This is MJ. Welcome to Story Over Everything. This is a special Skimming Leaves episode where I will be talking about a classic book.
This time around it's going to be The Princess and Curdie written by George MacDonald.
But I'll tell you more about that in just a moment.
According to Wikipedia, The Princess and Curdie is a children's classic fantasy novel by George MacDonald from late 1883.
Which I'm going to do the math real quick just because I can.
140 years old. That's how old that book is. That's pretty old.
It's a sequel to Princess and the Goblin, which you should know.
And the adventure continues with Princess Irene and Curdie a year or two older.
I think it explicitly says how old they are in the book, but I don't remember now. I'm pretty sure it's two, if not three.
And they must overthrow a set of corrupt ministers who are poisoning...
Oh! If you want the full spoilers on what's going on in the book for the plot,
I invite you to go to read the book, honestly. Because I won't do that.
That's an incomplete reading of the synopsis because I value your reading experience more than I value my accuracy or whatever.
So yeah, I'm not going to do it, but I will.
What I am going to do is talk about this book because I liked it a lot.
I really enjoyed the Princess and the Goblin, and I really enjoyed the Princess and Curdie.
I think they are different books, but you can tell they're written by the same man, McDonald's.
So I've only listened to a little bit of Fantasies, I believe, or maybe it was The Shadows.
Yeah, The Shadows is like a short... I listened to some of that.
And that, The Princess and the Goblin, and now The Princess and Curdie, they have McDonald's writing style all over them.
And I don't quite know what it is. I was telling my daughter about this book the other day.
She listened to it and recommended me listen to this after I had recommended to her that she listen to The Princess and the Goblin.
And I told her that somehow, while I don't think McDonald's writing is the greatest writing I've ever read,
because it doesn't feel like that or look like it, I guess you could say, somehow the book is amazing.
And that's from my experience with The Little Bit of the Shadows I listened to and all of these two Princess and Goblin books.
His writing is charming, suspenseful, thrilling, scary, sweet, all at the same time.
And I don't really know what it is about the writing and what particular techniques he's using, if any, that make it feel thus.
But he's doing something because she and I, I wouldn't say our taste in books overlaps 100 percent.
Definitely our taste in different media stuff overlaps.
I can't quite tell how much she likes Star Wars versus me.
I love Star Wars, but I've had so much more exposure to it than she has.
But definitely some of my other more niche stuff, I don't think she's interested in at all, which is fine. I don't care.
I love it. So that's what matters to me.
But regardless, there's something in these books that speaks to both of us.
And we're on very different sides of the spectrum as far as who this audience is or who these books are for.
It's much more written to her than it is to me.
But I think and I feel really bad about saying this, there's a line in The Breakfast Club, classic, great, John Hughes, I believe, 80s movie.
I don't really care who made it, just because I think he also made 16 candles and I did not like that one little bit.
Except for Long Duck Dong, but that's totally not part of this conversation.
Anyway, in The Breakfast Club, there's a line from the scary goth outcast type character.
And she says, when you grow up, your heart dies.
And I heard that as I don't know, a nine year old, a ten year old.
I was watching movies way before I should have been.
Well, yeah, I should have had better parental control on my movie input.
But here we are. And I haven't shown that to my kids yet because I don't think it's appropriate.
I kind of doubt I will. It's just a thing for me to have experienced.
But yeah, when you grow up, your heart dies or your heart dies when you grow up.
Something along those lines. Anyway, that sentiment felt true to me as a kid or it felt scary to me as a kid that that could be true.
And as I've been a man for some time and I've got my own kids and they're the ages they are and the stages they are,
I can see, you know, and I've endured the pressures of life, much like the old king.
I can feel that there is some truth in that, that when some people grow up, their hearts die.
But then there are others whose hearts don't die.
And that doesn't mean that you have to enjoy or that you're going to enjoy children's literature
if you're one of the good kind of people whose hearts don't die when they grow up.
And, you know, but well, that's full stop, as they say.
However, I think the book is about not letting your heart die as you are growing up, which I think is wonderful.
I think it's wonderful. I think it's beautiful. I think it's lovely. I think it's a very important message for our time.
I think that a lot of what's wrong with the world today is that too many people's hearts have died or become crusted over with whatever.
Ironically, vanity, vanity and emptiness has crusted over their hearts.
