Customer Reviews

Phantastes

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an enchanting work of high fantasy, lyrical in its composition, spiritual in its nature, and enlightening in its effect on the careful reader. As the subtitle says, Phantastes is a Faerie Romance For Men and Women. The Fairy Land in which Anodos, the narrator, ventures is not the fairy land of youth's innocent dreams; rather, it is an otherworldly plane full of great beauty and terrible ugliness, impish little fairies and horrible, teasing goblins, nurturing spirits and malevolent entities. Anodos' discovery of a fairy inside his deceased father's old desk leads to his unplanned journey into this world of wonder. Interestingly, upon entering Fairy Land, Anodos leaves the beaten path and makes his way through the woods all on his own. He meets a diverse cast of characters along the way, reckoning with dark beings who threaten his spiritual well-being while also finding great and needed comfort at crucial times from nurturing maternal forces. His own shadow takes on perhaps the most malevolent influence of all the beings he deals with. He often finds himself compelled to sing, and his songs are powerful enough to free a beautiful White Lady from inside a statue; he remains infatuated with this lady for a long time, trying desperately to find her; his love for her, he comes to realize, comes in large part from his feelings of having been the one to free her, and an important point the author seems to be suggesting is that the love of a giver is much more pure than the love of a benefactor.

Much of this story is allegorical; Anodos basically comes to know himself and to see the world more objectively as a result of his journeys. He often resorts to tears, yet he also raises his voice in song to uplift others. He discovers the power of brotherly love and the beauty that is all around, yet he cringes at the sight of the shadowy creatures that would do him ill. His journey is challenging because he naturally falls prey to feelings of pride and egotism, but his losses and sorrows eventually coalesce themselves into something of beauty, for it is these experiences that help him grow more spiritual. Much has been made of MacDonald's religious beliefs, but Phantastes to me calls forth no religion other than spiritualism and personal growth and maturity. Good and evil do not exist in Fairy Land, except in the sense that there is both good and evil in each individual spirit.

Doubtless, some will not like MacDonald's 19th-century, florid style. There is action in this novel, but it definitely takes a back seat to exposition and philosophical musings. Some will surely find Phantastes exceptionally boring, but those readers willing to follow Anodos deeply into Fairy Land will embark on an enlightening, touching read that will almost surely make them better persons for having taken the literary journey.

The author was unknown to me when I first picked up this book. I had last delved into fantasy novels as a child, the most notable being the writings of Tolkien & CS Lewis. Phantastes was something on another level completely. Where it may lack the adventure, characterisation & humour of other books, it is a powerful psychological journey. While reading, I was "Anodos" and his experience in the Faerie Lands brought revelatory knowledge of my innermost self. I wept as I slept securely in the warm presence of the Beech & felt again the deep maternal love of my mother for her young child. I shuddered with the recognition of the infernal shadow that sped toward me in the Ogre's cottage knowing that the picture matched my own experience also, and I left that house running, carrying with me an overwhelming sense of despair. I also found that as the character Anodos found redemption and finally his release, that I too, have known this longing all my life. George MacDonald, the author was a man who travelled a hard road, constantly seeing those dear to him dying of the prevalent illnesses of the Victorian era. He lost his mother at a young age and the memory of her is felt through most of his work as are many of the influential & formative experiences of his life. He is a man motivated to use his perceptive writing to influnce people to be greater men & women and I thank him for it.

Throughout his adult life, CS Lewis repeatedly asserted that George MacDonald was his `master,' his mentor. Without MacDonald's works (and this one in particular), there may never have been a Lewis as we know him. Besides that, MacDonald has heavily influenced such other creators of fantasy as JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, and GK Chesterton. Madeleine L'Engle calls MacDonald the `Grandfather' of all who attempt to understand life through fantasy. Indeed, he is a grandfather of modern fantasy of sorts.

This particular novel had a profound impact on CS Lewis's conversion to Christianity. He claims that it `baptized' his mind, and that it was this book which really got the ball rolling for Lewis's path back to his faith. Phantastes is about a young man named Anodos who finds himself in another world (called Fairy-land) one morning. As he wanders around Fairy-Land, he has a series of adventures and learns many valuable lessons. Along the way he meets many strange creatures, some terrifying and some beautiful.

As Lewis himself has pointed out, MacDonald's books are not incredibly well-written. His descriptions, however, are rich and enchanting, and the effect created by his vivid imagery is very powerful. The narrative is somewhat confused, consisting mainly of many adventures which scarcely seem interrelated. Most importantly, though, are the lessons young Anodos learns along the way, and this is the importance of the book.

MacDonald was a master of teaching valuable lessons through fantasy. Lewis, Tolkien, and others have since combined the ability to teach moral lessons through fantasy with powerful and compelling narrative, but MacDonald can truly be considered a pioneer of sorts. Light readers of Christian apology or fantasy will do better with CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, or GK Chesterton's works, which have more engaging storylines. Still, for anyone with a strong interest in Lewis or any of the others, this book is a must-read, as it is a work which has inspired many of the great Christian and fantasy authors of the twentieth-century.

