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Email the Editor:From Hugh O'Connor:There is an important point not mentioned in John Docherty's review in North Wind 19 of the limitations inherent in the 'evangelical' rewrites of MacDonald's novels. The rewriter's avowed aim of "tightening and accelerating the plot" is wholly absurd for those novels where, although the characters develop throughout the story, virtually no plot is present in the normal sense of the term. Castle Warlock is a particularly striking example. Even with some of the novels where rather more of a plot is apparently present, upon closer investigation this reveals itself primarily as MacDonald delighting "in the frictions and contradictions he could produce through his generic criss-crossings " of "many different nineteenth-century literary forms", as U. C. Knoepflmacher expresses it in his splendid introduction to the Penguin edition of MacDonald's shorter fairy tales. MacDonald seems to have felt that he had to appear to satisfy his editor's demand for a conventional plot. Yet, at the same time, he apparently wished to 'send up' the whole concept of the necessity for such a plot. Editor's reply to the above (17th March, 2001):O'Connor's is an important point. MacDonald seems to have adopted this outlook as early as 1864 with his send up of conventional 'happy endings’ in his rewrite of his original Cornhill Magazine version of The Portent. (See my short paper in North Wind 13). From the Editor (17th March, 2001):In Fernando Soto's paper in North Wind 19 he reproduces illustrations of 'Anodos vases' from Jane Harrison's books, published in the early part of the twentieth century, but points out that this sort of material was becoming readily available to lay people a whole century earlier. When he sent me his paper I should have recalled immediately that I use such material myself—particularly reproductions in later works of some of the numerous excellent illustrations of Greek vases and related artifacts first published in F. Creuzer's multi-volume work of 1819, Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Voelker. Somehow I forgot, so he was unable to include this important information in his paper. I extend to him my sincere apologies for my lapse of memory. From the Editor (6th February, 2001):Rebeca Ankenny has noticed an error in the printed version of North Wind 19. The reference to The Elect Lady on page 72 in the review of chapter 5 of her book was a slip. The actual work she examines there is The Flight of the Shadow . The mistake in the review passed unnoticed because although the review copy of her book had been requested from the publishers several months earlier it arrived only a day or two before the journal was due to go to print. Prof. Ankeny also feels that both the mention of the wrong paper of Adrian Gunther's being listed in her bibliography and the emphasis upon how she has carefully avoided plagiarising Nancy Mellon's paper on Adela Cathcart from North Wind 15 could be read as concealed accusations of plagiarism. This was certainly not the reviewer's intention. The Gunther allusion could be interpreted in that way, but it would be a more tortuous reading. Ankeny's book is a development of part of her doctoral thesis: "That Rare Thing, A True Reader: Authors Readers and Texts in the Fiction of George MacDonald." |
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