Ten Top Books: Fiction Edition

A reader writes:

I searched your site to see if you had a list of suggested books.

I didn't find one though.

So, I was wondering if you would suggest some of your favorite books. I would be really interested in your top 10 fictions books, but also your top 10 books on apologetics/Catholic thought.

Thank you for working on your blog.

God bless

P.s. If you like, I can send you my lists as well.

I'd be happy to provide some book recommendations, only I don't know that I can provide a proper "top 10" list. So instead let me give "ten top" books (i.e., ten books that I like a lot, even if I can't rank them from 1 to 10 and even though there are others I'm not thinking of that I might put on the same level.

Let's do fiction in this post, and I'll follow up with theology/apologetics.

And I invite the correspondent, and other readers, to share ten of their top fiction picks in the combox!

Here we go (alpha by title) . . . 

Continue reading “Ten Top Books: Fiction Edition”

“Harry Potter, wrong model of a hero, Vatican newspaper says”

Harrypotter
That’s the headline of THIS STORY BY CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY.

I’m no Harry Potter fan, but it appears that Catholic News Agency has severely misled its readers on this story.

By saying that L’Osservatore Romano published a piece criticizing Harry Potter, they convey the impression that this is the official Vatican position.

In actuality, what L’Osservatore Romano published was a debate between pro-Potter and anti-Potter writers, which conveys an entirely different impression about the newspaper’s (and the Vatican’s) position.

Catholic News Agency mentioned only one half of the debate.

Catholic News Service, by contrast, mentions both.

GET THE (OTHER SIDE OF THE) STORY.

Philip Pullman Is A Liar

But at least one liberal scholar has called the trilogy a “theological masterpiece,” and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops rates the film “intelligent and well-crafted entertainment.”
*VOMIT*
LINK:
‘Golden Compass’ raises religious debate

Philip_pullman_20050416
Or, if you want to quibble about the word "lie," he is a dishonest man.

Here’s why:

Pullman is the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, which is overtly anti-Christian and the first volume of which has been made into a movie titled The Golden Compass. Naturally, the Catholic League and its head Bill Donohue are warning parents against it, and Pullman is quoted as saying the following:

"To regard it as this Donohue man has said – that I’m a militant atheist,
and my intention is to convert people – how the hell does he know that?"
he said, in an interview with Newsweek magazine.

First, note that what we have here is a vehement non-denial denial. Pullman isn’t denying that he’s a militant atheist with the intention to convert people (at least in this quote; he may have made an actual denial elsewhere, in which case he’s a flat-out liar). He’s vehemently questioning how one would know that in order to convey the impression that he is not a militant atheist out to convert people and that he’s indignant at the statement that he is one.

Because it’s a non-denial denial, one can quibble over whether it constitutes a lie, just like one can quibble over whether various non-denial denials issued by the Nixon White House (or other White Houses) were technically lies, but the clear intent here is to deceive.

But let’s answer Pullman’s question: How "the hell" does Bill Donohue know that Pullman is a militant atheist out to convert people?

Because Pullman himself has said so!

In an interview published in
the Washington Post (Feb. 19, 2001), he stated:

“’I’m trying to undermine the basis of
Christian belief,’ says Pullman. ‘Mr. Lewis [C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia] would think I
was doing the Devil’s work.’”

Similarly, in an interview published in the Sydney Morning
Herald (Dec. 13, 2003), Pullman stated:

“I’ve been surprised by how little
criticism I’ve got. Harry Potter’s been taking all the flak. I’m a great fan of
J.K. Rowling, but the people—mainly from America’s Bible Belt—who complain that
Harry Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven’t got enough in
their lives. Meanwhile, I’ve been flying under the radar, saying things that
are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are
about killing God.”

And indeed they are. In the end, the heroes of the novels
actually kill God.

So Pullman is simply being dishonest when he vehemently questions how anyone could know that he is a militant atheist out to convert people. He himself has made it abundantly clear in press interviews.

This kind of transparent disingenuity really makes Pullman come across as a small and pathetic individual.

For all the protestations atheists typically make about embracing truth rather than a fairy tale, it seems Mr. Pullman leaves something to be desired in the truth department.

And why not?

