heliopausa (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heliopausa) wrote2014-12-06 03:12 pm
heliopausa) wrote2014-12-06 03:12 pm
Reading and considering
Life has been very full-on lately, and I have a rotten cold, moan, moan, and I haven't done much reading. But I've finished Lilith, anyway.
Oh, what a mix of very unsatisfactory and wild and thought-provoking it is! I really didn't get on with the appallingly self-indulgent, protagonist - I know that's part of the point, that he has faults but he was never called on most of them, only on neglecting the Raven's wise counsel. And he ends up as the King of... well, as a King of some sort, anyway,which he doesn't, doesn't, doesn't deserve to! And the Little Ones narked me, too - but then I don't like the Eloi, either, and these were certainly some sort of kin to those, if only by being an accepted view of fairylike childhood of the times. (Here's how bad they were - Lewis Carroll's Bruno shows up as full of strong, admirable character by comparison.)
And the treatment of mothers, or the idea of motherhood - I just couldn't come at it. The way unsatisfactory mothers were simply tossed out of the plot, in favour of the maternal child Lona (and Eve, whose only visible child is an allegory) stank. This included mothers who had risked their lives to save their children from the genocidal princess, many making a dangerous journey by night to leave their children in a safe place, and one fighting a Leopard to keep her child safe. But all dismissed by Miss Perfecto Eloi Lona as "bad mothers", and unceremoniously dumped by the plot (one actually thrown to her death in front of the protagonist, who doesn't care) while their children snuggle down, choosing new mothers among the cold dead. Oh great!
I do like the inventiveness,and the brilliant descriptions of the uncanny and the paradisal, but overall I think it fails - it doesn't work as story, and it doesn't work as allegory. It's as good a dream-fantasy as Alice (much darker, of course) but it lacks Alice's moral clarity. I admired very much that it tried to wrestle with the question of redemption of evil, but I think the offhand condemnation of the bad giants and the bad mothers and <i>everyone</i> in the city clashed very badly with the Julian "all will be well" message. Great first draft, MacDonald; needs a lot of work.
And have also been considering various aspects of Narnia with transposable_element, on a 2013 DW thread here.The talk was getting rather squashed up, so I relocated the discussion here, on the very , very quiet NFFR_Forum board. Currently - did Lewis make Peter too good? All discussers welcome!
Oh, what a mix of very unsatisfactory and wild and thought-provoking it is! I really didn't get on with the appallingly self-indulgent, protagonist - I know that's part of the point, that he has faults but he was never called on most of them, only on neglecting the Raven's wise counsel. And he ends up as the King of... well, as a King of some sort, anyway,which he doesn't, doesn't, doesn't deserve to! And the Little Ones narked me, too - but then I don't like the Eloi, either, and these were certainly some sort of kin to those, if only by being an accepted view of fairylike childhood of the times. (Here's how bad they were - Lewis Carroll's Bruno shows up as full of strong, admirable character by comparison.)
And the treatment of mothers, or the idea of motherhood - I just couldn't come at it. The way unsatisfactory mothers were simply tossed out of the plot, in favour of the maternal child Lona (and Eve, whose only visible child is an allegory) stank. This included mothers who had risked their lives to save their children from the genocidal princess, many making a dangerous journey by night to leave their children in a safe place, and one fighting a Leopard to keep her child safe. But all dismissed by Miss Perfecto Eloi Lona as "bad mothers", and unceremoniously dumped by the plot (one actually thrown to her death in front of the protagonist, who doesn't care) while their children snuggle down, choosing new mothers among the cold dead. Oh great!
I do like the inventiveness,and the brilliant descriptions of the uncanny and the paradisal, but overall I think it fails - it doesn't work as story, and it doesn't work as allegory. It's as good a dream-fantasy as Alice (much darker, of course) but it lacks Alice's moral clarity. I admired very much that it tried to wrestle with the question of redemption of evil, but I think the offhand condemnation of the bad giants and the bad mothers and <i>everyone</i> in the city clashed very badly with the Julian "all will be well" message. Great first draft, MacDonald; needs a lot of work.
And have also been considering various aspects of Narnia with transposable_element, on a 2013 DW thread here.The talk was getting rather squashed up, so I relocated the discussion here, on the very , very quiet NFFR_Forum board. Currently - did Lewis make Peter too good? All discussers welcome!