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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
This is perhaps my favorite book of all time. It does not get enough good press. It is definitely MacDonald's magnum opus. I would recommend it to all fantasy-lovers and readers just looking for something refreshingly different. Like most of George MacDonald's work, Lilith does have strong religious undertones, but they are presented in a unique way that I don't believe will offend or even distract non-religious readers. The religious content is comparable to that in the works of CS Lewis. I promise this book will be unlike anything you've ever read before or will ever read again. I would highly recommend all of MacDonald's fantasy works, but Lilith is definitely my favorite. I would welcome discussion on this book with anyone who has read it!
So when I first went into this book, basically all I knew was that it was a sort of proto-fantasy with some kind of allegorical bent.
After reading it, I learned that the author was a bit of a mentor to Lewis Carroll, which makes sense. The first half of this book or so is just super weird, like I kept thinking ok he is trying to say something but I didn't know what. The second half it becomes a bit more clear what point he is trying to make. It's a readable story and interesting just to see what early fantasy novels were like, but I didn't love it.
After reading it, I learned that the author was a bit of a mentor to Lewis Carroll, which makes sense. The first half of this book or so is just super weird, like I kept thinking ok he is trying to say something but I didn't know what. The second half it becomes a bit more clear what point he is trying to make. It's a readable story and interesting just to see what early fantasy novels were like, but I didn't love it.
Lilith is probably a prime example of why Tolkien famously disliked allegory. The book wavers between stretches of tedious exposition and somewhat ridiculous plot interwoven with achingly beautiful scenes and haunting imagery. The themes of death and paradise are heavy stuff, and for me they don't always merge comfortably with their corresponding story elements. (although maybe that's the point?) I'm torn between three and four stars, but bumping it upward because its beauty and power outweigh the awkward plot.
The author and the themes:
This is my hands down my favorite book of all time, and one of MacDonald's greatest achievements, written toward the end of his life. Be aware that there are strong religious undertones throughout the book, but if you haven't yet been introduced to George MacDonald's particular style of spirituality, I recommend reading the book for just that. MacDonald, though raised as a Calvinist, became a universalist, believing that everyone eventually made it to heaven, a theme which plays strongly in the book. Death is one of the main themes of the book as well, which MacDonald viewed with a tenderness and beauty that makes the climax of the book a sort of lullaby for the dying. As an agnostic, MacDonald is still one of my favorites, and I've never encountered anyone else who thought the way he did.
The plot:
A man who inherits his family estate discovers it harbors a mirror into another world, as well as the ghost of the house's dead librarian. This new world is inhabited by strange, dreamlike creatures, and a magic that the main character must come to terms with throughout the book. But the world is terrorized by Lilith, Adam's first wife in ancient Hebrew lore, who feeds on the blood of children. As the identity of the main characters comes to light, they work to undermine the power that Lilith holds as a grand story of redemption unfolds.
This is my hands down my favorite book of all time, and one of MacDonald's greatest achievements, written toward the end of his life. Be aware that there are strong religious undertones throughout the book, but if you haven't yet been introduced to George MacDonald's particular style of spirituality, I recommend reading the book for just that. MacDonald, though raised as a Calvinist, became a universalist, believing that everyone eventually made it to heaven, a theme which plays strongly in the book. Death is one of the main themes of the book as well, which MacDonald viewed with a tenderness and beauty that makes the climax of the book a sort of lullaby for the dying. As an agnostic, MacDonald is still one of my favorites, and I've never encountered anyone else who thought the way he did.
The plot:
A man who inherits his family estate discovers it harbors a mirror into another world, as well as the ghost of the house's dead librarian. This new world is inhabited by strange, dreamlike creatures, and a magic that the main character must come to terms with throughout the book. But the world is terrorized by Lilith, Adam's first wife in ancient Hebrew lore, who feeds on the blood of children. As the identity of the main characters comes to light, they work to undermine the power that Lilith holds as a grand story of redemption unfolds.
It could’ve been 5, but where it could have been more striking and beautiful, it faded and dulled.
Otherwise, it’s pretty good.
Otherwise, it’s pretty good.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Lilith is a strange book, a complex book, a rich book, and I think, a wonderful book. I read it in college and was shocked by it then and it has stayed with me for 35 years.
I think Lilith is the grown-up version of At the Back of the North Wind. What I initially took from Lilith and ATBOTNW was that death wasn’t to be feared for those who are saved by Jesus, if it is time to die. I knew this already. When I read this truth in the Bible, it was and is encouraging. When I read it in Lilith and ATBOTNW, it was jarring initially.