If, on his view, we’re just walking bags of chemicals then why shouldn’t the bag of chemicals that is Philip Pullman not spout any string of syllables needed in order to maximize its bank account and the amount of power it has to command pleasurable sensory feedback?

The Economics of Magic

The Pharisaic Approach to Purity
Over at Jimmy’s blog, the discussion of Harry Potter proceeds apace, with the inevitable appearance of the Harry Haters who, not content with not wanting to read the books (which is their perfect right), also bound and determined to arraign Rowling as an evil person and those who enjoy the books as dupes and/or traitors to the Pure Faith, etc. ad nauseam. One comment in particular stands out for me as nicely summing up the failure of a particular sort of approach to the Faith, which is really not faith in the Catholic sense at all, but is more like Phariseeism:
One drop of poison in a clear glass of water still poisons the whole glass.
One drop of anything not authentically Catholic poisons the whole glass.
The thing is that since almost everything is poisoned these days, you have to go for the one that won’t kill you and still get rid of your thirst.
But then, that accomplishes the purpose of those books.
Give your thirst for true beauty and splendor a glass of poisoned water.

Updated: 7:49 a.m. PT Aug 1, 2007
BRADENTON, Fla. – Sometimes it’s a hassle being Harry Potter.
Especially when you’re a 78-year-old man who happens to share the name of a certain fictional boy wizard who is famous the world over.
Each time a new Harry Potter book or movie comes out, Bradenton resident Harry Potter starts getting phone calls from children, interview requests from the TV networks and autograph requests.

I am not a fan of the Harry Potter novels. I know lots of people who are, including people who are serious Catholics, but I’m uncomfortable with them for a variety of reasons.

While they’re not going to turn every kid who reads them into a practitioner of Wicca, at least some kids will be influenced by the novels into exploring the occult. That’s a risk that is taken whenever magic is explored in fiction. Lord of the Rings did the same thing.

The thing about literature (fiction or non-fiction) is that somebody in the audience is always going to go off in some crazy direction based on what they read.

Want proof?

Let’s take a very well-known piece of literature . . . the best-selling book in human history, in fact: The Bible.

Has anybody gone off in a crazy direction after reading that?

Well, let’s see . . . Marcion, Sabellius, Montanus, Tertullian, Arius, . . . uh, the list might get a little long, so let’s move on.

Authors can’t let the fact that somebody in the audience is going to go nuts based on what they write stop them from writing. If they did, we wouldn’t have the Bible. But authors can craft their work in a way that tries to minimize potential harmful effects, and I have sympathy for those who think that J.K. Rowling didn’t do as good a job of this in writing the Harry Potter series as J.R.R. Tolkien did in the Lord of the Rings.

And the fact is that the vast majority of kids who read Harry Potter are not going to turn into neopagans, so I can’t tell people that it’s morally impermissible for any child to read them.

There is another reason I’m uncomfortable with them: I just don’t like the way they’re written.

Now, you know what they say about disputing about tastes, and if Harry Potter is something that you really enjoy and that doesn’t challenge your faith then good for you. But I think that Rowling did not do a good job in several respects literarily, and here’s why.

I read the first novel back when there was a huge controversy about it and whether it was healthy for children, and from the opening pages I found myself not liking it. The reason is that Rowling is just too ham fisted in how she sets the plot in motion.

Harry Potter–the character, not the book series–is the most important boy in the magical world, yet he doesn’t know it.

Until chapter two. (Or whatever.)

Then, as soon as he’s introduced into the magical world, he’s suddently the center of attention, people are fawning all over him, privilege is lavished upon him, and a glorious new future is handed to him on a silver platter.

Too. Much. Wish. Fulfillment.

This is bad plotting. Harry Potter is catapulted out of ordinary life to the apex of magical society virtually instantaneously. There may be lots of interesting concepts that Rowling uses as tinsel to sparkle up her world–and this is what I think people really find attractive about the books (the tinsel, not the substance)–but you don’t slather on the wish fulfillment in this way.

Not unless you’re writing fan fic.

If you really want to have somebody be the most important boy in the world, you let this fact emerge piecemeal, a bit at a time, with the character paying his dues as his true identity becomes clear.

If you want to see that plot done right,

CHECK OUT THIS BOOK.

BTW, I recently gave this book to Steve and Janet Ray and they loved it.

Others have also commented on the ham fisted way Rowling writes–in fact the piece I’m about to link even uses the term "ham fisted."

