Beschreibung
Das Zweite Gesicht
A fantastic love story from the Scottish Highlands by George MacDonald
translated from English and adapted by Ulrich Taschow, with 6 fantastic illustrations by Ulrich Taschow
also including:
Awakening
a fairy tale instead of a preface by Ulrich Taschow
258 pages, 7 illustrations, published in 2018, paperback edition, series: avox fantasia, ISBN: 978-3-936979-20-6, Reading Sample
Target groups
Young readers aged 14 and up, adults, lovers of sophisticated fantasy literature
Das Zweite Gesicht is an extraordinary love story in every respect. Suspenseful and heart-rending, eerily dark and at the same time wonderfully luminous and poetic, it casts its spell on the reader from the very first line, leading them ever deeper into the mysterious events that, through a dark deed far back in the past, lie like a curse of fate upon the lovers. An enchanting Celtic melancholy forms the underlying cantus firmus of this magical work, weaving through the reader’s spirit like a bittersweet ballad by Fionnuala Gill.
Duncan, a dreamy and worldly inexperienced boy from the Scottish Highlands, sets out to take up a position as tutor with a wealthy noble family. There he meets the mysterious Miranda, and soon an unhappy love story begins to unfold, because the powers of darkness seek by every means to prevent the union of the two souls that was decided long ago.
Miranda, a beautiful and gentle angel, has descended into the dark world of human beings in order to redeem Duncan through her pure and unconditional love. Yet because of human malice, falseness, and sinfulness, her spiritual genius, openness, and wisdom are interpreted as madness, and in this earthly hell they stiffen and wither. Against this background, Duncan is destined to redeem Miranda just as Miranda is to become his redeemer through the infinite power of love. Will this work of redemption succeed ...?
As in all of George MacDonald’s fantastic tales and fairy stories, Das Zweite Gesicht contains a deeper symbolic and mythical meaning. It is the original Christian conviction that every human being carries within them a deeper calling that must be followed despite all resistance and social censorship, but that only love, as the final goal of this path, can grant redemption, perfection, and wholeness in a kind of unio mystica. Thus Duncan and Miranda remain searching and restless until, despite all evil powers and adversities, they will someday find one another again in love.
Contents
Awakening - a fairy tale instead of a preface 9
1. My Childhood 15
2. The Sounds of the Otherworld: The Second Sight 20
3. A Terrible Encounter 24
4. The Premonitions of My Old Foster Mother 27
5. The Legend of Fearghal, Eachann, and Beautiful Aingeal 32
6. The Uncanny Visitor 46
7. The Mysterious Circumstances of My Birth 52
8. Hilton Hall 63
9. Lady Miranda 68
10. The Secret Door 74
11. Lord Hilton 78
12. The Library 80
13. The Sleepwalker 85
14. Awakening Love 90
15. Power and Love 98
16. A New Pupil 109
17. The Confession 119
18. The Escape Plan 125
19. Jealousy 129
20. The Ghost Room 133
21. The Clattering Horseshoe 145
22. The Odyssey Begins 152
23. The Illness 161
24. Back Home 171
25. My Faithful Horse Constancy 176
26. Deenah’s Sacrifice 182
27. Back at Hilton Hall 203
29. Reunion 210
30. Awakening 219
31. Escape Plans 227
32. Discovered? 235
33. Back in the Ghost Room 239
34. The Escape 243
35. Love and Freedom 252
Postscript 256
George MacDonald (1824-1905) is one of the most brilliant and visionary English writers of the nineteenth century and, seventy-nine years before Tolkien’s Hobbit, the true yet largely forgotten founder of modern fairy-tale and fantasy literature. MacDonald inspired such famous authors as J. R. R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), Mark Twain, W. H. Auden, G. K. Chesterton, Madeleine L’Engle, and others, or first brought them to writing at all.
MacDonald regarded the true writer as a prophet who, by means of metaphors and symbols, must convey the transcendent reality of things hidden behind everyday appearances, a reality that goes beyond what we ordinarily experience. The result is a personal revelation in the heart of every human being.
George MacDonald, 1870
This book is dedicated to Fionnuala Gill, a wonderful singer whose voice carries the enchanting Gaelic melancholy of MacDonald’s fantastic tales in absolute perfection.