In the beginning of Lilith, Vane is avoiding death/dying to self, and continues to, through the whole book. He is in a sort of dream world and when I read it the first time, I was cheering the avoidance of death. He repeatedly does things he should not do, messes things up, but it does not thwart the sovereignty of the end. It changes circumstances, but does not destroy the end result. When he finally gives in, dies to self, true life is beginning. It was good to read it again, knowing the end.
“The images Vane encounters in the realm of seven dimensions depict various spiritual states: the skeletons, the people of Bulika with their babies, the Little Ones, and the Giants. The skeleton lord and lady ‘without faces’ suggest the spiritually perverse among the higher classes. Their disintegration is checked and they begin to acquire substance the moment they start exercising altruistic attitudes towards each other. C. S. Lewis takes the title of his masterpiece, Till We Have Faces, from this scene.”
Rolland Hein in Christian Mythmakers
If you read it, you will find many things that Lewis uses in his fiction books.
• Eve’s house reminds me of Merlin’s burial place in That Hideous Strength.
• “— farthest up, higher up than the seven dimensions, the ten senses: I think I was where I am- in the heart of God.”
Lewis’s “further up, further in” in The Last Battle.
• Lilith, definitely the White Witch.
There is probably more to find.
Some quotes from Lilith:
“Every creature must one night yield himself and lie down,” answered Adam: “he was made for liberty, and must not be left a slave.”
Man dreams and desires; God broods and wills and quickens.
When a man dreams his own dream, he is sport of his dream; when Another gives it him, that Other is able to fulfill it.
“Those, alas, are not tears of repentance!” she said “The true tears gather in the eyes. Those are far more bitter, and not so good. Self loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the Father’s arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates. Once with his father, he is to himself of no more account. It will be so with her.”
I think Lilith is the grown-up version of At the Back of the North Wind. What I initially took from Lilith and ATBOTNW was that death wasn’t to be feared for those who are saved by Jesus, if it is time to die. I knew this already. When I read this truth in the Bible, it was and is encouraging. When I read it in Lilith and ATBOTNW, it was jarring initially.
In the beginning of Lilith, Vane is avoiding death/dying to self, and continues to, through the whole book. He is in a sort of dream world and when I read it the first time, I was cheering the avoidance of death. He repeatedly does things he should not do, messes things up, but it does not thwart the sovereignty of the end. It changes circumstances, but does not destroy the end result. When he finally gives in, dies to self, true life is beginning. It was good to read it again, knowing the end.
“The images Vane encounters in the realm of seven dimensions depict various spiritual states: the skeletons, the people of Bulika with their babies, the Little Ones, and the Giants. The skeleton lord and lady ‘without faces’ suggest the spiritually perverse among the higher classes. Their disintegration is checked and they begin to acquire substance the moment they start exercising altruistic attitudes towards each other. C. S. Lewis takes the title of his masterpiece, Till We Have Faces, from this scene.”
Rolland Hein in Christian Mythmakers
If you read it, you will find many things that Lewis uses in his fiction books.
• Eve’s house reminds me of Merlin’s burial place in That Hideous Strength.
• “— farthest up, higher up than the seven dimensions, the ten senses: I think I was where I am- in the heart of God.”
Lewis’s “further up, further in” in The Last Battle.
• Lilith, definitely the White Witch.
There is probably more to find.
Some quotes from Lilith:
“Every creature must one night yield himself and lie down,” answered Adam: “he was made for liberty, and must not be left a slave.”
Man dreams and desires; God broods and wills and quickens.
When a man dreams his own dream, he is sport of his dream; when Another gives it him, that Other is able to fulfill it.
“Those, alas, are not tears of repentance!” she said “The true tears gather in the eyes. Those are far more bitter, and not so good. Self loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the Father’s arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates. Once with his father, he is to himself of no more account. It will be so with her.”
Amazing, teeming with a dark and somehow righteous weirdness that might put to bed any totalizing claims about the kinds of dreams that can emerge from Christian theology-space.
This was the strangest book I have ever read I think. It was quite fascinating. A little slow to start but it did eventually capture my attention. I suspect there is more behind the book that I got from the first reading. I will have to read it again. I have decided, at the present, that it is about dieing to oneself in order to live (for Christ).