By: George MacDonald
Narrated by: Gordon Jack
Length: 17 hrs and 37 mins

My first foray into George MacDonald ended up being more interesting than satisfying. Sir Gibbie took me longer than I would have liked to enter, but once the story settled into itself I began to enjoy it considerably, particularly through its middle portions. MacDonald’s prose is often gorgeous, and Gibbie himself is a beautiful picture of self-sacrificial love, forgiveness, generosity, and goodness. Viewed in that light, the simplicity of his character makes more sense: the book seems less interested in the complexities of how a person develops than in presenting something of the simplicity and purity of God’s love. Yet that same simplicity was also the novel’s limitation for me. Gibbie remains almost childlike throughout, not childish or unintelligent, but rarely forced to wrestle with competing motives, desires, failures, or the deeper tensions through which I usually expect a character to mature. His goodness is admirable, but it is also strangely effortless, and while the later portions of the novel ask us to accept greater emotional and relational maturity from him, I did not feel that development had been fully earned. The result was a book I found morally beautiful but intellectually unsatisfying. I can appreciate what MacDonald was trying to accomplish, and understanding that purpose helps me appreciate the book more, but it also makes clear why it never became entirely relevant to me as a reader. Even so, I can easily imagine Sir Gibbie being an excellent book to read aloud to children, where its moral clarity, memorable characters, and beautiful language would be strengths rather than limitations. As an adult reader, I found much to admire and enough to enjoy, but not the depth I had hoped for.