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meganbmooreI'm not sure how old I was when I first read The Princess and the Goblin, but I was young enough that I did not yet realize that not all classics looked like classics, as opposed to sometimes being packaged like "normal" books. I remember my surprise when I realized I'd read and reread a book that was just over a hundred years older than me.
I mention that for the purpose of establishing nostalgia-levels perspective. The edition i have now is the recently released Puffin Classics edition with an introduction by Ursula LeGuin.
The Princess and the Goblin is both simple and innocent in obvious-to-adult-readers ways, and very complex in more subtle ways (mostly involving the met narrative and mythology). The plot itself is, in essence, a thwarted-Abducted Bride story. The heroine, eight-year-old Princess Irene lives in the countryside and stumbles across goblins in the woods. She's rescued by Curdie, a twelve-year-old miner. Later, Curdie learns that the goblins are planning to invade the surface world, and the goblin prince plots to abduct Irene and force her to be his bride. Naturally, Irene and Curdie thwart the invasion, with a little help, and Irene is not forced to marry the goblin prince. Incidentally, a goblin's sole weakness is his feet, which are very soft and have only one giant, soft toe, which they can't abide having stepped on or bashed. Oh, and singing. The more wholesome the better.
One thing that I always remembered about this book, and remembered vividly is Irene's great-great-something grandmother, a sorceress who is also named Irene. You can only find her using secret corridors, and only see her if it's your time to, and you believe, and she lives in a secluded tower with a spinning wheel, which she uses to spin a ball of thread so fine that you can't actually see it, and which only Irene can feel, and which will guide her to safety through any danger, labyrinth, path or obstacle, no matter how dangerous or hopeless it may seem. That's about half of it, and I don't know how many stories and legends were just condensed into one character. Like Lloyd Alexander's Prydain book and Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence (which I'm currently in the middle of rereading, I now realize that practically every single thing about the story has some mythic reference worked into it, though much of it is more subtle and disguised here, as it's less overtly based on mythology.
Unsurprisingly, morality is very black-and-white. You must be honest, you must be loyal, you must be brave, you must be fair, etc. And in not so subtle allusions, you must also sometimes believe in things you cannot see or here, and have faith that they exist becausethe Bible a trustworthy source told you so. And, of course, you must not fall prey to the dark and get dragged to the underworld. It's also extremely steeped in mythology, and while it presents itself as a fairytale world where good triumphs over evil, it's not a bright and happy forest kingdom. It's cold, it's windy, it's wet, the woods are scraggly, everything is rough and rocky, and miners toil underground all day. While it's unmistakably a fairlytale, the world it's set in is very real, even moreso to the children who would have been reading it when it was first published in the 1870s. And, like most fairytale princesses, Irene's mother is absent, but she's not inexplicable dead from an unexplained disease or an accident or childbirth, but is weak and ill, and so unable to care for a child.
The story, characterization and writing are all solid (MacDonald's writing itself is as simple and straightforward as most older children's literature, but he also has a more diverse vocabulary) and while there are doses of frank realism and the world and mythology are all very interesting and involving, it's still very, very innocent in many ways, and extremely black-and-white.
I mention that for the purpose of establishing nostalgia-levels perspective. The edition i have now is the recently released Puffin Classics edition with an introduction by Ursula LeGuin.
The Princess and the Goblin is both simple and innocent in obvious-to-adult-readers ways, and very complex in more subtle ways (mostly involving the met narrative and mythology). The plot itself is, in essence, a thwarted-Abducted Bride story. The heroine, eight-year-old Princess Irene lives in the countryside and stumbles across goblins in the woods. She's rescued by Curdie, a twelve-year-old miner. Later, Curdie learns that the goblins are planning to invade the surface world, and the goblin prince plots to abduct Irene and force her to be his bride. Naturally, Irene and Curdie thwart the invasion, with a little help, and Irene is not forced to marry the goblin prince. Incidentally, a goblin's sole weakness is his feet, which are very soft and have only one giant, soft toe, which they can't abide having stepped on or bashed. Oh, and singing. The more wholesome the better.
One thing that I always remembered about this book, and remembered vividly is Irene's great-great-something grandmother, a sorceress who is also named Irene. You can only find her using secret corridors, and only see her if it's your time to, and you believe, and she lives in a secluded tower with a spinning wheel, which she uses to spin a ball of thread so fine that you can't actually see it, and which only Irene can feel, and which will guide her to safety through any danger, labyrinth, path or obstacle, no matter how dangerous or hopeless it may seem. That's about half of it, and I don't know how many stories and legends were just condensed into one character. Like Lloyd Alexander's Prydain book and Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence (which I'm currently in the middle of rereading, I now realize that practically every single thing about the story has some mythic reference worked into it, though much of it is more subtle and disguised here, as it's less overtly based on mythology.
Unsurprisingly, morality is very black-and-white. You must be honest, you must be loyal, you must be brave, you must be fair, etc. And in not so subtle allusions, you must also sometimes believe in things you cannot see or here, and have faith that they exist because
The story, characterization and writing are all solid (MacDonald's writing itself is as simple and straightforward as most older children's literature, but he also has a more diverse vocabulary) and while there are doses of frank realism and the world and mythology are all very interesting and involving, it's still very, very innocent in many ways, and extremely black-and-white.