S5E27 – “MacDonald and Phantastes” – After Hours with Dr. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson

How is it that we can be in Season 5 and yet never had an episode on George MacDonald?!

David corrects this oversight today by interviewing Dr. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson and discussing MacDonald’s famous book, Phantastes.

S5E27: “MacDonald and Phantastes”, After Hours with Dr. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Quote-of-the-week

Turning to the bookstall, I picked out… Phantasies, a faerie Romance, [by] George MacDonald…. That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptised; the rest of me, not unnaturally, took longer. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes.

C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy

Biographical Information

Dr. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson… …is a George MacDonald scholar who lives in the Ottawa Valley, Canada. She writes and lectures internationally on… MacDonald, the 19th century, the Inklings, and Faith & the Arts. She directs Linlathen – a Theology & Arts conference and lecture series based in rural Ontario. She is on the Advisory Board of Inklings journal VII, a founding Board Member of the C.S. Lewis & Kindreds Society of Eastern & Central Europe, and co-chair of the George MacDonald Society.

Biographical Information for Dr. Kirstin Jeffrey Johnson

Discussion

David first came across Dr. Jeffrey Johnson when I watched the documentary The Fantasy Makers, which we watched as part of a Patreon event:

He interviewed the director, Andrew Wall in S5E12.

1. “Kirstin’s Background”

Q. Before we get to MacDonald, would you mind telling us a little bit more about your background?

2. “Encountering MacDonald”

Q. When did you first encounter MacDonald? Was it love at First Read? 

3. “Jack’s love of MacDonald”

Q. Folks who have read Surprised By Joy will have some idea as to the importance of MacDonald to Lewis, but would you mind unpacking this for newcomers?

And then, on top of this, in superabundance of mercy, came that event which I have already more than once attempted to describe in other books. I was in the habit of walking over to Leatherhead about once a week and sometimes taking the train back… But I went in winter, too, to look for books and to get my hair cut. The evening that I now speak of was in October… The glorious week-end of reading was before me. Turning to the bookstall, I picked out an Everyman in a dirty jacket, Phantasies, a faerie Romance, George MacDonald. Then the train came in. I can still remember the voice of the porter calling out the village names, Saxon and sweet as a nut–“Bookham, Effingham, Horsley train”. That evening I began to read my new book.

C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (Chapter 11)

I was talking about this to Tolkien who, you know, grew up on Morris and Macdonald and shares my taste in literature to a fault.

C.S. Lewis, Letter to Author Greeves (March 25th. 1933)

My own greatest debt is to George Macdonald, specially the 3 vols of Unspoken Sermons (out of print but often obtainable 2nd hand)

C.S. Lewis, Letter to Mr. H Morland (August 19th. 1942)

I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him. But it has not seemed to me that those who have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice of the affiliation. Honesty drives me to emphasise it…

This collection, as I have said, was designed not to revive Macdonald’s literary reputation but to spread his religious teaching. Hence most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes of Unspoken Sermons. My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another: and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it acknowledge that it has given them great help—sometimes indispensable help towards the very acceptance of the Christian faith.

C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald Anthology (Preface)

I did not yet know (and I was long in learning) the name of the new quality, the bright shadow, that rested on the travels of Anodos. I do now. It was Holiness…

That night my imagination was, in a certain sense, baptised; the rest of me, not unnaturally, took longer. I had not the faintest notion what I had let myself in for by buying Phantastes.

C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (Chapter 11)

The book, to get to the point, is George Macdonald’s ‘Faerie Romance’, Phantastes, which I picked up by hazard in a rather tired Everyman copy—by the way isn’t it funny, they cost 1/1d. now—on our station bookstall last Saturday. Have you read it? I suppose not, as if you had, you could not have helped telling me about it. At any rate, whatever the book you are reading now, you simply MUST get this at once: and it is quite worth getting in a superior Everyman binding too.

C.S. Lewis, Letter to Arthur Greeves (March 7, 1916)

In 1962 The Christian Century magazine published C.S. Lewis’s answer to the question, “What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?” Here is C.S. Lewis’s list:

1. Phantastes by George MacDonald.
2. The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton.
3. The Aeneid by Virgil.
4. The Temple by George Herbert.
5. The Prelude by William Wordsworth.
6. The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto.
7. The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius.
8. Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell.
9. Descent into Hell by Charles Williams.
10. Theism and Humanism by Arthur James Balfour.

4. “Why isn’t he better known?”

Q. Given the importance of MacDonald to Lewis, he seems to remain fairly unknown to many Lewis fans and, at least to this layman, seems to have been largely overlooked for quite some time in Lewis scholarship. Why is that?

If we define Literature as an art whose medium is words, then certainly Macdonald has no place in its first rank—perhaps not even in its second….

What he does best is fantasy—fantasy that hovers between the allegorical and the mythopœic. And this, in my opinion, he does better than any man….

What he does best is fantasy—fantasy that hovers between the allegorical and the mythopœic. And this, in my opinion, he does better than any man….

 I dare not say that he is never in error; but to speak plainly I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself…

C.S. Lewis, George MacDonald Anthology (Preface)

5. “MacDonald’s background”

Q. Would you mind filling in for us some of MacDonald’s background? What do we need to know?

6. “Pronouncing Phantastes”

Q. So let’s talk about Phantastes. First of all, how do you pronounce it?!

7. “Begin with Phantastes?”

Q. When people want to start reading Chesterton, they usually go straight for Orthodoxy, but I always encourage them to begin with the Father Brown mysteries. Would you recommend Phantastes to be someone’s first MacDonald book?

8. “How to read Phantastes?”

Q. Here’s the million dollar question though… I know a lot of people who started Phantastes and didn’t finish it. What tips do you have for reading it and getting the most out of it?

12. “More Information”

• Kirstin’s Website
• George MacDonald Society
• The Rabbit Room

Wrap-Up

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