I believe that's true. But yeah, the great emptiness has led to something.
And, you know, from that, you may divine. I use that word purposely and pointedly and as a pun.
You may divine that I am what the kids would now call trad or traditional in how I live my life.
And that is very much true. I've never tried to hide that from you, dear listener.
But I don't believe and I would say that McDonald and I differ quite forcefully in certain things
as far as our conception of God and the afterlife and things like that. Well, maybe yes and maybe not.
You would assume that the two of us would differ quite greatly.
But so much of the spiritual truths that he hints at and speaks to that are found in these two books,
I think are so beautifully rendered that they betray either a they betray that he and I resonate
or that perhaps in fictionalizing his outlook on God and the universe that he put it in words that sound good to me,
which I don't know if it matters, you know, what he thought versus what I think
because of what his thinking and philosophy and cosmology and I guess even theology in his works says to me.
Because what it says to me is beautiful and affirming and uplifting and endearing.
And I don't know without getting into too many.
Well, I think I'm going to have to stop being vague and start getting into specifics because I've hardly said anything at all.
I could say, and I would think, you know, your argument is a little ungenerous, but it could also be edging towards fairness.
So without further ado, I will say what I mean to say.
The interaction that Kertie has with Princess Irene or Queen Irene, which I think it's fair to say, given her advanced age,
that sets off the beginning, the book that gets the book going in its course is very interesting.
We hear in the first, I think within the first two chapters that Kertie has began to grow quickly in body,
which means that he's growing more slowly or dimly or even diminishing somewhat in mind.
And he's taken weapons of war, a bow and an arrow, which, you know, that's also weapons of hunting, but it's a weapon nonetheless.
A weapon is a thing that's purpose is to kill.
And no matter how you want to dress that up or romanticize it or say that weapons are for saving people or for healing or for doing this or that or whatever,
by the way, this is a riff on something else. If you know, you know, let me know.
But that's, you know, naive sweet talk. And the truth of it is that a weapon is for killing and learning how to use a weapon is the art of learning how to kill.
And this is something that Kertie is teaching himself.
And what he does with that is he sees one of the beautiful white doves of the princess, of the great old grandmother of Princess Irene, who she shares a name with.
And in while he's admiring its beauty, he decides to test out his new bow and arrow.
He takes aim and rather surprisingly, it was shocking, honestly, the way it was written.
He strikes and hits the bird with his arrow as it's about to fly off and be left alone to live its merry, peaceful life as this potentially magical pigeon.
He strikes it down and it dies. It doesn't quite die, but it's as if it died. That was his intent.
His intent was to kill it. He struck the mark and only I assume the supernatural nature of these pigeons and the supernatural nature of the princess Irene, the elder Princess Irene,
was this dove saved because this dove being shot by this young man because it's what he wanted to do. He wanted to test his skill and his prowess and his power.
And he wanted to test the weapons that his hands had made. He was allowed to do that because I don't know, because God needs to let you be free to do what you want to do in order for you to choose what you should do.
And I don't know. That's so wonderful. And it's interesting to me that the trigger or the inciting incident in this book is a character doing exactly what he wanted to do and having success at it.
There's no great failure. His parents aren't killed. There's no dark lord who comes along and brings everything to ruination.
Instead, Kurti, through his own ambition and through forgetting his heart and through forgetting some of who he is, he starts to turn into who he's going to be and who he's going to be is not who he should be.
It's not who he truly is, but it's who he can be. And that ties in thematically to something later on with the army of uglies and the men who are becoming beasts.
And it's really fascinating that, and I'm just putting this together now, that Kurti himself was slipping into becoming a beast.
And he was saved from that by heartbreak, by a broken and contrite heart. He came and sought forgiveness for this sin.
And yet, Kurti asks the Princess Irene as she's absolving him and cleansing him and as the bird is okay and it's being healed and restored unto what it should be, unto its original purpose.
He asks the Princess Irene if he should destroy the weapons. And when she says no, that's the bow and the arrows, he asks her if she should do it instead because she has this great fire that is able to do...
It's able to do things that a normal fire can't. And it's more potent, more powerful, and more noble in some ways than an ordinary fire.
And anyway, Kurti asks the Princess if that's what should be done, if she should use her fire or if he should use the fire to destroy the weapon.
