Phantastes

I just finished reading Phantastes, by George MacDonald. I was seriously amazed at how vivid and richly imaginative it was. I know what C.S. Lewis meant about it baptising his imagination, although I wouldn't describe its effect on me like that.

I would describe the book as trying to show you a way of looking at the world as a place of wonder and possibility, of meaning and deep moral sentiment, of being shot through with a spiritual life and reality which is foreign to the mechanistic/scientific way of seeing. It tries to recreate a sense of the child's wonder at the world which we lose as we grow up, but at the same time the good and evil are not childish and silly but deep and compelling and sometimes scary.

One of the things that struck me the most was its portrayal of women, which is from a very different age than the one we live in. They are given a place of high chivalric honor and there is a strong treatment of their embodiment of ideas of goodness, purity, and otherness that merited respect. Most importantly, it's an honor and respect that is totally separate from sensual attraction and which is explicitly treated as far superior to such attraction. I'm sure that this idea is somehow "toxic" but I find it refreshing and so very preferable to the schizophrenic spirit of our own age that presents women in a objectified/pornified way, that glorifies sexual experience free of any constraints save consent only, and which then expects to build a culture of mutual equality and respect on that foundation.

One warning: the book is very episodic and has little in the way of an overarching plot. Also you have to get over the childish, sappy theme-park connotations (which MacDonald will quickly disabuse you of) that "fairy land" has in modern usage. But it's a work of deep imaginative depth and wonder which I highly recommend.