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Book Review: The Princess and Curdie
Jul. 8th, 2012 12:01 pmI read George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin a couple of years ago when I was in England, and meant to read The Princess and Curdie but never got around to it, but then I got a Kindle for my birthday and have been on a "FREE OFF-COPYRIGHT BOOKS FUCK YEAH" binge ever since.
The Princess and the Goblin is a moderately entertaining adventure/fantasy/"these two crazy kids are totally going to fall in love when they're older than ten" novel. (Incidentally, one of the things I liked about The Princess and the Goblin is that our hero Curdie is the son of a miner, and a miner himself, but despite his low birth is totally heroic and a fitting future paramour for the princess.
Except! In The Princess and Curdie, for no apparent reason, as an aside, MacDonald tells us that Curdie has some royal blood in his veins way back! Way to wreck that, man!)
I figured that The Princess and Curdie would pick up in the same "now they're older than ten so they can totally be in love in between fighting goblins!" vein, only to be sorely disappointed in this expectation. Goodbye fantasy adventure yarn, hello heavy-handed didactic Christian not-quite-allegory with a vindictively unnecessary unhappy ending!
I mean, really unnecessary. The book is all set up to end with (spoilers, spoilers, spoilers, though if you couldn't guess this end from the title of the book then really, there's no hope for you) Curdie and the Princess Irene marrying each other and ruling the kingdom excellently. But apparently a happy ending was just unacceptable, because on the very last page MacDonald carefully informs us that after Curdie and the Princess die, the kingdom falls into ruin.
Literal ruin. See, Curdie found a hitherto unsuspected gold mine in the king's wine cellar (it's a Victorian children's book, this kind of thing happens), and his successor gets so greedy that he mines under the entire capitol city. Naturally the city collapses, but that's not enough for MacDonald, oh no; not only is the city destroyed, but it's then forevermore forgotten.
Just in case you were hoping to wring something upbeat out of the story. WTF, MacDonald! Did someone kill your puppy while you were writing the ending?
The Princess and the Goblin is a moderately entertaining adventure/fantasy/"these two crazy kids are totally going to fall in love when they're older than ten" novel. (Incidentally, one of the things I liked about The Princess and the Goblin is that our hero Curdie is the son of a miner, and a miner himself, but despite his low birth is totally heroic and a fitting future paramour for the princess.
Except! In The Princess and Curdie, for no apparent reason, as an aside, MacDonald tells us that Curdie has some royal blood in his veins way back! Way to wreck that, man!)
I figured that The Princess and Curdie would pick up in the same "now they're older than ten so they can totally be in love in between fighting goblins!" vein, only to be sorely disappointed in this expectation. Goodbye fantasy adventure yarn, hello heavy-handed didactic Christian not-quite-allegory with a vindictively unnecessary unhappy ending!
I mean, really unnecessary. The book is all set up to end with (spoilers, spoilers, spoilers, though if you couldn't guess this end from the title of the book then really, there's no hope for you) Curdie and the Princess Irene marrying each other and ruling the kingdom excellently. But apparently a happy ending was just unacceptable, because on the very last page MacDonald carefully informs us that after Curdie and the Princess die, the kingdom falls into ruin.
Literal ruin. See, Curdie found a hitherto unsuspected gold mine in the king's wine cellar (it's a Victorian children's book, this kind of thing happens), and his successor gets so greedy that he mines under the entire capitol city. Naturally the city collapses, but that's not enough for MacDonald, oh no; not only is the city destroyed, but it's then forevermore forgotten.
Just in case you were hoping to wring something upbeat out of the story. WTF, MacDonald! Did someone kill your puppy while you were writing the ending?