It’s a piece by an economics reporter who looks at the bad economics in the book–and she doesn’t mean money. She means the magical economy:

If magic is too powerful then the characters will be omnipotent gods, and there won’t be a plot. Magic must have rules and limits in order to leave the author enough room to tell a story. In economic terms, there must be scarcity: magical power must be a finite resource.

GET THE STORY.

By Their Lives of Judas You Shall Know Them

CNS is reporting:

Curiosity about the New Testament figure of Judas and a feeling that his reputation as the worst sinner in history "isn’t fair, isn’t right" led British novelist Jeffrey Archer to attempt a new version of the story.

Archer, presenting "The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot" at a March 20 press conference in Rome, said he is a practicing Anglican who wanted his new book to be backed up by solid biblical scholarship.

So he convinced Father Francis J. Moloney, provincial of the Salesians in Australia and a former president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America, to collaborate.

Now, I don’t have a problem with someone writing a book called "The Gospel According to Judas" or writing novels about Judas or about Judas’s perceptions of Christ. I don’t even have a problem with someone who wants to present Judas as something other than the worst sinner in history–something that the Church doesn’t teach that he was. One could hold that Judas had diminished culpability for his sins and that someone else in history had a higher degree of culpability.

But I do have a problem with this:

Archer’s main thesis is that Judas tried to prevent Jesus’ arrest and execution by enlisting the help of a scribe to get Jesus out of Jerusalem and back to Galilee where the Romans supposedly would ignore him.

In the end, the scribe betrays Judas, which means Judas unwittingly betrays Jesus.

Both Archer and Father Moloney doubt that Judas committed suicide, a story recounted only in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

The Benjamin Iscariot in Archer’s title is Judas’ fictitious son, who — years after the death of Jesus — finds his father living in an ascetic community near the Dead Sea. His father reluctantly gives his version of what happened to Jesus and the son writes it down.

I’m sorry, but this is unacceptable on two grounds. First, it flatly contradicts the biblical accounts of Judas’ death. It would be one thing if the author made it clear that he was not writing about our universe and that he was dealing with a parallel Judas and what happened to him, but that’s not the case. The author and Fr. Moloney both cast doubt on the inspired text as it applies to our universe. This is an unacceptable misrepresentation of the facts of history. It’s not a case of them proposing a novel or unexpected way to harmonize the accounts of Judas’s death; it’s them flatly rejecting the biblical accounts.

Second, the author has fallen into the perennial trap of trying to exonerate Judas. That’s not the same thing as portraying him in a way that nuances his character and motives. It’s not the same thing as just saying "He may not have been the worst sinner in history." It’s flatly rejecting the betrayal that Judas performed. On this account, Judas didn’t betray Jesus; he was himself betrayed.

Sorry, but that’s not going to cut it. Not if we’re being asked to entertain what might have been the case with the Judas in our universe.

I don’t know what it is with authors (and filmmakers) who want to rehabilitate Judas in this fashion.

But I suspect it’s this: They themselves have an uneasy conscience.

They themselves feel that they have betrayed Christ (as have we all by our sins), but rather than throw themselves on Christ’s mercy and accepting his grace, they want to rationalize or excuse their sins and so–using the character of Judas as a psychological surrogate for themselves–they rationalize and excuse his in fictional form.

The underlying psychological message they’re trying to give themselves is: Hey, if Judas didn’t really betray Christ–if he was a tragic victim of circumstance–then that’s what I am, too. I haven’t really betrayed him. I’m just a victim of fate, too, and I’m not really responsible for what I’ve done.

By their lives of Judas you shall know them.

GET THE STORY.

Atlas Shrugged

A reader writes:

Hey Jimmy, any thoughts on "Atlas Shrugged"? I’ve yet to read it, but I’m wondering if it makes any good points, and was also curious what the bad ones might be. A friend has forced me to read it, so I thought it’d be best to get your thoughts first. Thanks!

Well, I can’t generally offer thoughts on works of fiction like Atlas Shrugged, and most have both good and bad points, but in this case I do happen to know something about the work and its author, Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand was a 20th century immigrant to the US who advocated a particular philosophical system that she dubbed "Objectivism," because of its supposedly objective viewpoint.

