Reviews for Lednorf's Dilemma

The average rating for Lednorf's Dilemma based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-03-03 00:00:00 Dean Byrum When I was 2, my wonderful grandmother visited our little postwar stucco bungalow out on the fringes of our little former lumber town. My grandmother believed in magic - White Magic. Back then she was like a Fairy Grandmother to me... One day during her visit, she took me by the hand and led me down to our unfinished basement. All she said to me was - 'Today we're going to visit the Zoo.' And she somehow, within my own private tiny toddler's headspace, had suddenly transformed our little subterranean storage room - cluttered with bric-à-brac - by her very words, into a magical and mysterious Zoo. And just like the early and somewhat naïve Carlos Castaneda - self-hypnosis can work wonders - I SAW the wild animals in their exotic cages all around me! George MacDonald here conjures up a COMPLETELY FANCIFUL world for us too, in the bric-à-brac of an old, old house. Cause it's a feeling that's replete and satisfying in life to live close by a Deep, Bottomless Well of the Spirit in a palatial mansion on a princely property! So infers George MacDonald in Lilith. But his lucky hero inherits both... Well, in part only - for the mansion is a bit dark and decrepit. And it's haunted. By unearthly beings. AND by a Secret World that dwells in a real spiritual opening. A secret world far more MYSTICAL - in the traditional sense - than Neil Gaiman's! For MacDonald TRUSTS in Divine Providence. Just like I trusted my grandmother - and everyone else - when I was a kid. No wonder the Lord tells us to be like these little ones... It works wonders. It will take you back to that simple, first, miraculous and supernatural ORDINARINESS of MacDonald's world. Now - follow MacDonald's hero as he chases after his own familial White Rabbit - right Through the (Spiritual) Looking Glass, to a place of deep sleep and his soul's ultimate replenishment. And we'll ALL be in that place someday, with Faith. Such a world as this 19th century Scottish Man of the Cloth, the author, must have mentally envisioned, mayhaps, as he trudged the dreary miles to visit his snappish and dour parishioners on many a gloomy Highland day. Dreaming of the Rest that comes after a long life of labouring duty... And a Duty to which he, an eternal dreamer, was so temperamentally ill-suited! But his gloom is our gain. And THAT's getting older for you - a time when shifting slivers of fitful dreams flit over our half-lit neutral autumnal mindscapes - like morning mist. But it gets even better as we age further - when we recover, as MacDonald does for us, our True Second Childhood - IF our dreams are born in a Milieu of Love. And we, the readers, find that WE are the ones who have been blessed in heaping, overflowing good measure, as we reap the reward he - along with our own daily acts of charity - have sowed for us. The reward of a bottomless reservoir of an endless wealth of imagination. And as it was for the young C.S. Lewis, discovering fantastical new worlds in MacDonald's magical tales in his gloomy, grimy Irish preteen years, so it will be for us. Especially in the Great Beyond... So Five Gorgeous, Mystcal stars for this one!

Review # 2 was written on 2013-01-26 00:00:00 Stephan De La Veaux I was torn between 4 and 5 for this one(at first). I love it in many ways and give it 5 stars. Some will probably find it a little harder to read but that's more due to the time in which it is written and it's slightly dated style. I'm not sure that "relax" is the right word here but "relax" into the book and "experience it". This book is in my opinion amazing. I got it out of the library and still would like to find a copy available locally. Great book. UPDATE: I have since bought the book. It has stayed with me since the first reading and given me not only an amazing read but food for thought and insight into not only the ideas dealt with in the book, but myself. From the opening scenes of this book (in an old and somewhat mysterious library apparently "haunted" by a raven looking man in tales, possibly the old librarian) I was pulled in. I followed the thoughtful yet enthralling story from start to finish and then tracked down a copy of the book for my own library. My highest recommendation for this one 5+ stars. It gets listed among my favorites.