Preparing for the 2019 Chapter-a-Day Read-along: Lilith

Our read-along of The Count of Monte Cristo is almost done, so it’s time to get ready for our next book, Lilith, by George MacDonald. Lilith is going to be quite a change from Dumas’ tale of revenge, so it may take a little adjustment of one’s reading mindset. Not only is Lilith a fantasy story, but it’s also quite dark, dense, and deep. It has been called “a long parabolic narrative heavily laden with Victorian Christian symbolism,” so get ready for some allegorical writing.

Lilith is our shortest read-along of the year, at 47 chapters. The read-along goes from September 3 to October 19. Because it has the reputation of being a dark fantasy, I thought autumn would be a good time to read it, just as pumpkins and hay bales are beginning to appear. Remember to use the hashtag #lilithreadalong if you are posting on social media. I’ll continue my habit of posting a quote from each chapter on both Twitter and Facebook, and I invite you to do the same.

A Bit of Background

Though he does not get as much attention as the people he influenced, George MacDonald was a major force in the development of fantasy fiction. MacDonald mentored  Lewis Carroll and he had a strong influence on the works of such fantasy writers as J. M. Barrie, Lord Dunsany, Robert E. Howard, L. Frank Baum, T.H. White, Lloyd Alexander, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Peter S. Beagle (all of whom are among my favorite authors).

According to Michael Mendelson in his article, “George MacDonald’s Lilith and the Conventions of Ascent,”

C.S. Lewis refers to MacDonald as the preeminent genius of mythopoetic fantasy, and Auden asserts that Lilith is “equal if not superior to the best of Poe.” Other distinguished readers include H.G. Wells, G.K. Chesterton, T.S. Eliot and J.R.R. Tolkien, all of whom seemed to have borrowed from MacDonald. More recently, Steven Prickett has claimed in Victorian Fantasy that MacDonald is perhaps the greatest fantasy-writer of the Victorian (“or any other”) period.

Mendelson goes on to describe what a reader can expect from Lilith:

Lilith is fundamentally a romance of ascent. Like the great upward journeys of Dante, Bunyan and Blake, MacDonald’s romance is an invented myth based on a structure of Christian allegory in which the journey’s goal is the return of mankind to its ultimate source in the creator. But MacDonald’s ascent also involves a paradoxical fall into horror and alienation: as Eliot has it, “the way down is the way up.”

MacDonald’s prose is rich with symbolism and imaginative power, but may take some work to understand. For those would like a little assistance as they read, David Nelson has published an online study guide for Lilith.

You can find Lilith online for free at Project Gutenberg, and there is also a free audiobook version at Librivox.

Who Is Lilith?

Lilith is a figure out of Jewish mythology who also later figured in Western European literature of the Romantic Period and whose legend influenced the artists known as the  Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. But who is she?

Here is how she is described in Goethe’s play Faust:

Faust:
Lilith? Who is that?
Mephistopheles:
Adam’s wife, his first. Beware of her.
Her beauty’s one boast is her dangerous hair.
When Lilith winds it tight around young men
She doesn’t soon let go of them again.

Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1866–1868, 1872–1873)

And here is a sonnet titled “Lilith” by Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti:

Of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, it is told
(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)
That, ere the snake’s, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flower; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! As that youth’s eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

It will be interesting to see how MacDonald incorporates her story into his novel. As much as I have enjoyed reading The Count of Monte Cristo, I’m ready for a change, and reading Lilith should do the trick.