Friday, December 13, 2024

Light Princess

 

Book: Light Princess
Basic Information : Synopsis : Characters : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words :  Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: George MacDonald

Edition: epub on Google Play Book from Gutenberg

Start Date: December 12, 2024

Read Date: December 13, 2024

54 pages

Genre:  Fiction, Fantasy

Language Warning:  None

Rated Overall: 4  out of 5


Fiction-Tells a good story: 5 out of 5

Fiction-Character development: 4 out of 5



Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Evaluations):

A king and queen are without a child, until they have their first and only child, a daughter. Many people were invited to the princess's christening. But the king forgot to invite his sister, a witch. But the sister comes anyway and casts a spell on the princess. The spell is that the princess would not feel the effects of gravity.


The princess literally floats through life while growing up. A breeze could set her a float or a careless hold would send her to the roof. Also this affected her temperament as well. Even the most severe tragedy would send her into laughter.


A wandering prince comes along one day and spies the princess swimming. He falls in love and hangs out for the possibility of the sight or her. He gets employment on the castle to be close to her.


The witch feels thwarted by the princess being able to enjoy water and schemes to drain the lake by the castle. The only way to plug the drain is for a willing victim to become the plug. The prince volunteers.


As the prince is about to drown, the princess realizes her loss and rescues the prince. The lake collapses and drowns the witch. The princess now has gravity and gets married to the prince and they lived happily ever after.




Cast of Characters:
  • King
  • Queen
  • Princess
  • Prince-from Lagobel, a thousand miles away
  • Princess Makemnoit-sister of the King, evil woman, described as a witch
  • Nurse
  • Hum-Drum-Materialist Philosopher, Chinese
  • Kopy-Keck-Spiritualist Philosopher, Chinese


Thoughts:

December 10th, 2024 was the 200th birthday of George MacDonald. I listened to a Mars Hill

Friday Feature talking about MacDonald and realized that I wanted to reread something by him. The Light Princess was the choice.


Note: This fairy tale was told first in a book by MacDonald called Adela Cathcart. Apparently the main character was upset and was told this tale to calm her. I have not read that book yet.


I enjoyed this quick read, both for the story, the humor MacDonald had, and for the way MacDonald put together his words. Also, when you look beyond the fairy tale aspect, there is something MacDonald is trying to say to us. We need both lightness and seriousness in our lives,in proper proportions. Also we need to be serious about the things which are worthy of our seriousness, such as things eternal, not just about the everyday stuff of life.



1. What! No Children?

Title says it all-no children for the king and queen.


2. Won't I, Just?

At last the queen gave them a daughter and many people were invited to the christening. Now it does not generally matter if somebody is forgotten, only you must mind who. It was the sister of the king whom they forgot to invite-she was also a disagreeable person and a witch.


She came anyway and cast a spell on the princess-to be light both of spirit and body.



3. She Can't Be Ours.

It was realized what the witch had done. Her atrocious aunt had deprived the child of all her gravity. That is she was weightless even as a full bodied person. Also she was weightless in manner and also was laughing at anything, even the most depressing news.


The princess would float and if a breeze caught her, she would be blown away. If for some reason she was given an upward motion, she would fly.



4. Where Is She?

5. What Is to Be Done?

This led to arguments about the child and if she was OK or if there was some sort of evil attached to her.


I think MacDonald just threw this in to poke fun at someone-my speculation: For the king hated all witticisms, and punning especially. The king went on the most objectionable form duplicity can assume is that of punning. I guess I am guilty in the extreme.


The king tried to apologize to his sister, but she would have none of it-sounds like she enjoyed the debacle too much.




6. She Laughs Too Much.

MacDonald tells a story of some of the incidents. Not knowing what disgust meant, for this was one of her peculiarities


Then MacDonald lays on us one very telling sentence: She never smiled. Her laughter did not reach her soul. She had no emotion, only the illusion. This may be the saddest part of the whole book.



7. Try Metaphysics.

The king asks her, how does she feel? The answer: Like nothing at all, that I know of. Indicative of what MacDonald is getting at in this story. Is it better to feel hurt and disappointment than to feel nothing? Even the princess' laughter is not gaiety rather a symptom of her condition. She feels nothing. Is the ability to feel part of what makes us human? That would mean unless we can feel the hurt around us we are less human. When we encounter misery, how we respond shows us how human we are. And in many ways, the more we feel, the more human we are. Can it be that we are closer to being in God’s image? After all, Jesus felt all of our misery.


I think MacDonald is poking fun at Chinese philosophers with his characterization of them. People who are searching, but cannot agree.




8. Try a Drop of Water.

How to cure it? MacDonald thinks her falling in love, but that would require some emotion. Maybe going for a swim.


During a festival, they were in a barge on the lake by the castle. The king slipped and fell into the lake, taking the princess with him. She found that there was enjoyment being in the water.

at the same time she seemed more sedate than usual. Perhaps that was because a great pleasure spoils laughing. Interesting phrasing. Is MacDonald saying there is something deeper than laughing?


Apparently she did have one bit of weightiness. She did not like being in the air, being taken wherever a breeze wanted her to go. She had as great a dread of the air as some children have of the water. But she loved the water. As she got older, she was literally tied down by cords attached to people so that she would not float away.


The philosophers determined that if the poor afflicted princess could by any means be made to cry, she might recover her lost gravity.. They may have been right, but to produce that was very hard to manufacture.



