Phantastes

Phantastes, George MacDonald, Ballantine, 1970

Written in the 1850s, this is the story of Andros, who, on reaching his 21st birthday, enters a place of wonder called Fairy Land. Consisting of what seems like one giant forest, it is more like the place we travel to in our dreams than a real place.

Andros meets all sorts of beings on his journey, only some of whom are human. He meets old women in isolated cottages more than willing to put him up for the night, and to comfort his fears. He meets tree people who tell him, more than once, that the Ash-tree is his enemy, and is to be avoided at all costs. He frees a young woman from a block of marble by singing her free. He gains a shadow, the sort of shadow that damages or destroys everything it touches. Exploring a huge, and nearly deserted, castle, Andros reads the tale of a man named Cosmo.

A student at the University of Prague, Cosmo lives by himself in a single room in an old house. One night, he brings home an old mirror whose frame is full of strange writing. He is stunned to see the living image of a young woman in the mirror. She is not actually in Cosmo's room, just in the mirror. The woman is obviously in some sort of emotional distress, but she is unaware of Cosmo's presence. He quickly falls in love with this woman whose voice he has never heard and whose name he doesn't know. Suddenly, one night, she doesn't show up. Cosmo succeeds in using magic to bring her to the "real" world. She tells him that she is a prisoner of the mirror and only its destruction will bring her freedom. After she and the mirror disappear, Cosmo scours the city looking for the mirror, ready to break it if he ever finds it. Meantime, in another part of the city, a princess is at death's door with an illness that has baffled the medical profession. Suddenly, she leaps out of bed, shouting, "I'm free! I'm free!"

The writing in this book is lyrical and richly descriptive, but it also does not have much in the way of a plot, so reading it will take a lot of patience. For anyone who wants to get away from the usual quest and sorcery fantasy novels, and get back to a real fairy tale, read this and you won't be sorry. It's really worth reading.