A few nights ago, I finished George MacDonald's Phantastes. Phantastes being the plural of the Greek word from which we get fantasy. The original meaning of fantasy was "an image held in the mind." That's a big hint about where this is going.

And I have to tell you, I loved it. I wholeheartedly recommend it to fans of the Early English Romantic Poets, especially Wordsworth and Blake. (Technically, Blake was a pre-Romantic, but most non-hairsplitting types let it slide.)

It all starts with the "one-and-twentieth birtday" of the main character,Anodos. Upon his birthday, he is invested with certain items and legal rights, among them the right to use the key to his dead father's secretary. (The piece of furniture. Not the employee. This isn't the Bluths we're talking about.) Inside the secretary, he finds . . . papers. This is where things start to turn sideways.

While perusing the papers, Anodos has a conversation with a three inch tall woman who claims great age and infers her place in his ancestry. She invites him to explore Fairy Land and the next 300 pages are crammed full of his experiences there.

There is swashbuckling. There is philosophy and poetry (I did mention the Romantics, right?). There is a Grand Romance, dreams within dreams, layers of meaning, myth, folklore, allegory, transcendentalism, &c., &c.

Eventually Anodos makes his way through Fairy Land after traversing the heights and depths and width of experience available to him, gaining a shadow, fighting giants, living the tales in the books of the Fairy Palace Library. And the reader is sucked into the action of each and every tale. MacDonald is a master of fluid, magical prose.

MacDonald unapologetically tells a linear trans-logical tale. He tells forty or more stories with no apparent connection to the rest other than the inclusion of Anodos and his quest through Fairy Land.

The weakness of Phantastes is the the lack of readily graspable internal structure. The strength of Phantastes is the masterful Story-telling.

For an easier introduction to MacDonald's story-telling skills, and a wonderful book (ostensibly for kids) full of strong characters and cool symbolism, check out The Princess and the Goblin.