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Recent Reading: Ribbiting Tales

Ribbiting Tales, Edited by Nancy Springer

For the record, this book has nothing to do with the Muppets or Kermit the Frog.

My 7-year-old daughter picked out this book – with good reason. She knows I love frogs. It may be a guilt-complex. I did some not-so-nice things to frogs in my childhood. If you’ve seen Beavis and Butthead play frog-baseball, then you more or less know what I’m talking about. Before you cast stones, however, I want to assure you that I am doing my best to ensure that future generations love and respect frogs (as I now do).

Despite my past transgressions, I like to think that my love of frogs is more positive than guilt-driven. Some of the best fictional characters I have ever encountered were frogs. I am an avid fan of the Muppets (old-school, not so much the post-Henson stuff), and, of course, Kermit is my favorite character. A while back my daughter found an antique Kermit vase in the Goodwill. It had a broken arm, but was worth the $1.25 we spent for it. A little super-glue made it look presentable. It now sits proudly on my bedroom bookshelf. And sitting next to Kermit is Mr. Toad. Toad, from The Wind in the Willows, is perhaps my favorite character in all the fiction that I have read. I have written of him elsewhere (HERE), so I won’t continue this digression.

So, as I was saying, my daughter found Ribbiting Tales in the used section at Books-A-Million and decided, based on my love of frogs, that we needed to read it. The book is somewhat of a hodgepodge. It is a collection of several different stories, all by different authors, with the common denominator being that each story has something to do with frogs. Some are good, some not so much. None of them are great, but it was worth the 2 bucks I spent on it.

The most entertaining story, for me, concerned a frog who jumped over the moon. Another near the top of the list was about a young boy who discovers that he is a descendent of frogs (not in the evolutionary sort of way, but in the frog-prince sort of way) and is called upon by his frog-relatives to wage war against a factory that is polluting the swamp and causing harm to the frog population.The story ends without resolution – always a no-no in my book.

A good antagonist is always convinced, in some twisted way, that he is right.

The most thought-provoking of the stories is Polliwog, by Stephen Menick, which tells the story of the plagues of Egypt from the viewpoint of Pharaoh. It is an interesting take on the story. I think it is generally interesting to look at a story from the viewpoint of the antagonist. A good antagonist is always convinced, in some twisted way, that he is right. Menick does a fascinating job of showing how Pharaoh could have justified his actions. From the viewpoint of the story, Pharaoh is convinced that Moses is a magician, much like Pharaoh’s own magicians, who is using ‘a god’ in order to accomplish his quest for power. The story revolves to a good degree around Pharaoh’s hatred of magicians, which is a fascinating angle. Magic never served him well.

I find it interesting that it is clear that the angle of ‘magic’ is not at the forefront in the biblical narrative. The issue at hand is idolatry. Through the hand, and staff, of Moses, God is waging war on the beloved (and feared) false gods of Egypt. Each plague, including the plague of frogs, is a direct assault against one of Egypt’s deities. The frog god Heqet is mentioned in Polliwog, but, as the narrative goes, Pharaoh is more concerned with the evil of magic than realizing that there is a message in the ‘magic’ – the message that his gods were no gods at all.

The thing to remember, as I said, is that a good antagonist or villain must always believe that he is in the right. And rather than thinking that we are always on the side of the good guy, we should consider how we might line up with the villain of the story. We are always prone to justify ourselves, even when we are in the wrong. How would you feel if one of your fellow Egyptians turned out not to be an Egyptian at all, and then showed up 40 years later brandishing a staff with the power to perform all kinds of wonders, demanding that the Hebrews be released from slavery, touting the name of a God of whom you have never heard, proclaiming the impending death of your son? Would your heart be soft toward him? It’s worth considering? Perhaps we might attempt to justify ourselves in our opposition. That is all.

Self-Justification is the way of the world.

Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:3).

