A Review of Starflower by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Recently, I was delighted to read Anne Elisabeth Stengl’s most recent fantasy novel, Starflower. As each of her books hits the shelves of stores, I’m delighted to hold a copy and contemplate hours of pleasure to come. I don’t usually read it right away. It sits somewhere in sight, and I go about business as usual for a week or so. It would not do to open it and only be able to read a few sentences. I must wait for an evening when I have no other obligations, laundry has run, the house is quiet. Then I can snuggle down in a chair with a cup of coffee and slowly begin turning pages.

Since college, losing myself in books has been a challenge. First I was burned out from all the required reading. Second, I no longer had long lazy summers during which I could read stacks of mysteries, romances, and adventures. Yet somehow I continue making time to read paragraphs, pages, chapters. And every once in a while, I still find a book that takes hold of my attention such that, instead of reading a customary bedtime chapter, I turn another page, and another, more intentely, as the clock ticks and the lamp burns into the wee hours of the morning. And when that happens, I know I’ve found a book worth writing about.

buy this book at Bethany House Publishers

Fairy tales take us far away from our present cares, to a place where our steps are not so heavy nor our consciences so seared; and in this medium of deeper colors, lighter laughter, and wilder weeping, we find our wounds gently tended and truth filtered into our heart like ambient light to shine upon our worth and our weakness. Stengl writes adventurously and deliberately, delicately and boldly. And so, when her fourth book Starflower made its way into my hands, I was more than eager for the adventures in store.

Earlier books from the Tales of Goldstone Wood referred frequently to the ancient times Starflower would explore. I was most haunted by a passing scene in the previous book, Moonblood, when a ghostly apparition appeared in the Wood Between, speaking in an ancient accent and asking Lionheart to send word to Starflower. His brief presence—an unanswerable pathos, feeble tenacity—moved me deeply with a sorrow for dreams forever lost but never quite erased. Thus, as I literarily climbed the foothills of scene-setting in Starflower, gathering momentum for a late night a finis read, that mournful scene surfaced in my memory and heightened the alertness of my imagination.

Stengl never fails to bring classic literature to life in her newly imagined fairy tales. For those not familiar with George MacDonald or C.S. Lewis (not to mention some more antique treasures of fantasy, poetry, and allegory), the Tales of Goldstone Wood present anew some of the most insightful imagery wielded by old masters of literature. I hesitate to give away much of the content of the story.  In fact, I would hardly alter the blurb on the back cover, but to hint about a few of my favorite scenes. 

There is a comical ruler of an obscure demesne who has a plethora of frogs residing in royal swampiness. There is a burning city in which a famished mortal struggles onward with an endless reserve of determination. Then one's guts twist in compassion when a loveless child falls asleep in loving arms. There is joyful wonder when connections are made to other books in the series, and a increasing anticipation of approaching confrontations. And it wouldn’t be fair to forget entirely about a little songbird in a cage, who doesn't know fear and is thoroughly vain.  She resides in such a spot as to vex the tale’s resident tormented soul and to provide a directional force for the heroic journeys detailed.

Finally, I happily invite you to discover the other Tales of Goldstone Wood, but remind you that Stengl has generously written in such a manner that there is freedom to read the books in any order. So for now I am speaking for Starflower, and recommending it as a delightful page-turner that will tickle your funny bone and touch your heart.

"The Chase" analogy

I dearly enjoy analogies.

They provide a canvas on which you can surprise yourself with new understanding about life.

"If the fork in the road actually represents a decision, then the trees beside it could represent reassuring authority figures in our lives who watch but do not micromanage our lives."

Eh?  Anyway, moving on...

I reflected on the subject of traditional courtship, emphasizing a male pursuing a female.

It is definitely not unheard of for relationship-educators to compare such a pursuit to a hunter chasing after a deer:  earnest prose about a man as hunter, pursuing a woman with attentive patience and determination and passion, and she might, well, "rustle the leaves" a bit so he knows where she is, though she plays (or is actually) hard to get.  And of course, if he gets her, how proud he is of his "prize"!  How consummate shall be their love when at last she is his and how well they shall understand each other for having played the appropriate parts in romantic comedy.

