Lilith. George MacDonald’s Visit to Heaven

I’m not sure I possess the tools to discuss George MacDonald’s Lilith. This is not, I flatter myself, because I lack the mental capacity, but because I inhabit a different conceptual universe than that of a Victorian-era minister. (Note I do not write Victorian minister: I gathered the impression that MacDonald did not entirely approve of the zeitgeist of his age.) I do not view the world through his particular 19th Century Congregationalist lens. Much then, that he meant to transmit I could not fully receive, seeing his vision only through a glass darkly.

Still, I believe I got the gist. In his introduction to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series edition of Lilith, Lin Carter writes: “Do not read MacDonald consciously hunting for meanings to the allegories.” I think that, in part, Carter was being deliberately disingenuous in order to avoid deterring readers who might not be interested in reading what is, fundamentally, a deeply Christian work.

That, however, isn’t at all clear from the through-the-looking-glass (or, seen from a later perspective, through the wardrobe) beginning. The story takes its time, leading the narrator (Mr. Vane, which may be a reference to a weather vane shifting with the prevailing winds or someone possessed of the vanity of “reason”, or both, or neither) through a mirror in the attic of his house into a bewildering world, occasionally guided by a doyen in the form of raven. Slowly a more or less cohesive other world is developed, one operating more on spiritual rather than physical logic. As it does, the vaguely Pilgrim’s Progress aspect becomes more apparent. The themes of salvation and resurrection become obvious, though to give Carter his due, I imagine many of the allegories are lost on me and rather than trying to puzzle them out it would be best to: “Immerse yourself in the book, lose yourself in it.”

It is clear after reading this how seminal of a work it truly is, even second hand. The influences on later writers are hard to escape, C.S. Lewis being an obvious example. At times I thought I caught ghost echoes from the Lord of the Rings, just fleeting images and impressions, a sort of literary déjà vu.

I’m not going to lie to you, reader: at times I found Lilith a bit of a slog. You can take the boy out of Philistia, but you can’t take the Philistine out of the boy. But the mystery and sheer imaginative power, along with MacDonald’s poetic language, carried me through. And I’m glad I stuck with it. Some may read this as a powerful work of consolation written by a minister near the end of his life. Others may read it as a moving, beautiful work of self-delusion. I don’t judge. Either way, it is a masterpiece, a magnum opus, and a vital piece of the corpus of fantastic literature.

Moving from evaluating Lilith to the huckster act of selling my own scribblings might be going from the sublime to the ridiculous. But one has to pay the bills. (And after hurricane Beryl, I am anticipating bills, at least in the form of insurance deductibles. I hope any of you reading this that were in the path of the storm survived relatively unscathed.) Why not give the exploits of Karl Thorson a try? The Semi-Autos and Sorcery series is good, two-fisted fun.

 

 

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