Mr. Jerry Bowyer is an economist, author, Great Books lover and friend of this blog (HogPro All-Pros will recall it was Jerry and Susan Bowyer who spotted the ‘House of Gaunt’ with its ‘Dark Mark’ in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair). Forbes magazine ran a fascinating column by Mr. Bowyer last December on the allegorical and satirical meaning of Dickens’ Christmas Carol called ‘Malthus and Scrooge.’ I bring the column to your attention for two reasons.

First, it’s spot-on brilliant, it’s well written, concise, and it opens up the familiar Christmas pageant story to an aspect of Dickens’ writing that escapes most 21st century readers, namely, the 19th century targets at which Dickens was aiming. [Read more…]

Much has been made of the influence of Elizabeth Goudge’s Little White Horse on Ms. Rowling’s Harry Potter books — and with good reason. As I detail in the last chapter of Harry Potter’s Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures, beyond Ms. Rowling’s pointing to this fantasy as a favorite of her childhood and saying it was a “direct influence” on her work “perhaps more than any other,” Horse‘s structure, symbols, and anagogical freight would tell us the same. In brief, the model for what Harry represents, the polarities of the magical world, and the alchemical artistry of Ms. Rowling’s work can be found in Ms. Goudge’s classic.

Beth, dear friend of this blog and writer at BookwormJournal, found another Goudge story, a Christmas tale titled ‘The Well of the Star,’ that also seems a potential influence, especially with respect to mirrors and sacred sight (Coleridge’s natural theology, i.e., the hermetic idea of reflection and recognition as the heart of knowledge and Communion). Beth’s helpful comments and citations are here and I recommend them. Little White Horse readers will remember first the well in Merryweather Manor’s walled courtyard where the heroine of that story finds the hidden string of pearls, essentially “those of great price,” that resolve the contraries of the magical valley and then Loveday’s silver mirror, in which Maria sees her golden aura. Goudge is a wonder; as Ms. Rowling said about Horse, it “is a very well-constructed and clever book and the more you read it, the cleverer it appears.” “Clever,” I’m afraid, doesn’t do it justice.

More tomorrow on perhaps the original Logos mirror in English fiction, the Shepherd’s Palace mirror in Pilgrim’s Progress! Thanks to Beth for finding and sharing this neglected Goudge classic.

Patrick Goldstein on his L.A. Times ‘Big Picture’ weblog has written what really caused the fallout between Disney and Walden and the break-up of their partnership on the Chronicles of Narnia films. I thought there were three interesting points to Mr. Goldstein’s piece: [Read more…]

This is the continuation and significant expansion of a previous post on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911) and its possible influence on Ms. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, which post can be read here.

After a hurried re-reading of Garden, here are my first thoughts. I think we can see significant correspondences between as well as a chasm separating Burnett’s classic about rejuvenation in an English Garden and the Hogwarts adventures. I will (1) list the match-ups here, (2) take a stab at interpreting Garden at the allegorical level beyond noting the Theosophical Society, Spiritualism, and Christian Science references, and (3) try to explain what strike me as the most important similarity and difference between the postmodern series and the late Victorian novel vis a vis their intention and execution. I was surprised at the paucity of thoughtful commentary about Garden that I could find online, in itself and in connection with Harry Potter; I trust any of you that are more familiar with the children’s literature field will jump in with more informed reflections on these subjects than I can offer here on the fly. [Read more…]