Yesterday I was reading Smoke and Mirrors a collection of “Short Fictions and Illusions” by Neil Gaiman and I came across a story titled “One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock” which is in Gaiman’s words from the prologue of the collection:
“a story about a boy a lot like I was once and his relationship with fiction.”
The story centers around the character, a twelve year old boy named Richard and his obsession with the Elric of Melnibone stories by Michael Moorcock, which I admittedly know next to nothing about, save that they were pulp Sword and Sorcery stories from the ’60s and ’70s. But this quote about the philosophy of writing, particularly as it referenced C. S. Lewis really caught my attention.
“Richard had, however, finally given up (with, it must be admitted, a little regret) his belief in Narnia. From the age of six–for half his life–he had believed devoutly in all things Narnian; until, last year, rereading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader for perhaps the hundredth time, it had occurred to him that the transformation of the unpleasant Eustace Scrub into a dragon and his subsequent conversion to belief in Aslan the lion was terribly similar to the conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus; if his blindness were a dragon. . .
This having occurred to him, Richard found correspondences everywhere, too many to be simple coincidence.
Richard put away the Narnia books, convinced, sadly, that they were allegory; that an author (whom he had trusted) had been attempting to slip something past him (. . .) Richard was young, and innocent in his fashion, and believed that authors should be trusted, and that there should be nothing hidden beneath the surface of a story.”
I remembered a quote I read in my last semester at Geneva College during my philosophy class about C.S. Lewis. In his essay “Christianity and Culture” Lewis attempts to come to a logical reason why it is acceptable if not necessary and good for a Christians such as himself to engage in creating culture (which in his context means writing stories and essays). He comes to an argument that states that he can, and even goes so far as to say that having some Christians among the ranks of those producing ‘culture’ (as he discusses the issue in the essay) is necessary and good. As part of his discussion he says that:
“In order to avoid misunderstanding, I must add that when I speak of ‘resisting the abuse of culture’ I do not mean that a Christian should take money for supplying one thing (culture) and use the opportunity thus gained to supply a quite different thing (homiletics and apologetics). That is stealing. The mere presence of Christians in the ranks of the culture-sellers will inevitably provide an antidote.”
I agree whole-heartedly with this statement. And it is one of the reasons that I generally frown on what I see as the tendency of fantasy authors who are Christians to both merely target a Christian audience and insist on following in Lewis’s steps by writing allegories of Christ’s death in fantasy. Mind you, since they are setting out to sell, as Lewis says “homiletics and apologetics” they are not necessarily “stealing”, but are they accomplishing as much as they could? I would say no. They certainly are not accomplishing what Lewis saw as good about Christian culture creators.
Lewis was not trying to defraud his readers or slip anything by them. But it could easily be claimed that that was his goal as Gaiman points out. Lewis’s use of strong allegorical elements in the Narnia books is an interesting balance. The Narnia books live on today in part because of these elements and the way that Christian readers have latched onto them, but at the same time they turn some people away. They are what they are because and in spite of the allegorical elements. When I started reading the Narnia books I felt in some ways that the allegorical elements were like a secret code, you could love the books if you weren’t a Christian, but if you were you felt a special connection to them because they were about more, and they were saying something to you that others might not get.
I am a Christian, I tell stories. My goal is not to hide my Christianity, nor is it to preach it through my stories. But I think that Christian art should be so much more than allegory (which the Narnia books were but everyone seems to forget because of the allegorical elements). A story written by a Christian cannot help but be Christian as it is reflecting a Christian perspective on the world and therefore allegory is not a necessary (and even possibly in this day and age a not particularly helpful tool). God created so much more of creation than just the culminating moment of catholic redemption that is Jesus’s death on the cross, he created all of creation and the whole scope of history, writing about any aspect of that can be glorifying to God. Christian art is about where the attribution lies, not the subject matter.
That said. There will always be something beneath the surface of a story. It is in the nature of fiction.
