The Sci Fi Catholic Yak Module
I must also note that the article advertises The Tripods Attack!, a steampunk novel with an unfortunately generic title, starring a young G. K. Chesterton battling with space aliens.
This I gotta see...
I'm with Templar on this one. It'll either rock or suck. I'd be thrilled to pieces if it was the first one, but I fear it will be the second.
As for the whole concept of "Christian fiction" or "Catholic fiction": I think many commenters, including Aglialoro himself hit the nail on the head: fiction written with an explicit moral or theological agenda, even if it is a noble agenda, tends to be very bad fiction. I've thought about ways to bring Christian and Catholic themes into my fiction (including, by curious coincidence, a story about an alien invasion), but the LAST thing I want to do is come across as preachy, overly pious, and didactic. That kind of stuff is an excruciating bore to read, (Trust me, I've read some. Bud McFarlane, anyone?) and I don't want to inflict it on myself as an author, let alone anyone else as a reader. If you're going to preach at me, just call it a homily and have done with it. Don't try to dress it up with a poorly written, unbelievable story.
Yes, I agree about seperating preaching from fiction--'though I'd add that really good preaching is also very enjoyable and almost as difficult to write (and find). Christian fiction "tends to be very bad fiction" as indeed, most of the fiction out there tends to be. But when I come across this sort of discussion, I always think of Alice Walker, a talented writer whose novels are very much promoting Marxist feminist ideas (as well as a mash-up of New Age). Does she set out to promote Marxist feminism? I doubt it; it seems more likely that deeply held convictions profoundly shape her imagination. And as Catholic readers, we reasonably want to read the work of writers whose imaginations are shaped by transfiguring truth.
As a follow-up to my previous comment: I think, in a curious way, Christian fiction, if it can be written at all (and Tolkien, Lewis, and O' Connor show that it can) has to proceed by absence rather than presence. What I mean is this: it's hard for us as fallen, sinful creatures to imagine a universe where Christ is fully and really present and active, visible to everybody. Such a place would be heaven, which we cannot now see. The most we can have in this life are little flashes of grace, little moments of insight, brought to us through prayer, the sacraments, meditation on the Scriptures, and by giving and receiving acts of charity.
I think its much easier for us to imagine a world where he seems to be absent or veiled (O' Connor's Georgia) and yet so desperately needed. We can present the Christian revelation figuratively or symbolically as Tolkien and Lewis do, but to try to present it as it is or present a world where it is fully realized and active would be almost impossible for our imaginations. Am I making sense? It's hard for me to be brilliant off the cuff like this 
Xena said:
But when I come across this sort of discussion, I always think of Alice Walker, a talented writer whose novels are very much promoting Marxist feminist ideas (as well as a mash-up of New Age). Does she set out to promote Marxist feminism? I doubt it; it seems more likely that deeply held convictions profoundly shape her imagination.
I think you've hit on something very important, Xena. I think you're saying that you want to find an author whose Catholicism is such an essential part of who they are that when they sit down to write, that even if they don't consciously intend to, they can't help writing from a Catholic perspective. Tolkien always insisted he hated allegory, but once you know that Tolkien was Catholic, it's almost impossible not to see Catholic symbolism in The Lord of the Rings. He couldn't help it.
I'd love to oblige you and be that same kind of writer, but first I'd have to be a much better Catholic .
Maybe I shouldn't advertise this way, but the fan fic I'm posting is, to my mind, very much the work of a Catholic catechumen (which I was for part of the time I wrote it). As will be evident in the following chapters, its jammed with weird biblical references and the like. I, too, did not set out to write a Christian work that meditated at length on lurid blood rituals, but it came out that way anyhow.
I wrote it with no great concern for conveying any kind of message; I merely wanted to tell the story that leapt almost fully formed into my head after I finished Bone. Even I'm not sure of what it ultimately means, if anything, so if anyone who happens to be reading it wants to play exegete or critic when it's all finished, you're more than welcome.
I bring this up because it's there as an example, minus the derivative elements and carelessness, of what Christian fiction written story first, with no intended message, might look like. I'm inclined to think it's a very Christian work, ultimately, but the ending is open to interpretation.
