Part II of my review of A Treasury of Fantasy covers only one entry, but it accounts for a good quarter of the length of the anthology. Part I can be found here. The selection in question is George MacDonald’s Phantastes. A Faerie Romance for Men and Women.
The first chapter of Phantastes reminds me of Lilith, his later, perhaps more mature work that I’ve covered previously. Both begin with a wealthy young man living in a grand estate and coming into his inheritance only to almost immediately meet a supernatural creature who sets his feet on the path of fantastical adventure. A couple of general notes I found of interest: The sentient — and apparently mobile — trees of early in the book can’t help but call to mind the Old Forest, Fangorn, Old Man Willow, and the Ents. The faeries are largely of the Victorian mold and thus somewhat diminish the undercurrent of menace a Tolkien enthusiast might prefer to encounter in the Perilous Realm.
The story becomes rather episodic as the narrator traverses the forest, blundering into one adventure after another (in the tradition of Broceliande and other such numinous forests.) Anodos, our narrator (“Anodos” means “pathless” in Greek, which is a rather on the nose name given his seemingly pointless meandering) is a rather feckless sort of hero, being delivered from perils not by his own skill, daring, or native luck, but by last minute rescuers. We get hints that the fairy land and the mundane world in some ways overlap, especially when one holds a positive, rosy outlook. But a negative, bitter, or incurious attitude obscures the wonders, beauties, (and dangers) of the fairy world.
“As through the hard rock go the branching of silver veins, as into the solid land run the creeks and gulfs from the unresting sea; as the lights and influences of the upper worlds sink silently through the earth’s atmosphere, so doth Faerie invade the world of men and sometimes startle the common eye with an association of cause and effect, when between the two no connecting links can be traced.” (p. 183.)
Eventually we get more of an inkling as to the thesis of the story. It is, it seems, a moral journey. The distant echoes of Pilgrim’s Progress are inescapable, though this isn’t so directly theological. The varied and disjointed adventures appear allegorical in nature. The intent of such allegories, I confess, may have well eluded me more than once. Still, the thrust seems to be Anodos’ personal and/or spiritual growth as he wanders without seeming purpose through increasingly bizarre (but gorgeously imagined) scenes and scenarios. He gains and loses a shadow (sin, presumably), falls in love and pursues the object of his affection, becomes a martial hero, indeed a knight. Yet all of this leads only to his discovery that it is not such pursuits that necessarily make the man, but rather selflessness and service to others, even if that means recognizing that his object of affection is better off with another. The clearest evidence of his growth and the purpose of the novel seems to me found in page 242:
“I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fail and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious. I only saw it too plainly, to set myself for a moment beside it. Indeed, my ideal soon became my life; whereas, formerly, my life had consisted in a vain attempt to behold, if not my ideal in myself, at least myself in my ideal.”
Anodos ultimately becomes a better man through an act of self-sacrifice performed from pure altruism rather than self-conscious heroism. And there is, more or less, a happy ending, though one that fails to connect with the opening of the book and tie-up loose ends (perhaps too much of a modern/technical criticism.)
I appreciate the quality of the work done. Many of the tales within the tale are compelling and entertaining, including those in verse (and there is a great deal of verse.) The imagery and sheer idiosyncratic, one-of-a-kind creativity on display is worth the trip through. Once, anyway. However, some of my feelings can best be summed up by the quote from the knight who truly is a hero in the story: “You see this Fairy Land is full of oddities and all sorts of incredibly ridiculous things, which a man is compelled to meet and treat as real existences, although all the time he feels foolish for doing so.” That’s rather how I saw it. Much of it seemed the narrator’s ride through a carnival sideshow, viewing interesting things and characters, but generally lacking interaction with them.
I suppose Mac Donald, however, might feel that such viewings helped guide the protagonist to his epiphany; the whole point of which is summed up in page 254:
“…it is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of another.”
And that is perfectly valid. It comes down to why one is reading fantasy, at least on a given day. If you are in the mood for edification and curious, beautifully oneiric scenery this is an excellent choice. If, however, you are in the mood for something rather more heroic and action-filled, Phantastes might leave you wanting. We’ll see if the next selection of A Treasure of Fantasy is a somewhat less moralizing entry. If you are currently in the mood for action-filled, heroic fiction (I would dream of attempting to compete with the Reverend MacDonald in the arena of edifying and uplifting) why not give this a try?
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