And she says no, and she tells him to keep the weapons, the bow and arrows, because these weapons will be needed and he needs to practice with them so that he can use them for the right purpose when the time is right.
Because as she puts it, there are things that will ask to be killed or that will need killing.
And now that you've tasted death, now that you've dealt death, that is something that is your responsibility to hold onto and maintain.
And it's a craft, or it's a craft to skill, something that you need to be able to do for when the time is right.
And I really find the nuance in that beautiful. I'm trying to think...
Oh yes, the Oz books, which I will be getting into in the future of Skimming Leaves. They do not really... they're complicated.
They're complicated because Baum wrote them, I believe, a little fast and loose.
But ultimately he comes to a more and more pacifistic thinking or frame of mind where he eschews combat of any sort and killing.
Well, at least in book six, he very much steps away from the past actions of his characters, of his heroes,
who had killed in defense of their friends and who had fought in defense of their friends, in defense of good against evil.
And it was okay in those earlier adventure books, but as things go on in the Oz series, which I will end this tangent momentarily,
there's a shift in, I think, Baum's perspective and his outlook and what he wants the children to be reading.
So that's kind of interesting. But I appreciate that McDonald doesn't pull his punches
and that he goes so far as to make combat and killing necessary and noble, if not desirable.
Because I don't think he ever makes war desirable.
He doesn't turn it into the object of a hero's affection.
He doesn't turn it to a place or a time to seek glory and self-aggrandizement.
He makes it what it is. He makes violence and war the necessary evil that they are.
And I think that's perfect.
Sorry, as I'm talking about the book more and more, I'm thinking about it more and more and things are revealing themselves to me.
And it's just giving me pause. So you'll have to excuse me. And I actually prefer you indulge me in it.
And if you're moved at all or persuaded by any of this to check out the book for yourself,
I'd really appreciate you leaving me a comment and telling me what you think about the book.
By the way, as I was looking into the Wikipedia article so I could pull some of the public information
or the publication information, I found two reviews of it.
Well, one review is no longer available and the other review is available.
And I skimmed it. Somebody from the UK, which they would have been a cousin to McDonald, you could say.
And both of them were critical reviews and I didn't really see any positive reviews sourced in the Wiki.
But I totally disagree with the negative things that those...
Well, yeah, there's an excerpt, just a line or two from each of the negative reviews.
And I don't get it at all because thinking back on the book,
none of what they're saying about its politics or its cynicism is legitimate or real to me.
I just don't see those things. And I'm a very political person.
And I think in the context of the story, it isn't saying what these people are saying, it's saying.
And as far as its cynicism, I believe the cynicism written into the end of the book,
because it is very positive, a very positive book, the cynicism written into the end is a beautiful warning sign
about letting your heart die and forgetting who you are and becoming somebody who you shouldn't be.
And because you've stopped being who you should be or who you were made to be all along.
And I find that very sobering, especially after the events of the entire book.
I would also argue against the... I'm not going to argue against, I want to argue for.
I want to argue for the depth of nuance that I was going to say Baum, not Baum, McDonald has.
Because in The Princess and the Goblin, he shows a human side, he shows a civilized side,
he shows a good side, I guess you could say, to the goblins.
They love their families, they care for each other.
It's almost as if for the goblin sections of the book, he's showing the world from the goblins' perspective
and just showing how they fear and misunderstand the sun people.
And because they fear them, well, because they misunderstand them, they fear them and they have this rivalry.
And honestly, part of The Princess and the Goblin is the goblins having a plan to cease the enmity between men and goblins
and form an alliance with them and bring peace between their peoples.
And it's interesting that The Princess and the Goblin shows the humanity of goblins,
and then The Princess and Curdie shows the goblindness of humans.
It shows the evil and the corruption and the fallen nature of man on full display.
So this is not a world where humans are good and all creatures, all non-human creatures are evil.
It's a world where the good is good and the evil is evil.
And if the good do not guard themselves against evil, they can become evil and that can forever dominate their destiny.
And I find that refreshing and beautiful and very instructive.
There are lines in... well, there's a through line between the two books, rather,
that the goblins have goblin creatures, goblin animals that have become goblin-ish from living underground.
And they come back in this book in a remarkable way.
They are called the Uglies, eventually, which is hilarious.