How do I go about writing a review of this book? It's sort of an arrogant undertaking, really. It suggests, somehow, that my opinion of this book is of some consequence, and that in turn puts me in a critical position above MacDonald - vying to be one of Kierkegaard's 'panel of authorities' that every generation sets up to judge the pervious generations, who can no longer speak for themselves.

So instead of climbing on my pedestal and judging where I am not fit to judge, I will try instead to tell you about what it IS - not how it rates in some abstract book rating.

MacDonald was one of the only true prophetic minds of the modern era. He had a closeness to the spiritual world that I do not believe can be now matched. All that is not really my opinion, because it is a blinding truth - as any who read his many books would be forced to admit. When the sun shines, only a fool denies it. Reading MacDonald is like looking at that sun.

I don't think that the recommendations of his many famous admirers (C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Lewis Carrol among them) really are relevant - MacDonald's work can easily speak for itself. When Bach's raving about Vivaldi resurrected that composer's works, it soon became apparent that they could exist in their own right - outside of the shadow of their monolithic admirer. The same is true for MacDonald.

It's not really a question of whether or not this is a good book, so much as it is whether or not you are in the right place to read it. If you're going to try to read this book, you would be wise to approach it with patience, an open mind, and a respect both for religious experience and spiritual truth. You'd be better served by this book if you are more a lover of Shakespeare and Spenser than Freud and Einstein, and have more concern for the eternal things than those of modern science (this is being said by someone in the cognitive sciences, mind you). If you expect to be able to warp MacDonald's message and vision to your own ends, you will be sorely disappointed, as it will not work (without outright lying) - and will lead to frustration. If you are looking for pat moralisms, as is often found in modern 'religious' rhetoric, which are suitable only to nourish the most impoverished, or if you're the seeking poorly-reasoned mysticism of the modern Lord of the Rings fanboys, you're looking in the wrong book. If you're looking for a light-hearted fairy tale, suitable for children at bedtime - you're in the wrong book (Although MacDonald has several others that would fit this need), as this one involves many complex and frightening passages.

Therein lie some of the reasons for MacDonald's limited popularity - he is not 'accessible' in the current sense. He cannot be remade by every generation into a patsy to mouth modern ideology. Modern sensibilities would label him a 'dinosaur' - a cro-magnon crazy old man with a wild white beard - a re-incarnation of those old testament prophets that modern church-people studiously skip over in their Bible studies. Consider - his own church tried to starve him to death. He talked to God - and the message he brings back is both shockingly beautiful, and so bright as to be uncomfortable. It was the consuming fire of inexhorable love in the book of Hebrews that most embodied God to MacDonald, and that consuming fire has found its way into his books' pages. In his higher works of fantasy (like this book) and his sermons, MacDonald will stomp on your pet political ideologies, he will make you ashamed of your selfish religious dogmas, and he will take from you the ill-begotten authority that pervades the modern religious 'intelligentsia'. Either you will learn to deal with these things, or you'll find another book to read, most likely.

If you are looking for an honest fairy tale, full of truth, depth, and spiritual insight - a myth in the best sense - you'll find few books more to your liking. The entire story is submerged in a world of intense personal introspection, in which the things of the spiritual world are brought forth into the physical one. MacDonald believed that all pieces of the 'physical' world around us are forms that we can give meaning to - 'crystal vases to hold our emotions'. This book is one of his prime exercizes in this powerful form of Truth-telling. (Lillith being the other most notable)

Lewis was right - it will baptize your imagination. I can understand Lewis' reasons for featuring MacDonald so prominently in his works, since there is no other author I have ever read whom I would be so glad to have meet me in the afterlife.

Here was Lewis' own experience: "It must be more than thirty years ago that I bought the Everyman edition of Phantastes. A few hours later I knew that I had crossed a great frontier. I had already been waist deep in Romanticism; and likely enough, at any moment, to flounder into its darker and more evil forms, slithering down the steep descent that leads from the love of strangeness to that of eccentricity and thence to that of perversity. Now Phantastes was romantic enough in all conscience; but there was a difference. Nothing was at that time further from my thoughts than Christianity and I therefore had no notion what this difference really was. I was only aware that if this new world was strange, it was also homely and humble; that if this was a dream, it was a dream in which one at least felt strangely vigilant; that the whole book had about it a sort of cool, morning innocence, and also, quite unmistakably, a certain quality of Death, good Death. What it actually did to me was to convert, even to baptise my imagination. ... The quality which had enchanted me in his imaginative works turned out to be the quality of the real universe, the divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic reality in which we all live. I should have been shocked in my 'teens if anyone had told me that what I learned to love in Phantastes was goodness. But now that I know, I see there was no deception. The deception is all the other way round -- in that prosaic moralism which confines goodness to the region of Law and Duty, which never lets us feel in our face the sweet air blowing from 'the land of righteousness', never reveals that elusive Form which if once seen must inevitably be desired with all but sensuous desire -- the thing (in Sappho's phrase) 'more gold than gold'." An eloquent "review" from perhaps MacDonald's greatest admirer.

