Description
Welcome to the Magic Kingdom. You have entered Frederick Buechner’s library and writing room, where a few titles catch your eye: the Uncle Wiggily series, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, and treasured first editions of all of the Oz books. The titles of childhood stories line Buechner’s bookshelves, and his memoirs are replete with references to the Narnia books, Phantastes, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, The Ugly Duckling, The Princess and the Frog, Beauty and the Beast, The Lord of the Rings, Rumpelstiltskin, and above all, the plump, ebullient king Rinkitink of Rinkitink in Oz—a rather silly man who is nonetheless “wise with the wisdom of a child who sees better than his elders that the world is indeed something to laugh and weep about” and who embodies the injunctive of his white pearl: “‘Never question the truth of what you fail to understand… for the world is filled with wonders.’”This paper traces Buechner’s references to childhood stories throughout his non-fiction writings—his memoirs, lectures, and sermons. It elucidates how Buechner commends the revisiting of such childhood stories as a practice of re-enchantment, a practice through which disenchanted adults can be re-attuned to the wondrous world. To re-read such stories is to reawaken in the adult the intimations of childhood—intimations about the magic and mystery of the world which Buechner considers to be essentially true. For Buechner, fairy tales do not merely offer us escape into fictional worlds; rather, they re-enchant our perception of our own world, stirring up in us a homesickness for our true eternal home, which is, by other names, Oz, Looking-Glass Land, Narnia, Middle Earth.
In its analysis, this paper draws on the work of William Wordsworth, Charles Taylor, James K. A. Smith, Alison Milbank, and Owen Barfield.
| Period | 12 Oct 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | "Growing Younger" Conference on Christianity and Literature |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Lookout Mountain, United States, GeorgiaShow on map |