Well, it's funny that the book calls them that.
But they serve such a beautiful purpose in the book,
and they prove themselves to be wonderful, grotesque monsters who are just good,
or who are good, innocent animals who have such a good purpose and a good effect on the world
that you could almost say that the goblins, becoming the monsters they were, becoming goblins,
and then the animals who live with them becoming as grotesque as they were,
and eventually becoming the Uglies who accompany Kurti and his allies in this book,
you could almost say that the reason the goblins came into existence was for the sake of the Uglies coming into existence
so that they could perform their function, their purpose, and do their great deeds.
Because they do great and noble deeds, and they really save our heroes when men,
especially in the king's town, in the castle town, when so many men, and women, mostly the focus of the evil,
in particular there's an instance of a baker and his wife.
The baker is a wicked man, and the baker's wife is a good woman, and that's interesting.
Very Kurti is very generous towards women, even though there are some hacks, I'll just put it that way,
I believe, in the book, but they're not touched on for too long.
But anyway, it's interesting to me that you have this contrast of these grotesque, monstrous animals
who are of the goblin, not ilk necessarily, but of goblin association, and they are used to rectify,
in their ugliness and in their fierceness and in their grim ability to maim and hurt and kill,
they are used to rectify and restore this kingdom that is becoming beast-like,
this kingdom of men who are descending and becoming their baser animal selves.
They're able to purge and purify that, and kind of like how Kurti had innocent blood,
the innocent blood of a dove, or a pigeon, whatever, who he didn't intend to kill for food,
he killed for sport instead, he's got that creature's innocent blood on his hands,
and yet, or perhaps because of that, he's able to go forth and aid in this great mission.
Similarly, the uglies are, they parallel him, they're in the same boat, and I just find that kind of fascinating,
especially with, again, that contrast of men who are becoming beasts, men who are becoming monsters,
are being stopped by these monsters who are shown to be good and noble and innocent or even pure in their own way.
And I don't know, it's a really interesting book, I haven't really had full time to digest it,
but I definitely enjoyed it thoroughly throughout. I was moved at different times by different things.
There's a couple of weird things in it, but I don't really need to go into them right now.
But overall, I really liked it, and I thought it was an excellent book,
and I think it's a wonderful follow-up to The Princess and the Goblin, and like I said,
the two books seem to have a conversation with each other, or they're not two halves of a whole necessarily,
but they definitely complement each other, and I now appreciate The Princess and the Goblin more than I did before I'd read this,
and my reading of The Princess and the Goblin definitely helped me to enjoy things,
it made it for a much richer experience, The Princess and Curdie.
I think it would work as a standalone book as well, but together they're just, they're a great match,
and MacDonald really knows what he's about, or knew what he was about,
and I'm very thankful to him for writing this and for inspiring Lewis and Tolkien to steal from him,
for The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and even, not that hideous, well yes, that hideous strength,
but beyond that hideous strength, the Space Trilogy,
because I can feel little bits of MacDonald's writing in the whole Lord of the Rings saga,
including The Hobbit and the Space Trilogy, I think as well, by C.S. Lewis.
Of course Tolkien is Lord of the Rings Hobbit, and Lewis is Space Trilogy and Narnia,
so very interesting, very fascinating, and thoroughly enjoyable, and I definitely think you should read it for yourself.
I hope you enjoyed that off-the-cuff Skimming Leaves episode, it was very unstructured,
but I had fun talking about the book, and I am going to be tackling probably L. Frank Baum's Oz series next,
he wrote 14 books, and they're all about 5 to 6 hours long, I don't think any of them reach 7 hours,
so we'll see how I do those, but I definitely want to cover them all,
but I've discovered more books that I want to discuss on Skimming Leaves,
so we'll see exactly how rapidly those episodes come out,
and I want to make it to owners for anybody who's trying to follow along and read these books too,
although you can listen to almost all of these for free on LibriVox.org,
so I'll leave links to that in the show notes so you can find all of that good stuff.
Anyway, that's it for me, I'm going to go ahead and get out of here,
I thank you for your time and attention, and I hope that you're well.
I hope you enjoyed that. Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments, or other feedback you might have.
There you can find all of my analysis, art, and fiction.
I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime, and more.
Look around, you're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well.
This has been a Story Over Everything production.