My literary sense really began to develop while I lived in this house. I wanted to be a writer and tried to write short stories. There always seemed to be something wanting in my writing style and I didn't think I would have the stamina to keep writing, keep improving and keep enduring rejections from publishers. I read voraciously: Victorian classics, Jane Austen, Dostoevsky, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Doris Lessing, George Macdonald, CS Lewis and others. During this period my three most constant novels emerged: "Lilith", by George Macdonald, CS Lewis' "Till We Have Faces", and Doris Lessing's most monumental and least appreciated novel, "The Four Gated City", the last volume of her "Children Of Violence" series.
For almost thirty years I would find myself reading each of these three novels annually. They fed me, they nourished me. I will offer a brief synopsis of Lilith here:
"Lilith" is a fantasy novel authored by George Macdonald. He wrote and published it at the end of the Nineteenth Century. It pertains to a wealthy young man, age twenty-one, who has just come into his inheritance: an ancient palatial mansion stocked with an equally ancient library that spans almost every room on the ground floor. It is a library containing many old and esoteric texts and one day he begins to explore. He encounters a mysterious old man in a frock coat who suddenly transforms into a raven. It turns out that he has been the librarian of the house for centuries. He speaks to the young man in riddles and then inadvertently leads him to the attic where through a specially positioned mirror he passes into another realm or dimension. The young man, Mr. Vane, follows him and finds himself in a rather desolate countryside . He finds his way to a small house on a windswept moor where the old librarian/raven lives with his wife. It turns out that this is also where the dead arrive when they have left their mortal coil and they sleep on beds that occupy a huge chamber, each one sleeping until they are resurrected. The raven/librarian and his wife are really Adam and Eve and they have long repented of their original sin. Now they are the custodians of the souls of the dead and they guard and care for them while they sleep.
Young Mr. Vane refuses to lie down on his appointed bed and accept his death and the healing sleep that will follow. He rebels and flees from the chamber of the dead and wanders into many bizarre mishaps and adventures: he is nearly destroyed by monsters, finds himself witnessing a battle to the death between skeleton armies, and eventually finds himself taking refuge in the cottage of Mara, the daughter of Adam and Eve. She goes about veiled and has a white panther as a pet who is charged with rescuing all the babies that are going to be destroyed by Lilith, the evil queen of the realm. Mr. Vane then finds his way to the forest where the rescued children have lived apparently for centuries or even millennia. They have remained children throughout. Lilith is immortal and tries to destroy all the children that are born in her city because of an ancient prophecy that says that her death will come through a child.
Young Mr. Vane is adopted and loved by the little children who also rescue him from their enemies. The oldest girl, who cares for them and is also the lost daughter of Lilith comes to love him and they work together to conquer Lilith's city Bulika. He goes to the city and on his way encounters in a cave the comatose body of a woman. He nurses her to health and life. It turns out that she is a vampire who has been nourishing herself on his blood while he sleeps. She wounds him then transforms into a white leopardess that kills children and then runs to the city Bulika. Young Mr. Vane tracks her there, has an audience with her and inadvertently puts the children in danger. Later he meets with the children and together they try to invade the evil city to reunite with their mothers who reject and try to kill them. Lilith kills her daughter whom Mr. Vane carries to the House of the Dead where Adam and Eve receive them all, including Lilith who has been reduced to a near comatose shadow of her former self.
Together they all lie down in their beds where they sleep and eventually they are resurrected into their glorious new life.
This book resonates on so many levels but it has to be one of the most deeply and profoundly spiritual works I have ever read. I learned much about dealing with death and mortality in the pages of Lilith. I learned about compassion and intercession. I learned about the ongoing conflict between good and evil. I especially learned of the triumphant power of love and goodness, that God created the earth and humanity to be good and beautiful and that life eventually triumphs and swallows up death and that love alone can will always redeem even the most hideous evil.
In my next post I will write about CS Lewis' "Till We Have Faces."
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