like a discovery:
Now the children, there, are not born as the children are born in worlds nearer to the sun. For they arrive no one knows how. A maiden, walking alone, hears a cry: for even there a cry is the first utterance; and searching about, she findeth, under an overhanging rock, or within a clump of bushes, or, it may be, betwixt gray stones on the side of a hill, or in any other sheltered and unexpected spot, a little child. This she taketh tenderly, and beareth home with joy, calling out, “Mother, mother”—if so be that her mother lives—“I have got a baby—I have found a child!” All the household gathers round to see;—“Where is it? What is it like? Where did you find it?” and such-like questions, abounding. And thereupon she relates the whole story of the discovery.....
As the children are nurtured and become grownups, there is another distinct peculiarity:
After they grow up, the men and women are but little together. There is this peculiar difference between them, which likewise distinguishes the women from those of the earth. The men alone have arms; the women have only wings. Resplendent wings are they, wherein they can shroud themselves from head to foot in a panoply of glistering glory.
And, again that longing for eternal home:
The sign or cause of coming death is an indescribable longing for something, they know not what, which seizes them, and drives them into solitude, consuming them within, till the body fails. When a youth and a maiden look too deep into each other’s eyes, this longing seizes and possesses them; but instead of drawing nearer to each other, they wander away, each alone, into solitary places, and die of their desire.
If the book itself (in PDF format) is about travels, then I would consider myself as a fellow traveller along with Anodos. With so many new things to discover in this strange land, wonderfilled experiences came to me as if I was walking, fighting, suffering and even rejoicing like Anodos himself. To the modern reader, this is not an action packed fantasy. book. Instead this is a phantastic book of high phantasy, where you get to read the mind of a mystical writer in his highly imaginative mood.
