Hugo List

[sartorias]

Not much to say about the fiction--as always, a nod for some things and a huh? for others. But one thing that really pleased me was seeing The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer; appendix by David Bratman (Kent State University Press) on that list

Comments

Re: a most unfortunately named book....Perhaps I have just read far far too much slash.

[sartorias]

Well, Glyer talks about him within the context of her chosen topic. As for others, I dunno!

Re: a most unfortunately named book....Perhaps I have just read far far too much slash.

[steepholm]

That must be aggravating. In children's lit circles MacDonald does enjoy more of an independent existence - though that wouldn't apply to the two books you mention.

I must admit, I read Phantastes as a youngster only because I recognized the name from reading about CSL's chance purchase on Leatherhead railway station, and I was a CSL fanchild even then. (On the plus side, at least CSL was generous about acknowledging his influences, for example casting MacDonald as his Virgil in The Great Divorce.) But I loved it a lot for itself, too - even to the extent of setting the whole of the "Ballad of Sir Aglovale" to guitar.

"Alas how easily things go wrong,
A sigh too much or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain
And life is never the same again."

It's trite - but true!

Re: a most unfortunately named book....Perhaps I have just read far far too much slash.

[sartorias]

I should pull him out again. I read them all dutifully in my mid teens--I say dutifully because I was mostly bored stiff. My spouse loved At the Back of the North Wind, which I did not.

Re: a most unfortunately named book....Perhaps I have just read far far too much slash.

[rhinemouse]

You might try The Golden Key. I haven't read that (or any other MacDonald) since I was fourteen, but I'm still haunted by some of the imagery in that.

Re: a most unfortunately named book....Perhaps I have just read far far too much slash.

[sartorias]

I think that's the one I like best, yes.

Re: a most unfortunately named book....Perhaps I have just read far far too much slash.

[carbonelle]

Give The Light Princess a Try - I reread that one nearly every year (and if you can get a copy with the Maurice Sendak illos it's a bonus)

Re: a most unfortunately named book....Perhaps I have just read far far too much slash.

[sartorias]

Oh yes! I will--I recall I liked that one, I just haven't seen it for a long time.

Re: the phantastic

[steepholm]

While I'm being an annoyed culture vulture I also dislike seeing E Nesbit mentioned only as a predecessor to the Narnia books.

People do that, too? That's ridiculous, if so. (Again, though, CSL was very open about his debts to Nesbit, namechecking the Bastables at the start of The Magician's Nephew - which is pretty much a Nesbit homage anyway - and praising The Story of the Amulet in Surprised by Joy.)

And there I was, worrying that Mrs Molesworth was only mentioned as a precursor to E. Nesbit...

Re: a most unfortunately named book....

[kalimac]

There's a good amount of work on MacDonald as an independent figure. I was recently looking at a fairly new book, Baptized Imagination: The Theology of George MacDonald by Kerry Dearborn.

To my mind, the nadir of viewing one author through the prism of another comes in some collections of stories by Lord Dunsany, whose editors present him basically as of interest solely for his influence on H.P. Lovecraft. To my mind this is like valuing Tolkien solely for his influence on Donaldson.