The Golden Key and the Shadowlands (George MacDonald)

From time to time I’ll bust out a little devotional meditation based on a line of thought started by a random story. This is one such line of thought, and I’m relatively sure it’s similar to the line of thought George MacDonald would have wanted to stir up:

I’ve been reading George MacDonald’s story, The Golden Key with my daughter the past two days. I’ve read it before, but it has been a couple of years. I had forgotten how moving the description of the land of shadows is:

After a while, they reached more open spaces, where the shadows were thinner; and came even to portions over which shadows only flitted, leaving them clear for such as might follow. Now a wonderful form, half bird-like half human, would float across on outspread sailing pinions. Anon an exquisite shadow group of gambolling children would be followed by the loveliest female form, and that again by the grand stride of a Titanic shape, each disappearing in the surrounding press of shadowy foliage. Sometimes a profile of unspeakable beauty or grandeur would appear for a moment and vanish. Sometimes they seemed lovers that passed linked arm in arm, sometimes father and son, sometimes brothers in loving contest, sometimes sisters entwined in gracefullest community of complex form. Sometimes wild horses would tear across, free, or bestrode by noble shadows of ruling men. But some of the things which pleased them most they never knew how to describe.

About the middle of the plain they sat down to rest in the heart of a heap of shadows. After sitting for a while, each, looking up, saw the other in tears: they were each longing after the country whence the shadows fell.

“We MUST find the country from which the shadows come,” said Mossy.

“We must, dear Mossy,” responded Tangle. “What if your golden key should be the key to it?”

Of course Plato’s Allegory of the Cave comes to mind, but so does a famous quote by C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory:

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.

Every day, especially Sunday, we see shadows. And the beauty of a shadow is that it is cast by an object with real weight:

  • Colossians 2:16 ¶ Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

And until that day we say with the singer,

  • Song of Solomon 4:6 Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. 7 Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

Now we get the foretastes of worship, then we will dwell in a shadowless land from which all of the glorious shadows come. We will have Christ – the substance, the body, the reality – in his fulness. He is the glory of the place, but also truly the key of entry:

  • Luke 11:52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.

Recent Reading: The Young Man who would have his Eyes Opened

This is a fairy story from Andrew Lang’s Violet Fairy Book. I read it with my daughter. It is about a young man who wanted to have his eyes opened so that he might see the things ‘that took place under the cover of night which mortal eyes never saw.’ He found a wizard who could open his eyes. The wizard warned against it. I’m not retelling the story, just giving the gist.

With open eyes he saw the wood-nymphs dancing in the forest. He was never the same. He longed to see them again, but never did. ‘He thought about them night and day, and ceased to care about anything else in the world, and was sick to the end of his life with longing for that beautiful vision. And that was the way he learned that the wizard had spoken truly when he said,”Blindness is man’s highest good.”‘

Quite a stirring thought. As a Christian I can’t help but thinking of the ‘Beatific Vision.’ My theology here is highly questionable, but it made me think: God said to Moses, ‘You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live’ (Ex. 33:20). Is it that a man who saw God’s face (his full-orbed glory) would literally die from the sheer awesomeness of the vision which no man is capable of handling – a spiritual heart-attack, if you will – or is it that he would no longer be capable of carrying on with life (as we know it) after having seen such glory? After all, Exodus 33:20 could quite literally be translated, ‘Man shall not see me and recover.’

And so, ‘We see in a mirror, dimly’ (1 Cor. 13:12). And sometimes it is overwhelming as it is:

God’s people do not always know the greatness of his love to them. Sometimes, however, it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Some of us know at times what it is to be almost too happy to live! The love of God has been so overpoweringly experienced by us on some occasions, that we have almost had to ask for a stay of the delight because we could not endure any more. If the glory had not been veiled a little, we should have died of excess of rapture, or happiness. Beloved, God has wondrous ways of opening his people’s hearts to the manifestation of his grace. He can pour in, not now and then a drop of his love, but great and mighty stream (C.H. Spurgeon, from his sermon, Prodigal Love for the Prodigal Son).

You’re Never too Old (or Young) for a Good Fairy Story (C.S. Lewis)

One of the great things about owning a book is that you get to underline things that you want to remember. From time to time I go through my books just to remind myself of notes in the margins and things I’ve underlined. Here are a few things I underlined in my copy of the collection of some of Lewis’ essays on stories, relating to age-oriented writing and reading:

I never met the Wind in the Willows or the Bastable books till I was in my late twenties, and I do not think I have enjoyed them any the less on that account. i am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last. A waltz which you can like only when you are waltzing is a bad waltz (C.S. Lewis, On Stories, p. 33).

