The Golden Key, George Macdonald (365 Books, Day 252)

[rushthatspeaks]

Then the Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down.

“That is the way,” he said.

“But there are no stairs.”

“You must throw yourself in. There is no other way.”

She turned and looked him full in the face— stood so for a whole minute, as she thought: it was a whole year— then threw herself headlong into the hole.

There is something Stephen King said once, in I think Danse Macabre, which has stuck with me, which is that you can tell whether something is good at what it is doing by the resonance it makes in you. He was talking about horror movies, and saying that sometimes it is worth sitting through an entire film full of dreadful schlock, for the sake of the instant when everything comes together and chimes like crystal struck. You can hear that ring in the oddest of places, and sometimes it is for only one instant, and sometimes you can't put your finger on it but can only say that, there, that thing, yes. That is the ring of the authentic and the true.

And sometimes there is something that is from start to finish one resonance of that clear tone.

George Macdonald is a wildly erratic writer for me; as I have mentioned I love both Lilith and Phantastes, and also The Princess and the Goblin, but I read The Light Princess day before yesterday and-- well. There are sentences of it that resound, mostly involving the moon on the water, but. And The Princess and Curdie is terrible.

So my thanks to those of you who recommended The Golden Key, as it is an antidote to that side of Macdonald. I have no idea whether anyone else likes this sort of thing, although I expect so, because it is full of things that are beautiful and unusual: a land in which shadows are piled in drifts, higher than snow; feathered fish that swim through the air.

But it is a kind of story that resonates so strongly with me that I cannot say much about it. It is the kind of story that acts on me like the clapper of a bell: in short, why I read fantasy. I have spent a lot of my reading life listening for that resonance in the tiny instances, so so much of it at once can be a little overwhelming, although entirely delightful. If there is a kind of book you love, I hope that every so often you have the joy of running into something that is nothing but that. It doesn't happen frequently, and wouldn't be as valuable if it did.

Comments

[sonia]

Thank you for the recommendation. I'm enjoying reading your book reviews.

I've had strong responses to George MacDonald's books in the past, both positive and negative, so I got this one out of the library based on your review. I'm glad I did, although my response was different from yours. I wrote it up here.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

That bit you quoted, out of everything I've ever read that has made a big impression on me, is probably the one which became the biggest touchstone of my life. Before nearly every important decision of my life, I have at some point thought, "You must throw yourself in. There is no other way."

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite books is Lewis's THE PILGRIM'S REGRESS, which has a similar scene, which he probably borrowed from MacDonald.

[sovay]

She turned and looked him full in the face— stood so for a whole minute, as she thought: it was a whole year— then threw herself headlong into the hole.

I will read this book.

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad you read it. I incautiously tried to teach it once, to blank incomprehension and many cries of "But it doesn't make SENSE!!!!!" Which led to a long discussion on emotional logic and mysticism--probably useful for them, but depressed me considerably. This story lives next to my heart, which is what it is speaking to.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I thought you would love it. It is purely numinous.

(Somewhere I have an old commonplace book in which I copied out that passage.)

Nine

[genarti]

I read this when I was young; I remember almost nothing about it, except moments of beauty that I can't quite grasp the memory of, and a general sense of enjoying it but never being quite sure if I understood it or if I was meant to.

I should try reading it again.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

I might seriously need this book — there are a lot of things in my life that aren't happening because I haven't really thrown myself into them. Sometimes I feel like it's a matter of not having been shown the hole yet, but maybe that's a matter of not throwing myself in on a different level, and when I do, the next hole will become clear...

On the other hand, having epiphanies has kinda been my full-time job for the last two weeks, and I feel a lot more ready than before to "throw myself into" my research, so I may have to call a time-out on revelations and initiations for the time being. (Persephone smiles benificently at the idea of a time-out on revelations, in a way that suggests that She's sympathetic but also knows something She's not telling me...)

I rather enjoyed The Princess and Curdie, but I think that's because there's enough Real True Divinity in it for me to ignore what is terrible in it. That and The Princess and the Goblin are all of MacDonald I've read so far, but I see I'm going to have to delve deeper (pun intended) into his work.

[juushika.livejournal.com]

I just read this today, on the basis of this review. My own is here (http://juushika.livejournal.com/711824.html). Mostly, though, I wanted to say thank you for writing about this book. I read The Princess and the Goblin long ago, and have been meaning to pick up more MacDonald. I'm glad I read this, and did, because this story is remarkable.