From: "Andy Robertson" 
Subject: Re: (urth) George MacDonald
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 13:19:28 -0000


He he he . . .

I love MacDonald,

But I agree, he's DEFINITELY kinky.



But it's the Goddess, you see.   Mother R*d**bt.  :)


She demands the status of divinity.

And if you won't worship her, she turns into a soul/semen-sucking Lilith -
or an evil Mother in the sea.



Actually Macdonald's most joyful and peaceful Fairy-Stories are the CURDIE
books, which contain a wonderful image of the Lady.  He was from time to
time able to recognise her divinity without guilt or fear.   Wolfe has never
quite managed it.

    Andy R


----- Original Message -----
From: "Nigel Price" 
T
> Years ago, I did a dissertation on Macdonald and read all his fantasy
novels
> and stories and a chunk of his literary criticism and mainstream Victorian
> fiction too. To quote one of my children's favourite phrases, "it did my
> head in." Some of his stories were good - I liked "The Golden Key" for
> example - but most of his work is verbose, poorly structured and mawkishly
> sentimental. Some of it is also, frankly, perverse. I never did really
> understand what Lewis saw in him.
>
> So imagine my horror when I read the following in Nutria's interview with
> Wolfe ("That's his name Jim, but not spelt as we know it!"):
>
> >>JJ: Now you are reading George McDonald?
>
> >>GW: Yes, Lilith. I had not read anything
> >>except Curdie and the Goblin and At the
> >>Back of the North Wind and those types,
> >>and they are quite good but they are
> >>basically fairy stories. I had read others
> >>that were about that good, but I don't think
> >>they had any great theological impact, any
> >>great feeling from that standpoint.
>
> I agree entirely with Wolfe's verdict on the main body of Macdonald's
work,
> but, frustratingly, he doesn't say what he thought of "Lilith". Now that
you
> mention it, though, I can see some points of overlap for Wolfe. Other
> worlds, ambiguous goddess/queens...and Lilith, if I recall, has some
> inhuma-like characteristics...She turns into a blood sucking white slug or
> worm at night. As in the famous C L Moore story "Shambleau", however,
> MacDonald is deliberately vague...Oh dear, how do I put this?...about what
> it is exactly that Lilith sucks...



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