At the Back of the North Wind (1871)

At the Back of the North Wind is a morality tale for young children and their parents. Did Macdonald seriously believe real children could in any way behave like Little Diamond? Hopefully not but I suppose he was providing a model for children to emulate. And for parents the lessons are simple, love your children, listen to them, guide them and set a good example. If you are in a position to help other children don't hesitate to do so.

While I enjoyed the old-fashioned quality of this novel, I don't know if I would read it to any of my young relatives as it was obvious how it will end. At the Back of the North Wind is not nearly as devastating as Andersen's The Little Match Girl. (I read that many years ago in a store, tearing up, and wondering who would read this to a child.) Thankfully Little Diamond has loving parents and friends. ( )

I came to MacDonald because of Lewis who loved him. I do not. I read this fairly recently, within the last 5 years, and, frankly, I did not like it. It's very Victorian, a mix of schmaltz and real tragedy. ( )

At the start, for the first half of it, I struggled to push my way through "At the Back of the North Wind." I thought it tedious and drawn out. But by the time I had waded into the middle, I found I was swimming.I just finished this book, and I have to tell you, I have no way of using my tongue to convey how I feel and what this book has done in me. I sit without words, but without the ability to contain the rush of thought and emotion that crowd me on all sides. I look about and the only thing that can settle me and quiet me is a morning sunbeam passing through the curtains to the floor. Ach, that sounds so rhapsodic and romaunt. I'm caught up, and enjoying every minute of it, like a man in love. But though my worldly assessment of masculinity wants me to say no more and erase all this, how could I hide from you that bit of "mysticism" which I am presently enjoying?Well, let me try to do some justice to this thing we call a "review" and actually talk about the book. I have one thing to tell you primarily: complete the story. I read the last chapter twice. Mull it over. Let thoughts on the whole story come and give yourself time to think about them, to philosophize and wonder. And then digest your thoughts. This is one of the greatest stories of any kind I have ever known (of course, this is only my estimation), and it is thus no surprise to me that C.S. Lewis wrote what he did of MacDonald's story-making:"What he does best is fantasy—fantasy that hovers between the allegorical and the mythopoeic. And this, in my opinion, he does better than any man.... Most myths were made in prehistoric times, and, I suppose, not consciously made by individuals at all. But every now and then there occurs in the modern world a genius—a Kafka or a Novalis—who can make such a story. MacDonald is the greatest genius of this kind whom I know."—This from a professor of literature, at Cambridge.I felt like I had experienced a holy moment when I finished the very last sentence of the last chapter—though I wonder if later, my words here will seem surfeit, but I know they can't, because, as Diamond and the North Wind explain in the latter portion of the book: whether the dream is true or not, the thing it has done and the thing it stands for is true; and if the thing is true, mightn't we also say that the dream is "true"?"At the Back of the North Wind" did nothing less to me than to make me aware of the wondrous ordinary—that the ordinary is never actually ordinary, but full of wonders, for those willing to perceive them. It also made me ever more conscious of a different way of being, as I fell in love with the character of Diamond: one that is so contented in trust, and fulfilled in love, that it cannot but live for the good of others (finding not that its own pleasure and good is overlooked, but that the good of others becomes its own pleasure and good) and that it cannot even feign to fear anything (finding that it is always watched and always loved by capable hands and full heart).I will leave you to decide for yourself whether you will read the book. You will or you won't—there are other ways to come to these things yourself and other places to find great stories (though not many will be so transcendent). But I don't feel any embarrassment in admitting the influence this book and George MacDonald's other works, each in their own kind, have made on me. ( )

Love all of George McDonald. Favorite line among many; p. 166; Some may think it was not the best place in the world for him to be brought up in; but it must have been, for there he was.

I never came across this book as a child and can't imagine what I'd have made of it if I had. The main character, a little cherub of a boy called Diamond, after the horse who sleeps in the stable below him, meets the North Wind, personified as a woman with long flowing hair, who blows in through a chink in the wall next to his bed. Returning time after time, she sweeps him off on various adventures around London and elsewhere, on her various missions that include punishing a drunken nurse and sinking a ship. At one point Diamond is taken to the Far North and goes through North Wind to a land of... well, I won't say, but he comes back most poetical and even sweeter than before. This is only about halfway through the book, and from that moment he takes to driving his father's cab and delighting everyone he meets, spreading goodness all around.
This is only one aspect of the tale, which also includes a separate fairy story, dreams, several poems and songs, and what I liked most about it, a picture of life in London in Victorian times: the horse-drawn cabs, children sweeping street crossings to make a little money, family life in different realms of society, a gruesome glimpse of poverty wrapped in a moralizing blanket.
It is a cake of sweet Victoria sponge sandwiched with jam and butter icing and topped with honey and marzipan - many layers, but you can only manage a small slice. ( )