Evenor

by George MacDonald, Gervasio Gallardo (Illustrator)

CONTENTS:

"Introduction: The Dubious Land" (Lin Carter)
"The Wise Woman" (1875)
"The Carasoyn" (1871)
"The Golden Key" (1867)

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Short Stories, Literature

210 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published January 1, 1972

About the author

George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet and Christian Congregational minister. He became a pioneering figure in the field of modern fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow-writer Lewis Carroll. In addition to his fairy tales, MacDonald wrote several works of Christian theology, including several collections of sermons.

Reviews

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first story--"The Wise Woman" or "The Double Story"--has about the roughest beginning as I've read: a stuttering, self-interrupting, self-referential pile of gushing language. I'm not sure what to do with the typographic notation of a semicolon followed by an em dash (";--") which looks to this 21st Century reader like some early emoticon.

The editor frankly confesses the oddness of this collection: while they use the same fantastic imagery and fantasy zing as his fairy tales, they have a dark undercurrent and grown-up themes that don't categorize them the same way. "The Wise Woman" and "The Carasoyn" have unsatisfying endings that don't follow the typical scheme, of virtue and persistence being materially rewarded and an unqualified happy ending. The characters in "The Wise Woman" end as broken as they started, and Colin's reward in "The Carasoyn" is to be quit of fairy interference and little else.

"The Wise Woman" in particular, with its themes of proper child raising and the difficulty of self-improvement, is particularly distant from a fairy tale.

There's a darkness to all of them, reminiscent of Perrault's originals, where one never forgets that fairies are quite terrifying creatures.

Every time a Ballantine Adult Fantasy collection crosses my desk, I marvel that Lin Carter, a man who churned out so much barely-differentiated, soulless claptrap over his life, could have such rarefied and exquisite taste in reading material.

[Jonathan Waugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the three tales I really enjoyed "The Golden Key", which comes last in the collection and is only about 30 pages in length. "The Wise Woman" and "The Carasoyn" have their good points but overall as stories they are just "fine".

- The Wise Woman is the longest story. It is a moral tale. It has some interesting insights, yet overall as a story is fine but not great.

- The Carasoyn is a short tale about fairies. I think the way the author has written it is both refreshing to modern ears and enjoyably bonkers. However, the story is fine but not great.

- The Golden Key I really enjoyed. If you enjoy C.S. Lewis's Perelandra (a.k.a. Voyage to Venus) or Hannah Hurnard's Hind's Feet on High Places I think you would enjoy this.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The four stars are for the second and third of the stories in this collection. The first, "The Wise Woman," has fairy-tale elements, but it's a didactic, heavy handed story about how to deal with spoilt children. The second, "Carasoyn," has a young boy struggle to save a girl from the fae; it's very traditional in some of its themes, and very effective. "The Golden Key" is one of McDonald's mystical tales, about a boy and girl questing for a magical reality. It's the closest of the three to his allegorical masterpiece, "Lilith."

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evenor consists of three tales written by classic Victorian fantasist George MacDonald. In 'The Wise Woman,' two different sets of parents--the king and queen, and a shepherd and his wife--have completely spoiled their daughters. Rosamond, the princess, is screechy and demanding, spoiling all her nice things and throwing horrendous tantrums that can injure people. Agnes, the shepherd's daughter, is vain beyond belief, contemptuous of anyone who is not herself. The Wise Woman of the title attempts--in a didactically paternalistic way, mingled with magic--to correct them, with limited success, the message being that once bad parenting has ruined a child, it's all but impossible to fix. The second story, 'The Carrasoyn,' is more fairy-tale like, with darker undertones. Colin, a farm boy, diverts a stream to run through his cottage, and ends up with a fairy fleet celebrating in his house. A changeling begs him to free her, and Colin makes a deal with the fairy queen to bring her The Carrasoyn, which he gets after much trial, tribulation, magic, and help. In the future, the fairy queen gets back at him. In 'The Golden Key,' two people move through the land of faery on a quest to find first the lock that the golden key at the end of the rainbow fits, then to find an even more wonderful land beyond.

I first became acquainted with MacDonald through 'At the Back of the North Wind,' which I adored as a child. His fantasy is not like modern, Tolkien-inspired fantasy, but much more Victorian and fantastical, like 'The Cuckoo Clock' by Molesworth, and later tales by Elizabeth Goudge ('The Little White Horse'). Hints of this type of fantasy can also be found in Narnia and Gerald Morris' Arthurian tales, and of course in classic Grimm's/Andersen/etc. fairy tales. I didn't care for the first story, mostly because it was so incredibly didactic and paternalistic. I mean, it's not a bad message not to spoil your children, and it's true that a change of mood is not a change of character, but the hopelessness and lack of ending drags the story down. I enjoyed the others more, particularly the dreamlike images from 'The Golden Key.' I wish I could have dreams so fantastical!

[Paul McCann · Rating 3 out of 5]

MacDonald is strange - not only because he's a Christian Universalist, with suggestions of belief in reincarnation, but because his visions are strange in ways mainstream fantasy has never been. Take "The Golden Key", which features rainbow-feathered air-fish who like to be cooked so they progress to a higher level of existence as little glowy things. Firmly rooted in classic fairy-tale tropes, Lewis's debt is clear, while Dunsany shares some inspirations but little else (and is, rare for a fantasy writer, anti-religious). It's impossible to write like this anymore.

[Janet Hamm · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book at a book exchange, excited to find three 'previously unpublished' stories by George MacDonald, only to find that I already owned two of them. I enjoyed 'The Wise Woman' as a child (published as 'The Lost Princess: A Double Story') and found 'The Golden Key' strange and not very satisfying. This re-reading didn't change my opinion. I had not previously read 'The Carasoyn', and it was enjoyable but also not very satisfying. Maybe I don't 'get' adult fantasy.

[Sarahjoy Maddeaux · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting and imaginative, but not really my thing; I fear I couldn't immerse myself in the fairytale worlds created by the author. In the first story, I felt the moral lesson was being shoved down my throat. The second story was probably my favourite, gripping and somewhat unsettling. The third story was just weird: a little longwinded, and left me wondering what the point was. I'm sure the book would be loved and appreciated by others - just not for me.