Next,

Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up (Ibid, p. 34).

And,

…It certainly is my opinion that a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then (Ibid, p. 48).

Recent Reading: The Day Boy and the Night Girl, by George MacDonald

The Day Boy and the Night Girl: The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris

This is the sixth story by George MacDonald my daughter and I have read together this year. And to think it all started with stumbling upon two used copies of the Curdie books in a good will. It was perhaps the best 50 cents I have ever spent.

SUMMARY
The Day Boy and the Night Girl is the story of a boy and a girl who are, for some reason or another, which MacDonald doesn’t disclose, groomed by a witch named Watho to only see day and night respectively. The boy, aptly named Photogen, is only allowed to be out and about during the day. He is trained to go to bed before the sun sets and is never allowed to see darkness. Conversely, the girl, also aptly named, Nycteris, is taught the routine of sleeping during the day so that she might never see light. He is the Day Boy, she is the Night Girl.

I don’t want to give the story away, that’s not my purpose, so let me say by way of summary that these two cross paths. How could a brave, valiant, handsome young man not cross paths with a dark haired damsel? How can something so trivial as day and night keep them apart? Or something so trivial as a witch?

IMPRESSIONS AND EFFECT
As for my impressions, which is what I like to state on the blog, Nycteris is quite the engaging character. Watho the witch is on a mad, raving quest for knowledge. She lavishes her wisdom upon Photogen, but the night girl is quite neglected. Yet despite this Nycteris comes to grip with her situation much more easily than Photogen, and certainly easier than Watho. It’s hard to say more without giving away the story.

There seems to be some subtle things going on in the story. I haven’t taken the time to look at other reviews and analysis, but I have a couple of hunches. I already implied that MacDonald seems to take a jab at those who think intelligence, really wisdom, comes simply from book learning. The wisdom of Nycteris comes in her ability to deal with her situation.

There also seems to be a bit of a dig at some sort of dualism. How can you think of day and night in a fairy story without dualism coming into play? Day and night are strictly separated. Though the day boy and the night girl live in the very same castle, yet they live in different worlds. It is only as they come together, trust one another, rely upon one another, help one another that they are able to deal with their common foe (though they deal with her by accident, incidentally). The Day Boy grows to love the night more than the day, for his lover is of the night. The Night Girl grows to love the day for the same reason. Dualism is overcome. Unity is achieved. Day and night not only coexist, but they fall in love, and a happy blending (and a happy ending) occur.

George MacDonald was asking, ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’ before it was cool – and a lot more imaginatively

The main thing I want to record however is this: I took the time a couple of days ago to post some quotes by C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton. Those quotes now come into play. Both pertained to fairy stories, though in far different contexts, and used the phrase, ‘mental health.’ Lewis’ quotation is apropos. He remarked of Edmund Spenser, poet, author of The Faerie Queen, that to read him ‘is to grow in mental health’ (see the link for the reference).

I don’t know if Lewis would have said that about MacDonald, but I certainly would. In fact I am grateful to have come across that Lewis quote for precisely this reason: it gives me a way to describe what my experience with George MacDonald (and others) has been like. I am not claiming that MacDonald is the greatest writer in history (he’s not) or the greatest author I’ve ever read (ditto). But his writing does something to my mood and imagination that I hardly get elsewhere (though I do get it elsewhere).

He has this effect on my six year old daughter as well. One of my favorite experiences in reading with her was her stick-horse riding simulation of the battle scene in The Princess and Curdie as we read that book. I will never forget that moment. She was lost in the story. This time she drew detailed, and very good, pictures of Photogen and Nycteris without any aid of pictures she had seen. It was purely out of her imagination. It’s the first time she had done this. And I think it is due to the forceful imaginativeness of MacDonald as a story teller.

MacDonald is a story teller par excellance. His words roll around in your imagination and do things. Good things.