This viewpoint has significant resonances with the Libertarian political movement, and advocates of Objectivism tend to be Libertarian politically (though not all Libertarians are Objectivists). This means that they tend to be economically liberal (in the historic sense–i.e., in favor of laissez-faire capitalism) while being socially liberal as well (e.g., not opposing abortion or homosexuality).

Objectivism tends to support a form of individualism that leaves open to the individual certain forms of freedom that Catholic theology would hold are immoral (e.g., it sometimes exalts selfishness as a virtue). It also tends to be strongly anti-religious.

While I have not read a great deal of Ayn Rand’s works (though I have read some), I can report that she uses her fiction–such as Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged–as vehicles for her philosophical thought.

I can also report that she is not taken seriously as a philosopher by real, academic philosophers.

I suggest looking into the following online articles from Wikipedia for more info:

* AYN RAND

* OBJECTIVISM

* OBJECTIVIST MOVEMENT

* ATLAS SHRUGGED

A Soul In A Bottle

Asoulinabottle_1Back when JA.O published Three Days To Never: The Interview, one of the questions Tim Powers was asked was whether we’d have to wait another five years for his next novel.

He said, "I
hope not! No, no, definitely not."

And the man was as good as his word!

I just got his latest book, A Soul in a Bottle, and read it in one sitting!

Okay, if you want to be persnickety, it’s not a novel, it’s a novella, but that’s close enough for me, and it comes in a gorgeous hardbound edition with copious illustrations by well-known fantasy artist J. K. Potter (no relation to Harry Potter or J. K. Rowling–so far as I know!).

It’s a little hard to describe the book without giving away story elements that you’ll want to let unfold in front of you, but here’s how I described it in the entry for my aStore:

Powers’ latest. A mysterious woman. A secret sonnet. A dire warning. A
forbidden romance. A *big* decision.

Easy access to the Powersverse for
those who have never ventured into it.

It has all the elements you’d expect from Tim Powers’ work–a startling eye for realism and a real-world setting, mixed with elements of the fantastic. It has ghosts–or at least a ghost–a character whose death sets the plot in motion. And it has the usual thematic elements of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms (they have a whole government agency just to deal with Tim Powers novels!).

Despite what you might suspect, the title does not refer to a soul that is literally in a bottle. That’s a metaphor. What it refers to is something you’ll have to read the story to find out.

I don’t want to give too much away about the story–in fact, I’d advise you not to read the dust jacket or the publisher’s description–because the less you know going in, the more you’ll enjoy it as Powers starts weaving his spell.

I will say this, though: Like Powers’ works in general, it’s refreshingly free from the kind of crud that clutters up many novels. There’s no sex scenes or blood and gore in it, for example. Instead, he gives us a tale that does not preach but sets up and then pays off a profound moral issue, with a forceful (and interestingly theological) stinger at the end.

I suspect that if you sample Tim Powers’ Soul in a Bottle, you’ll want to taste his other works as well, so . . .

CHECK ‘EM OUT!

Science Fiction As Literature

CHT to the reader down yonder who linked to a discussion in First Things in which Fr. NeuhausJoseph Bottum (CHT to readers for the correction) raises the question of science fiction as literature. Commening on a post at the Volokh Conspiracy, he writes:

There exists an intellectual defense of science fiction, but what’s interesting is that the query produced a hundred comments and, as near as I can tell, not one of them attempts the intellectual defense. What they pursue, instead, is a systematic assault on the notion of literature.

You can’t discount the American horror of appearing to be snob: Ordinary readers like science fiction, and we’re all just regular folk, after all. But what’s curious is the deployment of postmodern tropes: Some years ago, literature professors (of the MLA persuasion, anyway) turned against the whole idea of literature, the Volokh Conspiracy commenters note. So if even trained literary critics are unable to say what qualifies as literature, why can’t science fiction be literature?

There’s something a little odd in the use of this line by a group of lawyers and law professors who are known for their rejection of the postmodern turn in their own profession of law. Still, as an anti-intellectual argumentative strategy, it’s pretty smart: You get to deny that there is any specialized knowledge necessary for determining literature (“even the trained people don’t know what it is”), and at the same time you get to appeal to the authority of those specialists to promote your favorite reading.

