Jim de Rochester wrote:
> A similar/related scenario also plays itself out in
THE WYCHERLY WOMEN ...
> where a daughter masquerades as her mother
precipitating a freudian-esque
> case
> of mstaken identity. It would seem that that this
was something MacDonald
> was
> attempting to "work out" in his fiction.
>
> Also, in his introduction to THE CHILL (in one of
the omnibus editions
> containing that work ... can't reall offhand which
one??) MacDonald
> referred to THE
> CHILL as a "basilisk" of a book. The OED defines
basilisk as: "a mythical
> reptile with a lethal gaze or breath hatched by a
serpent from a cock's
> egg."
> Mistaken identity/identity crises all around ...
apparently all of this
> was going
> thru the auhtor's mind. How related to his marriage,
who knows. MacDonald,
> from little I know about him, was a compex guy ..
probably why his fiction
> has
> the psychological depth it has.
MacDonald worked out a lot of his personal stuff in his
books. He had abandonment issues from being shunted around to
other relatives by overwhelmed and uncaring parents during
his childhood, and these got played out in a variety of
scenarios in such classics as THE WYCHERLY WOMAN, THE GALTON
CASE, BLACK MONEY, just to name a few.
As for the "basilisk" remark, it's interesting that he termed
in a
"basilisk," and not a "chimera."
All the Best-
Brian Thornton
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
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