Robert Falconer: Chapters 17 - 25
Chapters 17 - 25
In this novel MacDonald is concerned with tracing Robert’s spiritual awakening and slow development as he grows towards maturity. Foremost is the effect of music upon his sensibilities, as he risks all to retreat secretly to the abandoned factory of his ancestors, there to practice on his violin. In the early chapters of this week’s reading. Mary St. John’s benevolent actions serve to nurture and encourage his development.
Next in importance is the effect of nature upon him, arousing within a strong desire for something he knows not what, a desire that can find peace and satisfaction only in a proper relation to God. At he close of chapter 18 an eloquent passage develops this theme, an important one in MacDonald’s thinking. There are echoes of Wordsworth here:
Strange as it may sound to those who have never thought of such things except in connection with Sundays and Bibles and churches and sermons, that which was now working in Falconer’s mind was the first dull and faint movement of the greatest need that he human heart possesses–the need of God. There must be truth in the scent of the pinewood, someone must mean it. . . . Some spirit must move in that wind that haunts us with a kind of human sorrow, some soul must look up to us from the eye of that starry flower. . . . Little did Robert think that such was his need–that his soul was searching after One whose form was constantly presented to him, but as constantly obscured by the words without knowledge spoken in the religious assemblies of the land.
As MacDonald contemplates these influences, his indignation grows against the current state of religious teaching presented by the Scottish Calvinism of his native land, and this novel is a powerful indictment of it.
At the Lammie’s farmhouse while nursing his wounded foot, Robert’s moods swing from delight in playing his violin for his hosts together with absorption in the tales of the Arabian Nights to gloom from the incapacity and soreness of his wound and despair at not being to play as well as he thinks he should. But in the cottage he meets the Lammie’s eighteen-year-old attractive daughter. Seeing his home-made kite soar and dive in the heavens feeds his sense of aspiration and freedom.
At the Lammie’s Bodyfauld farm he meets Dr Anderson and is drawn to him. His foot somewhat better, he is able to help with the harvest; then it is time to return to his school. But, entering his home, he is horrified beyond words to see his violin burning in the fireplace under the stern eyes of his grannie. Dashing out and raving as he runs through the garden, he is seen by Mary St. John who gently quiets him. He returns to his home, addresses his grandmother calmly, and cuts the string of his kite that he had kept flying from window of his room. We read:
And with the dragon afar, into the past flew the childhood of Robert Falconer. . . . And never more, save in twilight dreams, did he lay hold on his childhood again.
WHAT IS THERE ABOUT THIS COMBINATION OF EVENTS THAT HAS SUCH A MATURING EFFECT UPON ROBERT?
Mary St. John kindly offers to give Robert some lessons on his piano and arranges that he could secretly access her room. It is one bright spot of relief in Robert’s otherwise very oppressive situation.
Comments
Reflecting on this question, and the way it is worded, I think that there is a difference between "maturing" and "growing up". Or at least, I will make a distinction: Everybody grows up. Its the inevitable effect of time on human biology. Not everyone matures, that is, not everyone grows into the good design God purposed for them.
"Seed" was planted in Robert's soil through all of his senses and through his intellect: the beauty of the creation, the sound of wind and violin Mary St John's piano which caught at the strings of his heart, the kite which invited him to look up and allow his heart/mind to wander and wonder at what might lie beyond what he has previously seen or imagined, the smell of the fir-cone, the kindness and faithfulness of the Lammies, Dr Andersen, the Hewsons, the ideas which these and the Arabian Nights communicated to him.
I suppose that GMacD sees the human animal as the soil into which seeds are planted by the reality/revelation of God in all its forms. God's first "WORD" is the created universe. Jesus, in the parable of the sower, talks about his words being received into good soil, and bearing fruit. It is in this receiving of the good "words" that maturing happens and God's Kingdom grows.
It is easy to see how good seed in good soil produces a good crop, but part of the mystery of the Cross and part of the great gift of GMacD is that fruitfulness often happens in this world in places where great good and great suffering meet. In the Fall, toil and suffering came into fruitfulness and birth. Grannie and Mary St John both somehow serve as mid-wives to Robert's growth.
Grannie seems to provide impoverished soil for Robert, while telling him it is good. I think it is the picture of his father that helps Robert see through the lie; presumably he too had grown up in that climate and he hadn't matured, he just grew up into his appetites. Yet Grannie does provide stability and the habit of prayer and familiarity with the Bible as a touchstone in life. Robert also sees his grannie's anguish. The word that keeps coming into my head is "passion" - perhaps if Robert had grown up with more sweetness around him he would not have had the passion he develops to seek the good, the true, the beautiful. When he does see it, he does not mistake the things that call to him for god; his father again serves as a corrective because pursuing these had not served him well.
Well, I am rambling. Good question. I will continue to think about it.
Yes, Pat, you are right in recalling Till We Have Faces. Lewis in his writings often gives his own version of themes MacDonald treats in his works.