But smart ain’t the same as intellectual. As I say, there is an intellectual defense of some genre writing. But—believing, as I did, that lawyers tend toward being natural intellectuals—I would have preferred to see the discussion begin with the acknowledgement that Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe produced literature. Now, does any science fiction stand near them?

As someone with pre-postmodern sympathies on a host of issues, I find myself sympathizing with Bottum when he looks askance at postmodern attempts to simply deconstruct the idea of literature. He’s quite right that Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe composed works that deserve unique commendation.

However, as a philosopher of the analytic tradition, I am also sensitive to the difficulties in defining what counts as literature, as well as the subjective difficulty of assessing what meets the criteria that could be proposed.

Unfortunately, Bottum plays his cards close to his vest and does not propose a definition for literature. He simply offers us a list of individuals he holds as having produced literature and asks us whether any works of science fiction "stand near them."

I can’t divine what standards our good divine might employ in assessing that question, but my initial inclination is to answer "Ask me again in five hundred years."

The list of luminaries Bottum cites is so stellar and so hallowed by centuries (except for Goethe) that one would have to display remarkable temerity to identify a recent science fiction author as a "new Homer" or a "new Virgil" or a "new Shakespeare" or even a "new Goethe."

By pointing to the cream of the literary crop–instead of literature of more modest means–Bottum has set the standard remarkably high, and diminished the ability of others to give him an answer. It would be easier if he identified 20th century figures who he regards as authors of literature, but by picking only authors whose works have stood the test of time, he makes it hard to offer comparisons with works that have not yet been subjected to the test of time.

We are thus without either a definition or a list of contemporary authors of literature, to which contemporary science fiction authors might be compared.

Having said that, I think that it is quite clear that science fiction–as well as genre fiction in general–can count as literature, however literature is defined. As evidence, I would offer the very list of literary luminaries that Bottum cites. Every one of them is known for producing works of literature that, if they were published today for the first time, would count as genre fiction.

Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey would both count as works of fantasy literature. So would Virgil’s Aeneid. So would the Divine Comedy. So would multiple plays by Shakespeare (Hamlet is a ghost story, Macbeth has witches,  The Tempest is built around a wizard, and let’s not even go into the fantasy elements in A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Faust would also be classified as fantasy based on its subject matter.

So literature obviously does not exclude the fantastic, which is central to science fiction. Indeed, fantasy is often classed together with science fiction, but if one were to insist that the two categories must be distinguished such that science fiction must involve science or the future rather than the supernatural then it still seems there are works of science fiction that are clearly literature.

I won’t go so far as to proclaim a new Homer, but it strikes me that Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus and George Orwell’s 1984 both stand sufficiently near the works of the authors Bottum mentions to count as literature. Frankenstein, in particular, is well along in the process of standing the test of time and is likely to be with us five hundred years from now, quite possibly on an equal footing with Faust.

I’d also agree with the commenter who wrote:

Those who believe SF isn’t literature should read A Canticle for
Lebowitz
or the work of Gene Wolfe or Tim Powers, not to mention
Tolkien.

 

It thus strikes me as possible to cite clear examples of science fiction that counts as literature, even given the vague guidance Bottum has offered us regarding what belongs in that class.

I am intrigued by Bottum’s statement that "There exists an intellectual defense of science fiction," which he later speaks of as if there is only one intellectual defense ("not one of them attempts the intellectual defense"). I am a bit perplexed by the fact that he does not seem willing to extend the same to genre fiction in general, saying that "there is an intellectual defense of some genre writing."

Unfortunately, Bottum is even more coy about what this defense might be than he is regarding what counts as literature.

Once again, I will not attempt to divine the mind of the divine, but I will offer the following thoughts:

1) If the inclusion of futuristic technology or situations is a sufficient condition for a work to count as science fiction, then it seems immediately apparent that science fiction can be literature for the simple reason that there will be literature in the future.

I don’t know that there will be another Homer or Shakespeare–their positions in the Western Canon have to do not only with the quality of their works but also with their place in the histories of the languages in which they wrote–but I suspect we will have future Goethes. In fact, I suspect we get several Goethes every century, it just takes time to recognize them.

If we then contemplate the first Goethe of the twenty-second century, writing in 2107, then even if he writes fiction that is purely realistic in terms of his own day, it will include elements that make it science fiction by our standards. This is true whether technology advances or not, whether we are living in a utopia or a dystopia or not, or whether we are living in a world that has slid back into barbarism.

