The Rabbit Room

Indeed, we do not need to fall into a PKD delusion (to echo your Pynchon allusion) in order to assert that GMD intended something by the mark (that it was not random or accidental). He went through a lot of trouble to put it there in the print. He also did not demand an accompanying illustration, which probably would have been easier and could…[Read more]

Daron, Interesting speculations on the red mark. My first impression was an oil lamp, which of course also can cue wisdom. It sure is a strange little scratching. The longer I stare at it the more the flame becomes like a female human form.

Daron,
I think this is the link you are referencing:

It is an excellent intro to Charles Williams’ theology & poetry by Malcolm, one in an excellent little series on the Inklings.

By the way, I’d be game on collaborating on anything, lecture series, book, play, fiction, exhibit, to do with…[Read more]

Robin,

I’m with you on the motives. It seems to me that preserving the integrity and honor of his master, is self-giving, not self-seeking. The revenge on the self-seeking self is precisely because it had fooled him into thinking for so long that value was in the receiving, and perhaps in the younger Anodos, “for the taking”. Only late has he…[Read more]

To tease apart the motivations involved in Anodos’ sacrifice, I have to go back to his reflection as a squire he says, “I felt that, after all, mine would be no lost life, if I might wait on him to the world’s end, although no smile but his should greet me, and no one but him should say, “Well done! he was a good servant!” at last. But I burned to…[Read more]

Becky, that seeing through exterior to see the true nature of things involves his self-confessed belief that the exterior corresponds to the qualities of the interior. Perhaps his growing up, has a lot to do with his losing faith in that false belief and mechanistic deception. I know that Lewis also explores this quite a bit in Till We Have Faces.…[Read more]

With the Cottage and the woman MacDonald propels us into a realm at the intersect of FÆRIE and memory. I have so much I’d like to ask him about why he chose the cottage, the familiarity of the home space (if he even had an artistic choice in the matter), but also if and why the cottage effects what he is seeking to engage in the reader. Why does…[Read more]

MacDonald here seems to be using story to explain story. The story itself gives or suggests meaning, as opposed to a concept doing the job. The kind of meaning a story gives is holistic, it provides the space in which to make broader connections in an larger whole. This may be one of the reasons why he is so fond of embedding story within story.…[Read more]

Before I read this in MacDonald, I thought I was the only one who thought that I would very much prefer to live in the city reflected in rainy streets. But the “why” is easier to cite than guess.

In FÆRIE, moonlight is best to see by, is in fact the proper light of FÆRIE. The moon itself is a very large mirror of reflected light. I don’t think i…[Read more]

That soul ache you mentioned is heightened (retrospectively) by the realization that the encounter with good persons, with love and its good effect on one’s soul, is perhaps not so common an encounter in the universe as expected. An encounter with counterfeits and alternatives is common, but the discernment comes too late. He has “moved on”…[Read more]

Jensen, I’m curious. What do you think is the nature of the relationship between the emergence of the Pygmalion story into Anodos’ consciousness and the coming of Pygmalion’s actual sculpture into his story? In the space where the sculpture woman is trapped, he has the memory of the Greek myth, then finds it to be pointing to something true in…[Read more]

Home… its memory, and its relationship to all spaces of intimacy, protection, reverie, daydream, throughout FÆRIE. The journey outward starts from a most inward space, his bedroom in house, and even doubles back to this space as an inner chamber in the palace in FÆRIE. MacDonald has shown us house, bower, cave, cottage, palace, but he does not o…[Read more]

The changes in perception of FÆRIE by Anados and others definitely sets up patterns that crave explanation. Initially Anodos is unsure if he will be able to perceive FÆRIES, and is relieved to see and hear in fairyland. MacDonald hints early on at a relationship between desire and epistemology. It is initially the longing that seems to make p…[Read more]