Skip to main content

Platypus Fantastique

Je ne sais pas que vous dit, mais le porte de ma couer est ouvre maintenant; et tout le monde est different. Perhaps Lewis would forgive my broken French, but I've been reading through George MacDonald's "Phantasties" and that seems to be as best as I can describe what both Lewis and MacDonald say in so many of their works. Tout le monde est different. Je parle a les intelligents. Il qui ne sais pas, pour il, mon esprit est blanc. In the dark and tangled woods of Fairy Land we pursue the thing as it is. The vale is drawn back and the metaphor found to be more real than what we thought it represented, for we are in Fairy Land if we have the eyes to see it. Beren and Luthien still dance through the moonlit glades where once a quiet Oxford don and an English country-girl walked hand in hand beneath the hemlock umbels tall and fair. I have been there. I know. There it is ever Autumn and the Platypus sings his songs by the river in the moonlight. If you go there you may see him in a forest glade where he dances the harvest dance for the Lady of Autumn and her knight.

Comments

Graf Spee said…
Faerie is all around us. We just have to see it. :}
12:15 PM
James said…
Have you been gluing models in a small, poorly ventilated room again? That always helps.
6:43 PM
Ema said…
I love George MacDonald's works. He is one of my favorite writers, and yet, it is rare for me to find anyone who has read any of his writings. You have made ema's top 100 list of wonderful people;)

Ema
8:38 PM
Linds said…
Nate and I are reading through Fantastes right now, actually! We think the main character needs to reevaluate his opinion of his steadfastness in the face of a pretty girl. :)
4:36 PM
James said…
Hi Linds! Yeah, I got through the book and ended up thinking hmmmm... There's a common theme here. Let me know what you think when you finish!
9:37 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane: The Platypus Reads Part CCLII

I needed a break from A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (too many authors and too many styles coming in too fast) so I decided to turn back to an author whose work I've enjoyed exploring: Robert E. Howard.  This time, however, I decided to skip over Howard's famous Conan yarns and instead take a look at one of his earlier creations, Solomon Kane.  The idea of a puritan occult detective was too intriguing to pass up.  I have the whole collection of Kane's tales and I do intend to blog them all.  Right now, my little literary detour has only encompassed the first two short stories so I'm going to record my thoughts on them right away and get back to the rest as I have time. Skulls in the Stars Solomon Kane makes his debut with this classic bit of English Gothic including a haunted moor, a vengeful ghost, and a solitary miser.   Howard's Kane fits the portrait of the archetypal puritan: grim, principled, metaphysical, with an iron sense of right and wrong.  I h...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
15 comments
Read more

SNES as Money Well Spent: Platypus Nostalgia

I got my Super Nintendo Entertainment System when I was eleven years old.  That's a couple years after it first came out.  The occasion was a little dramatic: to celebrate the end of a two-and-a-half year course of treatment for cancer.  I had no idea that it would be waiting for me at home after the final doctors visit.  It was a nice spring day, the trees were waving gently in the breeze outside the bay windows.  With a cup of tea resting on the coffee table, I set down to play.  What was that first game?  It was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past .  Around twenty years later, my SNES still works as does that Zelda cartridge.  It's been a long way from boyhood in Southern Connecticut to manhood in North Houston, but I'm still playing. Why am I still playing?  There were stretches when I didn't.  Many times, I've just been too busy.  There were also seasons when it felt embarrassing to still be playing video games....
10 comments
Read more