This reveals to us the difference between subject matter (genre) and literary quality.

2) "Genre" and "literature" are two separate categories, just as "plot" and "literature" are two separate categories. There is no such thing as a literary plot; literature can use any plot. And there is no such thing as a literary genre; literature can be written in any genre.

Genre has to do with the subject matter that is found in a story. The Odyssey counts as fantasy because it has Odysseus going from island to island meeting fantastic beings and beset by gods. If you keep the exact same plot, with the same episodes and scenes, but change the details so that he’s going from planet to planet meeting fantastic beings and beset by aliens then the genre becomes science fiction.

Whether something counts as literature is not principally a judgment about subject matter. It is largely a judgment about quality. Nothing counts as literature if it is of poor quality. To be literature, it has to be good.

Some might want to stop there and say that the difference between literature and ordinary writing is simply the distinctive quality of literature. If it’s really, really good, it’s lit. Otherwise, not. But others might want to add other criteria.

Discerning what those criteria might be is difficult. One does not want to merely endorse the preferences or prejudices of a particular age, and so one must look across time–from Homer to Shakespeare to Goethe–and ask what indisputable works of literature have in common.

The differences between the works are vast. The Iliad does not read at all like The Sorrows of Young Werther, but a plausible criterion would be that works of literature engage the human condition in a particularly insightful way. This, indeed, may be the difference between literature and ordinary writing.

An ordinary comedy might be well-crafted and funny, and an ordinary romance might be well-crafted and entertaining, but Shakespeare’s comedies and romances go beyond that and allow us greater insight into the human condition.

That, incidentally, is what Frankenstein and 1984 do. Frankenstein isn’t just a creature story, and 1984 isn’t just a speculation on what life might be like thirty-six years after George Orwell wrote it.

If we accept the definition of literature as writing of high quality that is particularly insightful on the human condition (and I have no way of knowing if Bottum would accept this definition) the it seems clear that works of any genre can count as literature because there is no subject matter that of its nature prevents an author from writing well or displaying insight into the human condition.

It doesn’t matter whether the story is about a romance or the solving of a crime or the prosecution of a legal case or the efforts of a doctor to save lives or someone living in the Old West or someone living in the future. Unless you are prepared to say that there are no insights to be had on the condition of people in such situations then you must be prepared to say that such stories can tell us things about the human condition and thus potentially serve as literature.

Even something as "frivolous" as comedy can do that (note Shakespeare’s comedies), since humor is part of the human condition.

3) To apply the foregoing insight specifically to science fiction, it has often been pointed out that by using fantastic themes and situations, science fiction writers are able to hold up a unique mirror to the human condition and illuminate it from a different angle.

If you’ve got the ability to create life from non-living matter, as Dr. Frankenstein did, or if you can envision the playing out of social trends decades into the future, as George Orwell did, then you can throw light on aspects of the human condition that are hard to bring out in the confines of purely realistic literature.

The same applies if you put humans in a very different situation than the one they commonly find themselves in today. This can happen, for example, if you put them on another planet, or imagine them meeting another intelligent race. Or you might chuck the humans entirely and just think about what an alien race would be like and how it might be similar to and different from humanity.

In all of these ways, science fiction can hold up a mirror to mankind that let’s us look at its condition from a new angle.

4) Even more fundamentally, the senses of wonder and dread are themselves part of human nature, and science fiction allows us to express and explore these. It was wonder and dread that fired the ancient imagination and led to the creation of the gods and monsters of the classical age, as we find them in the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Aeneid. It was wonder and dread that led Shakespeare to put ghosts and witches and wizards in his stories. And it was wonder and dread that led Goethe to give literary form to a bargain with the devil.

What generates wonder and dread in us changes from age to age, and thus we find somewhat different elements of the fantastic in the writings of Homer and Shakespeare and Goethe. Today many find feelings of wonder and dread conjured in them by contemplating the science and technology that life thrusts upon us, or the thought of what the future will bring and how it will be different from today, or what other kinds of life may exist in God’s creation.

In contemplating all of these, we express a fundamental aspect of the human condition and exercise the gift of reason that God gave us, and despite the sniffing of those who are so in love with realistic fiction that they have lost the sense of preternatural wonder and dread, they can indeed find their place in human literature.