Niall--I think we agree. In music, I like to think of what happened with Ladysmith Black Mombasa when their leader became a Christian. With Tolkien we always have to remember that he was a professor of Anglo-Saxon & one of the most influential critics of Beowulf of the 20th century (the great essay is "The Monsters and the Critics"). In his case, his intellectual & professional life was entirely engaged with the artistic products of a vigorous Catholic culture conscious of its pagan past. So he didn't have an intellectual chasm between his intellectual, professional, creative, and religious spheres. In a slightly different way this was true for Lewis, too. We should note, 'though, this wasn't idyllic, because there was significant prejudice against Catholics in English universities then.
Of course, we can't all be medievalists.
But the issue of culture & writing companions is a serious one. Since I've recently started reading Gene Wolfe, I've wondered where he found writing companions.
D.G.--I think we're eager for your essay....
Well, I know Gene Wolfe found Neil Gaiman as a sort of writing companion, but Gaiman is decidedly not Catholic. They get along smashingly, though.
I think that instead of moaning because there is not enough Catholic fiction out there,somebody should try to re-issue the complete works of R. A. Lafferty. There is at least one tetralogy of which only the first book was published, and it is incredibly unfair that unthinking Tolkien clones get published every day, and he is forgotten.
No indeed, not being "Christian" doesn't make Harry Potter a "bad series." I read it and let my kids read it; I attended lectures with them about "Christian elements" in it. But I maintain that the "Christian hermeneutic" is strained. And frankly I think it's a sign of how little we're willing to settle for, that, when we get a popular work with a basic good-versus-evil construct, a general promotion of virtue, and sprinkled allusions and symbols from Christianity's most generic concepts, we're so eager to claim it as "Christian."
Lastly, I don't buy it as a premise that "good Catholic art" has to be only subtly or indirectly or opaquely "religious." It may happen that way in some cases, but I don't think it's a principle. God positively haunts the pages of, say, Brideshead, or The Power and the Glory, or Death Comes for the Archbishop -- in ways both subtle AND overt. I think it's all in the writing.
Great site!
I think it's a sign of how little we're willing to settle for, that, when we get a popular work with...allusions and symbols from Christianity's most generic concepts, we're so eager to claim it as "Christian."
A very good point. I think the books were written with certain Christian things in mind, and so a Christian interpretation is warranted, but I think it does indeed sometimes grow strained, and I also think the novels are ultimately morally deficient, even if generally good.
Lastly, I don't buy it as a premise that "good Catholic art" has to be only subtly or indirectly or opaquely "religious."
I've been growing uncomfortable with that premise myself, because, as you point out, some really good work is overtly religious. I think everyone's felt so burned by the bad Christian fiction that's come out over the last few decades that a lot of people have adopted this reactionary viewpoint that good art has no blatant religion, a viewpoint from which I'm presently recovering. Nonetheless, even though my view on the matter is becoming moderated, I still wonder if we really need more Catholic fiction, or just more Catholics writing fiction, whether they choose to be overtly religious or not.
Xena and others--off topic--
Please pray for me as I prepare for and make a silent retreat this weekend in preparation for my upcoming 1st promise this fall. I will keep all of you in my prayers.
No more blogging the rest of the week as I prepare myself mentally and spiritually.
Yes, I completely understand the "reactionary" stance, and I think it's not uncommon. Paul Thigpen had what I think is the best response over at the InsideCatholic thread, when he said that some people really DO have conversations about God and the Faith; that some life stories really DO play out with overt religious tones.
To ignore that would be to ignore part of reality, and that can't be good art, either.
Yes, there is good fiction that deals with religious experience, and it is a very proper subject for writers.
The problem is that we have been subjected to so many lousy examples, that we end up believing that this is the only possible way to write about them, and we run in the opposite direction.
must also note that the article advertises The Tripods Attack!, a steampunk novel with an unfortunately generic title, starring a young G. K. Chesterton battling with space aliens.
This I gotta see...
Templar | 04.26.08 - 9:58 pm | #
Gravatar I'm with Templar on this one. It'll either rock or suck. I'd be thrilled to pieces if it was the first one, but I fear it will be the second.
Niall Mor | Homepage | 04.27.08 - 10:29 am | #
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Sorry for the crude quoting above. But:
'The Tripods Attack' has gotten its first reader review over at Amazon.com...5 stars....
Thanks for the notice, BrewsterBooster. This looks like the kind of novel Snuffles might enjoy, so maybe I'll see about sending it his way. He hasn't been reading enough books without pictures lately.
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