Anyway. This post is probably somewhat disjointed and I feel like it might be trying to say two different things at the same time. Which means that it is about on par with some of my hastily written papers for college. But I just wanted to get some of my thoughts out on paper. I do not claim to have proved anything or accomplished anything really useful in this post. Other than to quote some cool people.
Comments
“I do not mean that a Christian should take money for supplying one thing (culture) and use the opportunity thus gained to supply a quite different thing (homiletics and apologetics). That is stealing.”
Woot for Lewis!
The fantasy authors you mentioned may not be stealing, but they are certainly not producing art. They will not be other Lewises whose work lasts and is reread by generations.
I highly recommend you check out Image Journal for insightful reflections on faith, art, and culture-creating. They have a PDF brochure here which had a profound impact on me, because it showed me that I was not alone–that other (possibly smarter and more talented, heh) people were thinking the same things that I was. http://imagejournal.org/page/about/
One thing I’d like to add on this topic is that Lewis (and Tolkien, let’s not forget him) stand separate from other Christian writers who have employed allegories in their writing is that they were men well versed in theology… most writers cannot say the same. The result is that, quite frankly, most Christian writers make such a mess of allegory that their work does more harm than good. We can’t all be Lewis… and thank goodness for the people who understand that simple fact.
Author
Well, for one thing Tolkien explicitly was not trying to employ allegory, he just has some points where elements in his stories act in ways that people have taken to be allegorical, that was however, not his intention.
And even Lewis’s (who did not claim to be a theologian and indeed argued against being held up as a paragon of theological truth) Narnian allegory has elements that would make it heretical if it were taken as straight up allegory.
Well, Lewis certainly wrote a lot on the subject for someone who doesn’t want to be seen as a theologian. My point is that the elements of allegory that do appear in his texts don’t have the forced feel that others do. As you said, it’s possible to read through Narnia without stumbling over the allegory. Other authors I’ve read who employed allegory, whether intentionally or not, have done so with the subtlety and approachable style of an out of control truck.
Author
Lewis never really intended to write as a Theologian. He wrote as a Christian who was trying to understand and defend his religion (and communicate to others that understanding and defense). There is a quote in one of his essays where he makes an assertion that he is not claiming any special knowledge of theology and is just trying to speak as a Christian, I thought it was either in the beginning of “Mere Christianity” or one of his essays in my “Christian Reflections” book. But I either did not properly annotate it or am looking in the wrong place, because I can’t find it.
I think perhaps it would be better to call Lewis an apologist rather than a theologian? Although he does venture into theological territory at times.
Lyn, I just read this Flannery O’Connor quote from the introduction (by Joseph Pearce! Yay!) of a book about her, and it reminded me of this post. She is talking about Catholic writing specifically, but it holds true for Christian writing in general.
“The [Christian] novel is not necessarily about a Christianized world […] but one in which the truth as Christians know it has been used as a light to see the world by.”
If you haven’t read her collection of essays, “Mystery and Manners,” yet–you ought to. Her understanding of fiction is one of the best I’ve ever come across.
An addition note I would like to add here: the realm of Christian Fiction seems to provide a “safe” alternative from fiction that is not. If that is what it does, then that is not what we should do as writers. We ought to transform the secular, pagan world not separate ourselves from it. We, and as Lewis said,have to beat them at their own game and to do this we have to market ourselves in their market. Christ and Augustine walked among the fallen and let they helped to transform the culture they lived in. Furthermore, Christian Music is also a joke, for it also creates a false image about Christianity. Taking up Christ’s Cross does not just me that we are happier than the rest, but we are also suffering more than the rest. I agree that our works can’t help to be anything but Christian. Our stories are reflection our scripture and the world. But we should use just the allegory but be more applicable in our writing. In the preface to Lord of the Rings, Tolkien said that Lord of the Rings is not an allegory but application of theology and truth. We should be more applicable and not allegorical.