Alec Forbes of Howglen is a novel by George MacDonald, first published in 1865 and is primarily concerned with Scottish country life. George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister. Though no longer a household name, his works (particularly his fairy tales and fantasy novels) have inspired deep admiration in such notables as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L'Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master". Even Mark Twain, who initially despised MacDonald, became friends with him. MacDonald grew up influenced by his Congregational Church, with an atmosphere of Calvinism. But MacDonald never felt comfortable with some aspects of Calvinist doctrine. Later novels, such as Robert Falconer (1868) and Lilith (1895), show a distaste for the Calvinist idea that God's electing love is limited to some and denied to others. Especially in his Unspoken Sermons (1867-89) he shows a highly developed theology. His best-known works are Phantastes (1858), At the Back of the North Wind (1871) and The Princess and the Goblin (1872), all fantasy novels, and fairy tales such as - The Light Princess (1867), The Golden Key (1867), and The Wise Woman (1875).
This novel is quite different than the rest of George MacDonald's adult novels. It has more laughs by far, though the story as a whole tends tward the melodramatic. It is George MacDonald's most complex work, intricately weaving together the stories of the two main characters: Annie Anderson (approx. 10 years old) and Alec Forbes (approx. 13 years old) as they meet and grow up to young adulthood. Annie looses her father and is forced to move in with her miserly cousin Robert the Bruce, one of the town's shop keepers. Alec eventually goes off to the big city to medical school and is forced to decide whether he will face life's disappointments or dissapate his life away with alchohol.
The first half of this book is too sentimental and bucolic for my tastes and seems geared more tward an adolescent audience. However, the action in the second half more than makes up for it. I would caution the reader that this book has much more Scots dialect in it than some of George MacDonald's other popular works like "David Elginbrod" and "Donald Grant" and you would probably do better to tackle one of these first, so that you don't get too discouraged.
This book stresses character development and has little or no sermonizing. Much of the first half of this book is taken up with the experiences of the two main characters in the town's one room school house and the overly strict disipline meeted out by the school master. His favorite method of disipline is the tawse (a small leather wip flung down from the shoulder) and indeed in one instance he almost beats young Alec to death. The apex of the novel is a tremendous flood, and you will find your eyes filling with tears as your favorite characters struggle for their lives. And you will be satisfied when your least favorite character gets his just deserts.
Considered by many MacDonald's best novel, Alec Forbes of Howglen contains a diversity of characters, personalities, and locales, yet maintains an unstrained and unforced continuity in that there appears no attempt to contrive or incorporate that which is ill-suited or unbelievable. The plot and various subplots flow, commingle, diversify, and rejoin with no break in the natural stream of the story line. Whereas in many novels of such diverse and complex characterization, the reader is forced to backtrack or rethink that which has gone before, there are no such obstacles placed in the road of those who journey alongside Annie and Alec.
This is an absolutely wonderful tale of the lives of two children, Annie and Alec, as they grow into adulthood. Although from two distinct social classes, which occurrence provides ample and diverse challenges for our beloved hero and heroine, Alec and Annie find, after considerable difficulty, trials innumerable, soul-rending afflictions, natural disasters, and, in general, some rather horrific catastrophes, a slender, yet all-powerful, thread which binds them together.
Upon the death of her parents, Annie, who has known nothing but the idyllic life of the small farm, awakens to find everything that she has known and loved gone; her sole childhood companion and dear friend, Brownie-the family cow, as well as the remainder of the livestock, farm implements, furniture, and accessories sold, and she, poor little soul, on the way to live with her father's miserly, mean, hypocritical cousin, Robert Bruce, and his family of ill-bred mongrels, above their shop in town. She and a very small trunk, which contains her meager belongings, are unceremoniously stowed in an attic room which contains no curtains, no lights, holes in the floor, and is shared by rats.
Grieved by the loss of her parents and her home would seem misery enough for one small child, but she is further tormented throughout the day by the Bruce children, and throughout the night by her fear of the rats. School is no sanctuary, for it is ruled by a petty tyrant who holds the firm, unequivocal belief that "to spare the rod is to spoil the child," and he cannot abide a spoiled or disobedient child.
Alec, although far from wealthy, lives with his mother in a modest, but quite comfortable home near the edge of town. It is here that Annie eventually is driven to seek refuge from the countless horrors that stalk her days and nights. It is here, through the eyes of a mother, that Annie sees love sparkle and shimmer as it gently caresses, nurtures, and develops the soul of young Alec.
Follow Annie and Alec, as well as all who cross their paths and touch their lives, in this compelling narrative of real life. For life is not without its trials and tribulations, sorrows and sadness, pains and afflictions, yet it is by and through all such as these,-the manner, means, and motives by which we face and overcome all such obstacles-, that we grow into the men and women that God would have us to be. As a muscle will atrophy if it never meets resistance, so then will a soul wither and die unless forced to encounter the oppressive weights of affliction, self-sacrifice, and self-denial.
We, not unlike water, ever seek the path of least resistance. In this book, MacDonald adeptly illustrates that the best laid plans of men may not provide that which is best for men. God will pursue His plan regardless of our idle hopes, dreams, and speculations. As a result, we often find life, at best, difficult and trying, while, at worst, it may appear all but unbearable. There is, of course, a simple means by which we may "make the way smooth," and that is by doing as Jesus did-the will of His Father.
