I learned of this book when reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s Words Are My Matter, which is in part a collection of her writings about other people’s writings. I trust Le Guin not only as a writer but as a reader, and I decided to make a list of the works she chose to write about and decided to work my way through them over the next couple of years. George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin, published serially in 1870 and 1871, and published as a novel in 1872, is the oldest book she wrote about, so I decided to start with it.
First thing I did, after re-reading Le Guin’s Introduction,
was Google George MacDonald. He’s not an author I ever remember hearing of, so
I was surprised to find that he had inspired so many writers that I had
heard of. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis
Carroll, Mark Twain, Frank Baum, Richard Adams, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L’Engle—what?! It’s an all-star list of authors of the best
children’s and young adult fiction we have.
And once I began reading, I saw it immediately. There’s so much about MacDonald’s voice that you
can see picked up and carried forward by the author’s mentioned above, and that
has become a mainstay in the category of literature that MacDonald himself
practically created. As a result, very
little about the book feels 150 years old, even though the story is unabridged,
changed, likely, in spelling only.
The narrator adopts moments of uncertainty and familiarity. In spite of the fact that the narrator is
clearly omniscient in the classic narrator sense, he speaks as one telling a
story of which he has imperfect knowledge.
For example, he notes in the opening chapter, “The princess was a sweet
little creature, and at the time my story begins was about eight years old, I
think, but she got older very fast.”
That little “I think” appears in touches throughout the novel. The effect is to make the narrator a
character, with a specific voice, and to align that character with you, the
reader, very much from the same world with the same expectations and sense of
wonder. But the narrator is in a position
of privilege, both in the sense that they know more than you, but also in the
sense that they are parental or avuncular.
When the princess meets a magical old woman seemingly living in the
attic of the princess’s grand home, the narrator says,
That the princess was a real princess you might see now quite plainly; for she didn’t hang on to the handle of the door, and stare without moving, as I have known some do who ought to have been princesses but were only rather vulgar little girls. She did as she was told, stepped inside the door at once, and shut it gently behind her. (12)
It is hard to read that without feeling the nod and wink to
the audience. At the end of that same
chapter, the narrator promises to tell us more in some following chapter about
what the magical old woman was spinning at her spinner, and he concludes the
chapter with, “Guess what she was spinning” (18). Again, this breaks down that fourth wall
between the narrator and their audience.
In fact, the title of that same chapter is “The Princess and – We shall
see who.” Above that title is an image,
included in the original publication, of a woman at a spinner. The reason I know this is that once or twice
the narrator refers to one of the accompanying pictures to report on its
accuracy and reliability. Pulled altogether,
these techniques create a playful and friendly tone that is immediately
familiar to anyone who has read Alice in Wonderland; The Hobbit; The
Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Black Cauldron; etc.
One of the effects of this tone is to make the reader always
feel safe, assured that no matter what horrors or brushes with the grotesque lie
before us, there is nothing to be afraid of.
Everything will work out alright in the end. This allows the author to put Curdie, the
little mining boy who is our model of heroism in the story, in deep danger in
the tunnels of the Goblins without ever making us or our young charges sweat.
The writing itself is warm and easy, aiming for clarity
first, but taking occasional dips into the poetic. To take an example again from early in the
book, I’ll quote from the narrator’s first description of the princess: “Her
face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a
star dissolved in the blue. Those eyes
you would have thought must have known they came from there, so often were they
turned up in that direction” (2).
The characters are every bit as warm and lovely as the
narrator and the writing. Except for
Lootie—the princess’s nursemaid, who loves the princess deeply but lacks the
maturity and self-awareness to govern her feelings and fears—every grownup in
the book is an impressive person. They
treat the children like people with respect and understanding, and they model behaviors
of love and trust. While the story has a
princess and her father the King, Curdie and his parents are every bit as regal
and admirable. The Goblins are fun foils,
treated with the same playfulness and affection, even though they are clearly
the antagonists of the story. Although
they are set up as the unnatural and twisted versions of humans after living
generations below ground (a nod to the popularity of Darwin’s evolutionary
theories), they are not presented as the inversion of all that is good and
human. They live in families and have
pride in themselves. They are certainly
not always nice to each other, but they are not reduced to caricature as Roald
Dahl tends to do with his comical villains.