Dear, deer!
image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I won't say the imagery is ALL wrong.  It may even have hints of biblical basis.
However, there may be some tests of analogies by which caring individuals can gauge some outer limits of analogy.

First, there's what I would call a "back translation".
Think through the story in the inverse, but with the same details-- for, why not?  If an analogy is ardently used, let it not be a one-way street.

So, a hunter chases a deer because he wants it as his bride.  And so on.  This quickly turns sour.  Why? Why can't the analogy be a two-way street?
Because it's a buck that pursues a doe with 'romantic' intentions, not a hunter with a gun. Whether animal relationships should be a model analogy for human relationships is a different question I won't comment on here.  Anyway, the simple back translation doesn't work.

Second, a double inversion:  "back translate" an image of hunting as it is.  Say you have hunters rallying together and pep talking each other about the hunt for a deer.  Suppose a veteran hunter wants to educate the new guys about the patience and skill it takes to get the kill.  The men chuckle and lick their lips as they think of an upcoming venison steak.

The back translation then takes what is true of hunting and imposes it on courtship.  If you ask the question, "What is true of courtship? Well, look at a hunter...."  you have a man who will cunningly pursue a prey until it cannot escape anymore.  He has no meaningful communication with the prey.  The prey has nothing to offer him but a satisfied belly and a trophy to brag about, and increased cunning. What does he have to offer the prey?  Maybe in some situation a life in captivity, but realistically, the end of life.    Anyway, I hardly need go on.  The analogy is just weak and casts a pallor on the intentions of men who insist strongly on their role as pursuer.  To espouse strongly a view that man's role is to be the hunter, it makes woman the hunted, and when the two have been united, there really is no future in their relationship but for him to digest her and be done with her.

In taking the analogy to its extreme, I in no way suggest that earnest Christian men treat their wives that way.  What is known is that there are men out there, claiming or not claiming Christianity, who do have exactly so low an attitude toward their future wives.  And my question is, if the analogy falls apart so miserably in back translation, should it be used?

A story of getting nowhere

Part 1:  Being Too Honest

You think you need it, but really you just want it.  

Remember this on every occasion

Like when somebody asks, "Do you need ----?"

Yesterday when I got home from work, my original intention was to grab an overdue movie rental and jet it back to the store, and then pick up a pizza for supper.  These things still happened, but not til after I helped my roommate jump her car.  The lights had been left on, and the car was parked in the driveway, boxed between two houses and a fence.

She put the car in neutral.  I asked her to steer it 'wrong ways' up the street so it would face my truck.  Then I pushed the car out of the driveway, where it blocked the street.  So I had her crank the wheel the other way while I pushed her all of two feet toward my truck, and then crank the wheel all the way the other way until she bumped the curb again....    six points later, we had the car aimed for my truck and no longer blocked the road.

A couple of handsome young men sauntered from down the street.  "Do you need some help?" one of them asked, as the car rolled forward easily to its destination.

"Well, I've kinda got it now," I responded, rather proud of myself, but naturally wishing I didn't have to be so dang honest and come across grouchy and standoffish.  They helpfully patted the hood as the car rolled its final three feet forward, and then sauntered back home.

I watched them regretfully as Kim and I sorted out the jumper cables, and fussed to her how I just messed up a chance to accept gentlemanly help.  How, though I could have stuck to the technical truth that I didn't 'need' help, I could have ended the conversation on a more neighborly note.  "Wait!"I could have said.  They turn.  "I didn't mean to be rude.  Thank you for coming to help.  It was nice of you."  That's all.  I could even lay it on a little thicker, "Next time, I'll be sure to ask you before I've done it myself."  Yes.  That's all.  Nothing more.  Closure.


Part 2: Closure

At the end of a long day today, I did some late night grocery shopping at parked roadside around ten o'clock. I tiredly opened the back of my truck, and began loading up with my groceries.  My typical pride welled up as I determined that I would carry it all in one trip.

Two grocery bags hung from my left arm, and my left hand clenched two gallons of milk.  Then I added a pack of bottled green tea in the crook of the same arm.