It has surprised me that I have enjoyed MacDonald’s shorter fairy stories more than than the long ones. The Day Boy and the Night Girl falls among the former. It is quite short. But it is packed with imagination – as much imagination per square inch as anything I’ve encountered. It may not be the prototypical fairy story in some ways, but it has all the necessary elements. The witch’s character isn’t expounded enough, but he makes up for it in other areas – above all, he invites good reading.

I enjoyed this book more than the Curdie books (and I did enjoy them quite a bit), but it’s not quite up there with The Light Princess. But it’s close. I also enjoyed The Giant’s Heart tremendously, but I think this one might be a bit better. Who cares? The story is great, my mental health was temporarily improved (who knows how long that will last?), and who wouldn’t love a story that provokes him to use the phrase, ‘happy blending?’

APPLICATIONS
With MacDonald it’s also hard not to draw Christian applications from a book. Let me give just two. What can separate us from our true love? – Day or Night? A wicked witch?

  • Romans 8:38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And who can construct dualisms that can separate those knit together in love?

  •  Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Even those as different as night and day can have unity, as they mutually depend on one another, and take their eyes off themselves and put them on another.

C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton: Reading, Fairy Tales, and ‘Mental Health’

My previous post on the lack of footnotes in a certain biography was actually meant to lead to the following quotes. I want to record them here because I will be referring back to them in the near future (Edit: Future post is now a thing of the past. Read it HERE). In these quotes, C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton share a common idea that certain types of stories reflect and/or encourage mental health:

In the first quote, C.S. Lewis is referring to the writing of Edmund Spenser (poet, author of The Faerie Queene):

His work is one, like a growing thing, a tree…with branches reaching to heaven and roots to hell…And between these two extremes comes all the multiplicity of human life…To read him is to grow in mental health (C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love, pp. 358-359).

In the second, G.K. Chesterton is challenging the statement of a Duchess of his day that ‘fairy-tales’ were ‘nonsense’ and the possibility of schools removing ‘fairy-tales’ from the curriculum:

It seems that the Duchess of Somerset has been going into some Board School somewhere where the children were taught fairy-tales, and then going into some Board of Guardians somewhere else and saying that fairy-tales were full of ‘nonsense,’ and that it would be much better to teach them about Julius Caesar ‘or other great men.’ Here we have a complete incapacity to distinguish between the normal and eternal and the abnormal or accidental. Boards of Guardians are accidental and abnormal; they shall be consumed ultimately in the wrath of God. Board Schools are abnormal; we shall find, I hope, at last some sounder kind of democratic education. Duchesses are abnormal; they are a peculiar product of the combination of the old aristocrat and the new woman. But fairy-tales are as normal as milk or bread. Civilisation changes; but fairy-tales never change. Some of the details of the fairy-tale may seem odd to us; but its spirit is the spirit of folk-lore; and folk-lore is, in strict translation, the German for common-sense. Fiction and modern fantasy and all that wild world in which the Duchess of Somerset lives can be described in one phrase. Their philosophy means ordinary things as seen by extraordinary people. The fairy-tale means extraordinary things as seen by ordinary people. The fairy-tale is full of mental health.

For all this fairy-tale business is simply the ancient and enduring system of human education. A seven-headed dragon is, perhaps, a very terrifying monster. But a child who has never heard about him is a much more terrifying monster than he is. The maddest griffin and chimera is not so wild a supposition as a school without fairy-tales….Fairy-tales are the oldest and gravest and most universal kind of human literature. It is the  School Board that is fantastic (The Illustrated London News, Dec 2, 1905).

Another related Chesterton quote where he (somewhat) explains what he means in the previous:

Fairy-tales do not give a child his first idea of bogy. What fairy-tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogy. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy-tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

Exactly what the fairy-tale does is this: it accustoms him by a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors have a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies, that these infinite enemies of man have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear...fairy-tales restored my mental health (from Tremendous Trifles).

Now I want to isolate the comparable statements:

To read him is to grow in mental health (Lewis).

and

The fairy-tale is full of mental health (Chesterton).

I do not have the time presently to analyze these statements, but only to agree with them. I cite them here because I will be referring to them in a future post on a book I recently read.