Name: Lilith
Rating: 3.625 (16 reviews)
ISBN: 9781881084563

George MacDonald

A Variorum Edition

Lilith

"I was dead, and right content," the narrator says in the penultimate chapter of Phantastes. C.S. Lewis said that upon reading this astonishing 19th-century fairy tale he "had crossed a great frontier," and numerous others both before and since have felt similarly. In MacDonald's fairy tales, both those for children and (like this one) those for adults, the "fairy land" clearly represents the spiritual world, or our own world revealed in all of its depth and meaning. At times almost forthrightly allegorical, at other times richly dreamlike (and indeed having a close connection to the symbolic world of dreams), this story of a young man who finds himself on a long journey through a land of fantasy is more truly the story of the spiritual quest that is at the core of his life's work, a quest that must end with the ultimate surrender of the self. The glory of MacDonald's work is that this surrender is both hard won (or lost!) and yet rippling with joy when at last experienced. As the narrator says of a heavenly woman in this tale, "She knew something too good to be told." One senses the same of the author himself. Newly designed and typeset in a modern 6-by-9-inch format by Waking Lion Press.

Phantastes

Greg Talbot

It's the oddest book isn't it? Phantastes, was recommended to me by my cousin, and i'm sure he was acquainted by it's storied influence on Lewis Carol, J.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewin. It isn't but a few pages in before you feel transported into the Fairyland alongside our twenty-one year old narrator Anodos. Perhaps more than any other fantasy book i've read, the seemless transition between reality and fantasy makes the escapades intoxicating. The gentle dreamlike arrival from a comfortable dwelling to the boughes of trees, and gardens of fairies, seems like a world we can imagine just on the outerbouroughs of our travails. The stories that our traveler comes across seem to echo in his story as well. Whether it it is the story of infatuation with Cosmo and the Marble Lady (ch. 13) or the Arthurian Sir Percival character, these stories burn into Anodos mind, and later influence the experiences he has in the pursuit of the feminine divine, and perhaps some knightly pursuit. I found it to be an incredibly difficult book to read, mostly because of the layered and expressionistic language. More attentive readers than myself can go time into the poems and literary references that mark each other. The journey itself takes so many strange turns, and often quite dark, with troublesome trolls, haunting shadows, zombie-like character reveals, and near-death experiences. With difficulty comes great joy though. Like many readers that strive for understanding and narrative, I felt humbled, and at times, comforted by MacDonald's graceful illustrative writing. We need far more portals into the unknown - they force us to see ourselves, and our values in a new light. We can contemplate the unsatisficatoriness of romantic pursuits, or impermenance of beauty. The companions we take for friends or the enemies we fear often are less cut and dry that we imagine. We seek the path because we need - to travel beyond bedrooms, gardens and safe territorities, reminds us that there we are built for far braver worlds and seek brilliant things to find - we can cut along the strangest paths and find in ourselves something we never knew, but always know we needed.

Anodos enters a dream-like fairyland of tree-spirits and magic, where he searches for the spirit of the Earth

Simon Elliott Stegall

Too boring for me to finish. I understand that McDonald was important for the fantasy genre, but he can't hold my attention for more than a paragraph. Maybe this says more about me than the book, but I couldn't bring myself to finish the last 30 pages.

Macdonald, George

After he followed the old man through the mirror, nothing in his life was ever right again. It was a special mirror, and the man he followed was a special man

Joshua Line

Terry Thomas

Rjyan C Kidwell

Sunyi Dean

Aleena Korell

Lilith is considered among the darkest of MacDonald's works, and among the most profound. It is a story concerning the nature of life, death and salvation. Many believe MacDonald is arguing for Christian universalism, or the idea that all will eventually be saved.

Lilith A Variorum Edition

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