A full and proper analysis could be made to look at what the Goblin’s
represent to the author. They have
notions of conquest, an ability to long nurse a grude—one that goes back so far
the narrator is uncertain of its origins, proposing legendary theories instead
of offering us anything concrete--, a sense of righteousness in their own actions
in violating another’s autonomy, prejudices, and ambitions. But they want their children to thrive, they
care for their families, and they have a government that parallels the kingship
above ground. When the queen is revealed
to have toes (Goblins in this world do not have toes), the Goblin King uses that
information as leverage against her, but he is not appalled and certainly doesn’t
subject her to torments or even demotion because of it. I’ll be tinkering around with ideas, but I
haven’t developed any solid thoughts yet.
If and when someone does that analysis, I’d love to see it.
Instead, I’ve been thinking about that magical old woman in
the attic. She might look initially like
a fairy godmother, and she certainly has those trappings. The princess even calls her grandmother. But the old woman doesn’t just show up for a
deus ex machina or two; she saves the day many times. She leads the princess home when she is lost
at night. She leads the princess to Curdie
to save him from the Goblins. She leads the princess out of the house when the Goblins
attack, and then again she leads Curdie to the princess when he thinks she
might have been kidnapped by the Goblins.
Nothing happens without grandmother’s knowledge or approval. The issue, narratively speaking, surrounding
the grandmother is faith and belief, who can see her and who can’t, and who
having seen her can believe in her. It
seems pretty clear that grandmother is a stand in for God. I remember reading in an article about
MacDonald that he was a pastor for some time, but that his parishioners booted
him because of his unusual teachings. I
wonder if his understanding of God was a little to maternal and not enough
Angry Father to make his fellow Scotsmen happy.
Grandmother definitely likes people to behave properly and with good
manners, but she is loving and comforting and understanding. She prepares the princess for her adventure,
but doesn’t stop it from happening. She
is proud of the princess. Supportive. Nurturing. She lets the princess learn for herself that
not everyone will believe in grandmother, and then comforts her with the knowledge
that that’s okay. Believing must come
before seeing for grandmother, and God. Interestingly,
grandmother is associated with the Moon—which the lamp in her room
emulates. It seems odd that she is not
associated with the sun, but of course that is for the masculine he-God. But then the moon is a much more fitting
image for this deity, the light that guides you when the world is dark, the sliver
of thread that leads you through the darkness if you have faith that it is
taking you where you should go, the little snippet of daylight when the easy
comfort of the sun is gone.
There is generally a rejection of masculine solutions
throughout the book. Yes, the princess’s
father is a manly, armored king, and the queen is absent entirely, but we never
see that king as anything other than her King-Papa. His guards are humbled by the strange
creatures, the Goblin’s pets who slip past them and frighten them. Martial solution is limited. Even in the battle with the Goblins, the main
power Curdie wields is song and poetry, not a stick. He stomps on soft feet, but he mostly wins by
avoiding battle, singing his rhymes and not taking the Goblins especially
seriously. And while Curdie needs rescuing
by the princess, the princess never needs rescuing by Curdie, which narrative
expectations set us up for and then deny us.
Grandmother has already taken the princess, not to the protection of
armed men, but to the protection of a loving mother who can hold her. The traditionally feminine arts of spinning
and homemaking are the heroes of the story.
Even the Goblin Queen is protected not by armor, but by cobbling.
This was a delightful book to read, and an important
one. MacDonald has been called the
father of modern fantasy, which is a well-deserved title in his influence of
J.R.R. Tolkien and others. I am only
surprised that it took me so long to discover this treasure.
