Moonwalk
The Urth list — 3 messages, 2 voices, 12 May 2002
https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3256

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Alice K. Turner — 12 May 2002, 17:45

This is completely off-subject; skip if you will.

When I was about 11, I read a Victorian children's novel
in which a young boy looking out at the sea under a full moon, was able to
jump from bar to bar on the light reflected on the swell of the waves to
reach another land (Heaven, I would presume, though I don't recall). Part of
that passel of Kingsley/MacDonald sentimental type of Christian fantasy. For
many years, decades, I misremembered this book as -At the Back of the North
Wind- by MacDonald. But it isn't; I reread that recently and it's entirely
different. But the image is very potent to me--the path laid down by the
moon. Does this ring a bell with any of you? Please e-mail if so. I would
like to get a copy of that
book to read again.

-alga

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Adam Stephanides — 21 May 2002, 01:58
  follows, by subject match Alice K. Turner

> on 5/12/02 5:45 PM, Alice K. Turner at aturner6 at nyc.rr.com wrote:
> When I was about 11, I read a Victorian children's novel
> in which a young boy looking out at the sea under a full moon, was able to
> jump from bar to bar on the light reflected on the swell of the waves to
> reach another land (Heaven, I would presume, though I don't recall). Part of
> that passel of Kingsley/MacDonald sentimental type of Christian fantasy. For
> many years, decades, I misremembered this book as -At the Back of the North
> Wind- by MacDonald. But it isn't; I reread that recently and it's entirely
> different. But the image is very potent to me--the path laid down by the
> moon. Does this ring a bell with any of you? Please e-mail if so. I would
> like to get a copy of that
> book to read again.

THE GARDEN BEHIND THE MOON, by Howard Pyle.  A peculiar book: the titular
garden behind the moon is not heaven, but a place where the souls of
"simple" children play temporarily.  Its subtitle is "A Real Story of the
Moon Angel," who is a sympathetic Death figure (nearly a century before
either Gaiman or Pratchett).  It is sentimental, and not well written, but
not specifically Christian that I could tell; in fact, it contains a version
of the story of the Fall in which, as with Pullman, the Fall is presented as
a good thing (though without the specifically anti-Christian coloration that
Pullman gives it).

(I've both emailed this to Alice and posted it to the list, since others may
have found her description interesting.)

--Adam

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Alice K. Turner — 21 May 2002, 12:58
  follows, by subject match Adam Stephanides

Adam replied:

> THE GARDEN BEHIND THE MOON, by Howard Pyle.  A peculiar book: the titular
> garden behind the moon is not heaven, but a place where the souls of
> "simple" children play temporarily.  Its subtitle is "A Real Story of the
> Moon Angel," who is a sympathetic Death figure (nearly a century before
> either Gaiman or Pratchett).  It is sentimental, and not well written, but
> not specifically Christian that I could tell; in fact, it contains a
> version
> of the story of the Fall in which, as with Pullman, the Fall is presented
> as
> a good thing (though without the specifically anti-Christian coloration
> that
> Pullman gives it).

Many, many thanks. But without having read it yet, I should like to correct,
gently, one thing. Sympathetic Death figures were very much a part of
Victorian sentimentality; Victorians were virtually gung ho for death, with
its attendant guardian angels etc. Tom is effectively dead for most of -The
Water Babies- and is taught by two huge female figures. The North Wind (also
female) is Diamond's pychopomp in -At the Back of the North Wind-. And
popular art (very kitschy, we would say now) reflects this heavily. It was
filtered off into fantasy, and this is something that John Crowley captured
triumphantly in -Little, Big-, in some aspects a Victorian pastiche, with
the transformation of Daily Alice.

Some years ago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, which has a costume
division, put on a Victorian exhibit. To my absolute delight, there was a
wedding panorama in which the bride's family was in mourning. The bride wore
black, as did the attendants. The groom was in the usual penguin suit. But
my absolute favorite was the little ringbearer, a boy of about six, who wore
a black kilt and tam-o-shanter.

-alga

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