Fantasy: A Coming of Age Story

So I have come to a close on my reading of MacDonald's "Phantastes." This book at first seemed insurmountable.  Compared to much of my contemporary reading I found it difficult to cross the cultural barrier of a hundred and fifty or so years. As I delved deeper into the novel and its history, I began to appreciate its genre as not only a fantasy story, but also of that as a coming of age story.  I guess my particular affinity for this kind of story has something to do with my own life.  I am in a position where I'm sort of living my own coming of age story. I see myself going through many of the "hoops" that certain characters go threw in their stories. Of course not their actual actions but the types of decisions they must make.  


I believe that the following passage in Adrian Gunther's article "The Structure of George Macdonald's Phantastes" perfectly summarizes my thoughts on this book. 

"Phantastes is structured around a pattern of paradoxical oppositions, parallels and key transition points. It progresses in both a centripetal and a centrifugal manner as well as in a more conventional linear mode. On this most obvious linear level its protagonist Anodos begins a typical fairy-tale quest as a young and ignorant boy and his journey traces his development through certain emotional, sexual and chivalric adventures from ignorance and self-endulgence to a conscious sacrifice of ego, presaging an adult male role on his return to his “normal” reality. This linear mode is reflected in the changing forms of his adventures, which develop from somewhat mawkish childish experiences with fairies, through adolescent romance and sexual preoccupation, to an adult male role of chivalrous action. His quest can also be seen as cyclic in the obvious sense that it begins and ultimately returns to the same place."

I don't have much else to say about this novel except this: perhaps I'm on my own journey, perhaps I'm in some other self-perceived reality. Maybe I'm going through a transition and it's just that I can't see the end of the road. I guess I've started my own story without "a beginning or an end" With that being said, I look forward to the day when I can say I've arrived. However long it will be I am certainly excited for the journey, no matter how grudgingly difficult it may be,