A car pulled up a little behind me.  I faced the glaring lights for a moment, didn't recognize the car, and turned back to my groceries.  Right arm:  one bag hangs from arm, pick up second pack of green tea, and hand clasps last bag with two egg cartons.

I 'magically' closed the back door of the truck and turned again to see who had been in the car behind me.  He was walking away with a little machismo.

"Are you the guy that came to help us with the car yesterday?"
"Yep."
"Thank you.  I didn't mean to be rude.  It was really nice of you to come offer to help."
"Oh, it's fine, you're welcome."
"Hehe, next time I need help I'll come find you first."
"Okay," he said and went into his house.

I smiled contentedly that I had found the closure I imagined last night.  I had apologized, thanked, and expressed a convivial appreciation for neighborliness.

I 'magically' unlocked my front door and set down my burden of groceries one bag at a time.

I've heard two love songs in the last year that make a point to show both sides of the give and take of love and how selfishness brings so much pain.

First is the tragedy of "Poison and Wine" by The Civil Wars, which has a beautiful but heart-wrenching music video on youtube by the same name.

He: You only know what I want you to
She: I know everything you don't want me to
Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine
Oh you think your dreams are the same as mine


Both: Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
Oh I don't love you but I always will
I always will

She: I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back
He: The less I give the more I get back
Oh your hands can heal, your hands can bruise
I don't have a choice but I still choose you

Both: Oh I don't love you but I always will

Oh I don't love you but I always will.....  ...I always will.  I always will...

On a somewhat more lighthearted note, at least according to the catchy beat of the music, is the current hit "Somebody That I Used to Know" by Gotye.  A delightful song may soon be a most annoying one if it keeps playing all the time, but so far its unique design is still palatable and toe-tapping.    In this song, you don't necessarily expect to hear the other side of the story.  You automatically empathize with the first voice:

[Gotye:]
Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad it was over

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and I feel so rough
No you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

[Kimbra:]
Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
Part of me believing it was always something that I'd done
But I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know

[Gotye:]
But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and I feel so rough
And you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

------

I vote these songs "interesting."

Hyacinths

Today, in the few hours I had between getting home from work and nightfall, I tucked about a dozen clumps of hyacinth and daffodils into my back mulch bed, repotted various plants I had lying around, and finally mowed the yard. I was frustrated to find what I thought was a sort of drain near my backdoor, is not. I'm not sure what it is, but a useless pipe running about four feet under the mulch. Perhaps it does act as a drain sometimes, but not enough for me to rinse the patio into it.

Anyhow, the flower bed is pretty, the rosemary tree is planted in a nice old urn, and I hope to find some secondhand window boxes for the front of my house.

Confused Relationship Idolatry

Since when has desire for a mate, even a passionate, weak-kneed desire, been renamed idolatry? The years of singleness stretch on as earnest young Christians, upon approaching matrimonial feelings, freeze in their tracks. 'They think all the time about this person!' 'Theywant this person!' 'Aaaa! Idolatry!'

Now, since when is thinking of, wanting, desiring, pursuing a specific, compatible person, idolatry? Idolatry is the building of false, lifeless icons that represent the Living God. Desiring a mate for earthly matrimony (though I will discuss its all important similarity to Christ and the Church) is not even in the same ball field as building a lifeless icon to receive the acclaim of Almightiness!

On the other hand, the Living God often relates to us in terms of--what do you know? The marriage relationship. He spends plenty of Scripture building this analogy. See Song of Solomon. If the Song is an analogy for relationship to God, don't forget an analogy can speak to both sides of the analogy. In other words, for those more familiar with the God-church side of the equation (Note, God-church, not God-individual relationship), they might do well to look at the man/woman side.

Now, for those thinking this elevates man to God-like status, think again. Thinking one's man is omnipotent, omnipresent, the Redeemer of mankind, that would be elevating man to godlike status, and it probably should be classified as idolatry. I don't know one single Christian woman who thinks that of men.

One problem: people equating marriage with the God~individual person relationship. That would immediately give men a wrongfully elevated status, but the God~individual relationship is represented as Father-child!

