Staying at George MacDonalds School

Today I take a flight to Aberdeen and will have dinner with a theolgy student named Liam. I will also be staying at the student accomodation of the Uni of Aberdeen, where one of my heros George MacDonald attended school last century. George studied theology here and then moved south to England where he was a Congregational minister in Arundel for a few years and then wrote some superb fantasy and fairy tales, inspired by the German Novalis and other Romantic writers. Lewis Carroll (not his real name) was a contemporary and friend, and gave a copy of Alice in Wonderland to GeorgeMacDonald to see if it was worth publishing.

MacdonaldGeorge MacDonald has been called the father of modern fantasy. His writing marks a turning point from straight up fiction a’la Pilgrims Progress (Bunyan) to a complex world of superimposition, compositon, and narrative layering that is now the basis for many movies, fantasy genres, and computer games. He was a huge influence on Tolkein (you can spot MacDonald themes in LOTR) and on W.H. Auden, Madaleine L’Engle, and of course, CS Lewis, who wrote an autobiography of MacDonald and called him his “Mentor”. George MacDonald died, if i remember correctly, in 1905. Perhaps we should do something special this year for the 100th anniversary of his death.

Many of MacDonald’s books (52?) are available as free downloads from Johannesen.org – The Johannesen family are actually friends of ours from the Redwoods in California. Best bets for reading George MacDonald? I feel strongly that Lilith is by far his greatest book and it is a crime that no one has made a movie out of it yet. You really have to read it. “Phantastes” is also great, although, like most of his books, far more ‘preachy’ and less subtle than CS Lewis. As well as his two fantasy books, MacDonald wrote fairy tales -My favourite is “At the Back of the North Wind”.The theme is similar to “The Wise Woman” in which he uses superb imagery of the Holy Spirit as a woman – sometimes cranky, sometimes nice, easily greived, full of wisdom. “The Portent” has shades of Harry Potter and is worth reading. Hope you have fun with those downloads – i have bought a few of the MacDonald books from Johannesens – they are printed exactly the same way as the originals – very cool.

Tomorrow i am off to London and then Frankfurt for a conference with the 4-Square Mission. Talk to you later.

Andrew

Andrew Jones launched his first internet space in 1997 and has been teaching on related issues for the past 20 years. He travels all the time but lives between Wellington, San Francisco and a hobbit home in Prague.

8 Comments

  • Matt says:

    He did indeed die in 1905. We moved over the Christmas holidays and I came across my collection of his writings. I started reading Phantastes again. Very inspirational stuff.
    The theme of Phantastes should confort you as you deal with your fear of death…
    “The very fact that anything can die, implies the existence of something that cannot die.”
    Maybe its better to live in the new…

  • Andrew Jones says:

    Cool, Matt.
    My favourite quote from MacDonald, and i think i am quoting it correctly, is this . .
    “God insists that all people everywhere be happy and come home.”

  • Liam Byrnes says:

    Hey Andrew, Look forward to having dinner, I see today is the first day of the Emergant Tour, does that mean Im the first stop, hehe only kidding….You can use Broadband at mine tonight unfortunatly for you though on a windows PC, its the academic medium unfortunatly. Also there Free WiFi where were going for Dinner.
    See you laters
    Liam

  • Andrew Jones says:

    Liam, i sms’ed you on this:
    i leave at 5:40 pm – bit later than i planned.

  • Katy Raymond says:

    Andrew–Thanks for pointing us to the site for ordering MacDonald books! I’m so thrilled with the possibilities….

  • Adam says:

    George Macdonald’s Unspoken Sermons is also priceless.
    So glad to see him mentioned!

  • My wife and I love MacDonald’s writings. It’s our favorite ‘read to each other’ material. Thanks for the post and the links.

  • oops… first post mis-fired.
    My wife and I love MacDonald’s writings. It’s our favorite ‘read to each other’ material. Thanks for the post and the links.

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