We just got back from a wonderful week marrying off my sister. I do mean to post about that, but but tonight I just wanted to link this article on "Why is there no Jewish Narnia?" The short answer: Christianity is inclined toward fantasy, with other worlds and redemption at the end, but Judaism is more sci-fi and here-and-now. The article also talks about a new Jewish fantasy trilogy in the works and discusses some of its peculiarities.
I think he's on to something. Christianity is Judaism fulfilled and transmuted. They have the promise and the shadow very much in earthly things: King David, whose throne will last; the Temple and the sacrifices; the Law, which manages everything. Christians, though, look to somewhere else. Here matters, but it's not ultimate. Our hope is for a Good like you can find on this world, and that has been here, but Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, I wouldn't have let you arrest me!" We've got villains, heroes, quests, terror, otherworldly landscapes, impending doom, and sudden redemption un-looked-for and beyond hope. So I suppose it's not that big of a stretch to arrive at your standard fantasy plot.
On the subject of fantasy generally, I'm reminded of a point someone made about Spenser, how he is the "poet's poet." His Faerie Queene has the knack of inspiring others to make poetry. I think Tolkien is similarly the fantasy-author's fantasy author. Everyone reads Lord of the Rings and says, "I can do that" -- and writes all the derivative fantasy currently on the market!
Maybe I should go re-read Tolkien and get motivated to work on that story I've got kicking around...
I saw that article recently, and found it interesting but flawed. I do think he's on to something as far as fantasy being more natural to Christianity; I am inclined to think that fantasy of one form or another is the most natural genre for Christians to write in.
ReplyDeleteBut, first off, the Tolkien/Lewis sort of fantasy is not the only kind there is. While I may like it best, there are streams in the world of fantasy that do not particularly draw on medieval legend and the other sources they used, yet still seem clearly to fit in the general confines of fantasy. Alice in Wonderland, for example. Whether there exists Jewish fantasy in other streams I have no idea. He also seems to contradict himself a bit in first saying that Judaism is a religion where fantasy is not natural, then later expressing the hope that good Jewish fantasy can be written in the near future.
I, too, read that article. I thought of Mark Helprin (a Jewish author) and his book about the boy called by God to save the Yankees, and through them, New York. I'm pretty sure that's fantasy...
ReplyDeleteAnd do reread LOTR, C- I am doing so now, and it's like reuniting with old friends after many years and many movies...
Loved seeing you last week!
You're right that he defined fantasy quite narrowly. There's definitely more to it than that medieval-ish kind. I'm trying to decide whether that undercuts his overall point. For instance, beside the _Alice_ ones, you've got Pratchett, which has a lot in common with _Gulliver_-esque satire (only more cheerful). I don't think he addressed whether he thought one of the alternate streams would be a good type for a Jewish author to try.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I've heard it persuasively argued that _Alice_ isn't real or pure fantasy because it uses a dream-mechanism. I think Tolkien argued it wasn't a fairy tale for that reason in "On Fairy Stories." How are you defining fantasy?
Correction: the Helprin piece is a short story, not a book. :-P
ReplyDeleteIt was great seeing you, too! I LOVED my trip home. :-)
ReplyDeleteRe: Helprin being a Jewish fantasy writer: great! I didn't know that. Would you recommend I read that one?
Helprin is definitely not a Jewish fantasy writer in any traditional sense... I just find that short story a fascinating exercise in fantasy of a different sort...I do recommend it. The title is "Perfection", and it was published in his book, "The Pacific and other Short Stories".
ReplyDeleteI consider Alice in Wonderland to be fantasy because it involves travel to another world that operates by its own rules (even if nonsense ones, since there is something of a method to its madness). Alice may be dreaming or something similar, but no one really remembers that, and all the significant action of the story occurs in the other world.
ReplyDeleteSince modern fantasy was invented by George McDonald shortly before Lewis Carroll was writing, there was no definition of what fantasy was for Carroll to work with or against. By Tolkien's time, the definition of fantasy was more or less McDonald, Lewis, Tolkien himself, etc., if I remember rightly. That sort of fantasy combined novel and fairy tale, but is not in my view the only sort.
My own definition of fantasy, partly following Tolkien, focuses on the element of the story's world: fantasy either involves travel to a world outside our universe, takes place entirely in such a world, takes place in a hidden portion of our world that presumes we lack knowledge of a major aspect of existence (e. g. the existence of wizards in Harry Potter), or takes place in a version of our world altered in some significant way. The last can produce borderline cases of fantasy, since Spiderman, for example, takes place in a world where a spider bite can give superpowers, a man can turn into a pile of sand, and so forth, but it's debatable whether this is very soft sci-fi, or the addition of magic/different natural laws to our world. Because of the hero focus, I classify it as fantasy, since the focus on heroes, symbolic figures, and so on, is another major element of fantasy. But then I see X-Men as being more like sci-fi, even though it's supposedly the same universe.
I'm meaning to read something by Helprin one of these days.
ReplyDeleteMary Doria Russell's The Sparrow is pretty powerful writing by an adult convert to Judaism -- technically sci-fi, though it transcends the genre. Although there are strong Christian influences there too (the main character is a Jesuit priest); ultimately the theology is (at best) a Before Christ theology -- but it bears certain relations to Job. (C, I'm not sure if you'd like the book; it's pretty brutal/gritty about the depths of depravity, human and otherwise. V-Dawg, I think it'd be worth your time to look into....)
Besides Christian, there is certainly existentialist (Pratchett) and Mormon fantasy, besides sorta vaguely atheistic. And perhaps retro-polytheistic? The Curse of Chalion said some fascinating things about the nature of sainthood, in an imaginary polytheistic system. And the Attolia books have an invented polytheism too. Although even Christian fantasy has played with that trope to some extent....