Regarding God~Church, look at the romance in Scripture! God takes care of Israel, He loves her, He woos her, He gets angry when she cheats on Him, He forgives her even after it's gone so far they had to be separated! And then it is written, "Men, love your wives even as Christ loved the church."

...Do you think this can't be what it's saying because it's license for a spouse to cheat? think again (it's Scripture, for those fervently submitting their love lives to The Word). Rather than a license to cheat, it's a call to reconcile. And to seek each other, serve each other, love each other so passionately they would die to be with each other!

"But I'm not God!"

"Well, nor am I the Church!"

...remember in that sense we both happen to be members of the church, like a lung and a kidney! Both halves of the analogy need brought into earthly terms. Both members of the earthly picture have to acknowledge their humanity, while leaning on Christ to go beyond their natural strength for each other!

It's an analogy. Of course the man doesn't have God's omni powers. Just as importantly and overlooked, of course the woman doesn't have all the church's powers and abilities!

Another way to see it is this. Would a devoted Christian man dare say, "I am the fulness of God?" No. In fact it's become a common complaint, from men, taking one terrified look at romantic commitment and sprinting the other way, saying "Aaaa! I'm not God! I'm not your savior!"

Well, duh. We women know that.

On the other hand, women tend to suffer in silence the expectation that, while man fails to be God, they are expected to be the church in their relationship to a husband. But women would be just a much in their rights to take one terrified look at commitment, and what is expected of them, sprint the other way, and scream "Help! I'm not your church! I don't have the sum of the abilities of the church to dedicate to you! I don't have the sum of the wisdom, the stability, or the strength to serve you like the church serves God!"

But bring both sides of the analogy to earth, and in the marriage picture is the closest to a license, or even command, to "worship" one other than God. (I heard a line once, "with this ring I thee worship," and the problem there was that, while shamelessly mocking his call to honor God in faithfully loving her, he still expected her to be the church.)

Only God is worthy of being called God. Only the Church can fulfill her duties and roles of the as the Church. But when did this rather obvious truth confuse mankind into thinking passionately loving and desiring to enter that similar (not identical) relationship, was idolatry?

(I think it was when people started looking at the God-to-individual relationship as a romance, which it is only as far as a Father-child relationship has an element of romance. Romance-romance in Biblical religion is Christ loving the Church.)

If men, running from commitment, think women see them as The Redeemer, they are simply blinded by their arrogance, failing entirely to know her heart and all the things she graciously overlooks in him (which he thinks he has hidden? lol. Meanwhile she also lets him see her flaws, and he assumes those flaws to be just the tip of the iceberg!). She graciously overlooks the ways he fails at the personal-protector side of the relationship, because it's in her nurturing nature to do so, to fill in the gaps in relationship.

Men need to stop decrying the protector role on the basis of not being The Almighty Protector. It's one thing to admit, "I think only God can do this particular thing, but perhaps in His strength I can..." compared to, "Expect nothing of me!! I'm not God!" Men need to give women a chance to accompany them in that role. And if men won't listen to (and seek out and pursue madly unto death!) women's heart-thoughts, they'll continue to run around thinking a woman's church-like, nurturing behavior is proof that she elevates him to the status of God!

And what about women who seem not to exhibit so much 'churchish' nurturing behavior anymore? They are of practicality being their own interim earthly protector. ...And that is not defemanization, it's exactly what women adapt to, have always done, naturally, when they are the pastor/head of their house. Let someone become the unto-death pastor/head of her house, and she will make a lower-case c 'church' for him. This is not idolatry of a spouse, it's the irreducibly complex center of community, created by God, for His own glory and worship.

P.S. Of course, passionate ambition towards marriage does not warrant irresponsible actions under the delusion of future commitment. But getting to know people and moving closer to each other isn't an irresponsible action. Also, as the family of Christ, there's every reason to cherish one's close friends whether marriage is in sight or not. So what if it doesn't lead to marriage, and so what if it does? To think, "I am not ready to be married," is quite right and natural if you're not in a relationship that has developed to readiness! The question is, are you ready to spend one more day learning one more thing you didn't know about your friend? Are you ready to be lit up by Christ and to encourage each other to glow brighter with His truth?