9. Put Me in Again.

Of course, every good fairy tale has a prince. This prince was looking for a princess to marry. He got lost in the woods. These forests are very useful in delivering princes from their courtiers, like a sieve that keeps back the bran. There is humor in MacDonald’s writing. You just need to look for it. It is not humor which will reach out and grab you, but humor which is like a little tickle.


The prince encounters laughter across a lake and mistakes it for screaming-the hatching of a real hearty laugh requires the incubation of gravity; The prince thinks he is rescuing her, but she is upset with him as she goes flying up, only saving herself only by catching the top of a tree.


She is angry with him-MacDonald does not make note that this must have been something new for the princess. She demands to be returned to the water. He does this by jumping off of a rock 25’ up and falling in . She is enamored by the fall. It is a new phenomenon for her. He has fallen in love with her. Take note of the pun of falling in and how both the king and the princess did not like puns.


They departed.



10. Look at the Moon.

The prince now makes a nightly rendezvous with the princess in the lake. He notes that when she is in the water, she is like a normal person, and yet there are some basic things which she is missing, such as what does love mean.


11. Hiss!

The princess discovers that the lake is shrinking. The reason was that the witch had discovered the princess’ pleasure in water and took measures to drain the lake. She summoned a giant serpent who punctured the underside of the lake, causing it to drain. Not only did she cause the lake to drain, she also caused the springs which fed the lake to dry up.



12. Where Is the Prince?

The princess all but disappeared into her chamber as the lake disappeared. The prince sought her in vain. He took on a job in the castle as a shoeblack to be close to her.


Some kids discovered a plate at the bottom of the lake which when deciphered said that the only way to stop the flow was to plug it with the body of a willing victim.



13. Here I Am.

The prince offers himself.


A good line as the king was offended by how the offer was made. But on reflection thought it would be a great water to kill the only man who was willing to die for his princess. Caused me to snicker.


The prince has one condition, which at first the king found was not acceptable to have a condition to die for his daughter. But when he heard the prince only wanted the princess to tend to him until he was near drowning, that was OK. The king sent people out to find the hole.



14. This Is Very Kind of You.

The princess does feed him, but is pretty much self-centered. He has to convince her that it is in her best interest to tend to him as he may not be able to finish the task of dying for her. The lake deepens.


When the water deepens enough that he has his last breath, she suddenly jumps in to save him. And suddenly she knew she loved him and needed to save him. But it was too late, he had taken his last breath. She had him laid on her bed while she and her nurse tried to revive him. Then at last the morning sun started to shine its light and he was revived.


I wonder if MacDonald is making a pun here about the morning sun saving alluding to the Morning Son who saved us.



15. Look at the Rain

The princess wept for the first time in her life and then the rains came and filled up the lake. The prince revived. MacDonald notes that of the two, her tears were more glorious than the rain. She also no longer floated. She had gained gravity. And they were married.


And the witch? She died when the lake undermined her house and it fell in on her.

 



Evaluation:

This is the classic MacDonald children’s story complete with a princess, a prince and a witch. Of course all ends well and they live happily ever after. But how MacDonald originally told it was in a book called Adela Cathcart where he uses the tale to calm the main character.


But how they get to that point is where MacDonald is a master. His way with words leaves you enchanted-sorry about the pun. He wants you in his world and when you read the story you want to be in it. And he does it with sly humor, not the knee slapping kind, but the kind which leaves you feeling good about having caught it.


But there is more to the story than just the telling. We moderns tend to be a bit light with our attitudes and our thinking. As MacDonald might say, without much gravity. MacDonald shows us the danger of being that way. We have to lose our enchantment to be brought down to earth and live a life how a human in God’s image would live.


In that way, not only is this a good children’s story, but it is good for those of us getting on in years.



 
Notes from my book group:

What can a fairy tale tell us about living in the real world today?


What do you think MacDonald was trying to tell us?


Do we need something besides laughter to live a full life?


What do you think MacDonald was trying to say that she laughed but she never smiled?


a great pleasure spoils laughing. What does MacDonald mean by that?


The king hated punning. Why? Do you pun? Why?

 

How do you want your life to change because you read this book?


Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of Light Princess?

Does this story work as a children’s story?

Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?

Which character was the most convincing? Least?

Which character did you identify with?

Which one did you dislike?

Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

How did this book affect your view of the world?

Of how God is viewed?

What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?

Reading Groups General Fiction Guide

 

New Words:
  • Retinue-a group of advisers, assistants, or others accompanying an important person.
  • Nereid-any of the sea nymphs held in Greek mythology to be the daughters of the sea god Nereus.

Good Quotes:
  • First Line: Once upon a time, so long ago that I have quite forgotten the date, there lived a king and queen who had no children.
  • Last Line: So the prince and princess lived and were happy; and had crowns of gold, and clothes of cloth, and shoes of leather, and children of boys and girls, not one of whom was ever known, on the most critical occasion, to lose the smallest atom of his or her due proportion of gravity.
 
 
Table of Contents:
  • 1. What! No Children?
  • 2. Won't I, Just?
  • 3. She Can't Be Ours.
  • 4. Where Is She?
  • 5. What Is to Be Done?
  • 6. She Laughs Too Much.
  • 7. Try Metaphysics.
  • 8. Try a Drop of Water.
  • 9. Put Me in Again.
  • 10. Look at the Moon.
  • 11. Hiss!
  • 12. Where Is the Prince?
  • 13. Here I Am.
  • 14. This Is Very Kind of You.
  • 15. Look at the Rain


References:


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