I was brought to this book through the works of C. S. Lewis, and I was not disappointed. Although it starts off a bit hard to read, it rapidly becomes a wonderful journey through the spiritual world described in a metaphorical manner. This is necessary because MacDonald attempts to describe the texture of spiritual truths that are beyond common human understanding. Readers will find this book to be different from his Victorian tales. His story goes deeper into controversial theological issues than he does in his other novels (other than "Lilith") and sermons. In so doing, he deals with a part of the spiritual arena that is usually dealt with only by New Age or Eastern philosophies. Thus, MacDonald demonstrates that Christianity can deal with such areas, and must not surrender this away to other faiths. He was way ahead of his time in his thinking about spiritual issues.

I, like many previous reviewers, came to read this book through the infleunce of C. S. Lewis. I was reading the Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, and came across some letters that he wrote while reading this book, and he highly recommended it to a friend (I think it was Arthur Greeves), so I decided to read it too.

To tell the truth, I almost gave up after I started, like some previous reviewers did. I am very glad that I did not. I do not know whether I just "got it," or whether the second half was just better than the first, but somehow when I got to the end, the book just made sense. I still cannot tell you the exact point where that happened, but I would highly recommend that if you start the book, finish it. Please do not read the first half then give up on it, for I think that one cannot really get this book unless one reads the whole thing.

Secondly, in response to those previous reviewers who say that they do not see the need to look at this as a product of MacDonald's Christianity: you are correct that you do not have to view it as such. However, I think you are incorrect in saying that it is not a Christian book. I know that many people read books like "The Voyage of the Dawn Treador," or "Prince Caspian" by C. S. Lewis and say that it is just a good fantasy book. However, they were written by C. S. Lewis as allegories of aspects of Christianity, whether you wish to see it as allegorical or not. I think that this is the point of writing as such: Christians can see that it is allegorical, while non-Christians can claim that it is not. I think that the purpose is to convey some truth whether it is consciously realized by the reader or not.

Now, specifically dealing with Phantastes, let me begin by saying that it is a very good fairy tale, though previous reviewers are correct in saying that the progress of the story is rather clumsy. This is the only reason that it gets only 4 stars. This jumping from one thing to another with little or no warning is I think what makes it so hard to read at first, and why many seem to give up on it, as I almost did. Either he stops doing it in the second half of the book, or you get used to it, I am not sure which it is.

The story itself is wonderful, a tale of a man journeying through fairy land. He is constantly troubled by pride, and it seems that each one of his many mistakes has a consequence. I cannot recall even one small error which was not repaid in some way. It is interesting, though, for the consequence was not always paid by him, but someone always payed it.
Also, one reviewer said that his poetry was "mediocre," but I though it superb. I must admit, I have not read a enormous amount of poetry, but I thought MacDonald's was much better than most of what I have read, and I was wishing he would have put more of it in.

Finally, it should also be read by any Tolkien, Lewis, or Chesterton entheusiatsts, just to get a better understanding of how their own tales developed. Admitedly, I preferred The Princess and the Goblin to Phantastes, but they are somehow of a different genre, though I am not sure how since they are both faerie novels.

I opened "Phantastes" to read becuase my favorite author and my "mentor", C.S. Lewis, had his mind "baptized" by the reading of it, and MacDonald was greatly admired by Lewis.
Oh, my mind was indeed changed after that.
I am an incurable romantic, delving in any poetry or novel that reminds me of heaven or salvation.
This book was not only a beautiful fairy tale, but it demonstrated the salvation of the main character. A man selfish and only doing what his whimsies carried him to do: in the end, all is lost, and he is completely dead to himself--yet unsuprisingly, he is far more alive than ever before, for he learns selflessness.
I did not rate it as best, because nothing can surpass the Chronicles of Narnia, At the Back of the North Wind, Till We Have Faces, and A Tale of Two Cities--yet if I could, I would actually give it 4.70 stars or so.
Excellent, exquisite... read it!!! I was lost within the pages I don't know how long, yet I was indeed happy while wandering through.

Phantastes is a small, yet complex book. I enjoyed this book even though I often felt compelled to put it down. I do not agree completely with Lewis when he says that McDonald's writing style is not his strength. Although the prose is sometimes rough or overly drawn-out in places, I cannot imagine this book being written any other way. Also, this book contains passages that convey great beauty. I recommend this book to all who have finally grown old enough to love fairy tales again.

I came to this story, having read some of MacDonald's writings years ago, and now being drawn to him through a brief biography I had read of him. I also had read (again) Lewis' The "Great Divorce," where MacDonald shows up in heaven as a guide. All of this drew me to "Phantastes."

I found myself struggling at first, not being a regular reader of the fantasy genre. As I read this story, I, like so many have alluded to above, found the story to be a bit uneven, or disjointed. Still, the symbolism of some episoides intrigued me, and kept me going. The more I read, the more enjoyable and delightful it became. Over all the book is very entertaining, and even edifying. I rarely say this about a read, but I was encouraged after reading this book.

There are parts of this book, lines, paragraphs, and even one chapter, where the authors words approach the masterpiece level. His word-craft is superb at moments and should not be missed.