Guardian Unlimited: God knows where all the religious novels went
Being quite the fan of Evelyn Waugh and CS Lewis, I agree.
As it happens, I have never tried Graham Greene, but will get around to him one day.
Yes, novels informed by a Catholic or quasi-Catholic sensibility are hard to come by these days.
He's wrong about 'Lord of the Rings'. That book isn't really religious at all.
ReplyDeleteC S Lewis was an anomaly even in his own time; he genuinely understood medieval forms like allegory and was sympathetic with the religious beliefs that those forms expressed. Almost no-one else shared this interest in allegory, though Christian beliefs were still common enough.
You do get a quasi environmentalism or even new-age belief in some sf and fantasy stories, and writers have long been fascinated by socialist utopias. (Mike Moorcock probably writes the most intelligently about some socialist beliefs, because although he's left-wing, he's interested in people, not propaganda).
I think we'll see more intelligent religious writers in the future, since the path in literature in the past 100 years has generally been a broadening of forms of expression AND of ideas expressed. Probably see a resurgence of Christian tradition, too.
Tim, you probably recall that I don't care a hoot about Tolkien's works, but here seems to be a lot of stuff written about how "religious" LOTR is, or how influenced by Tolkien's Catholicism , etc. Have a look at this link for all the guff about it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/Tolkien/
I think you're being rather optimistic about the possible resurgence of a Christian tradition as well. I suspect the "non realists" are winning, which will result in a great diminution of the seriousness with which religion is viewed.(See earlier post.)
Who said I was optimistic? I'm unreligious, so I don't have anything at stake here - though it's true that I do have an emotional attachment to Christianity; and it's the tradition I come out of.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the fantasy now is in the form of wish fulfilment or literary games, but that's not to say it can't be used in other ways. Take Homer's Odyssey, the wellspring of all modern fantasy and SF and adventure stories - a great narrative of discovery from one of the original maritime civilisations. We can't write from exactly that perspective any more, but there are obvious analogies in C S Lewis or a lot of modern SF.
A lot of the beliefs held by even the best genre writers (Brian Aldiss, I'm looking at you) is absolute guff, but that's not to say that they haven't in their own way discovered fictional forms that adequately express beliefs and moral convictions, etc.
Do I even know what I'm saying? Good heavens, maybe I don't!
Actually, Evelyn Waugh's fiction is not exactly explicit in its Christianity - he's almost entirely a social satirist. Brideshead Revisite has an obvious Christian theme running through it, and most of the other books have an implicit Christian morality running throughout - but the same can be said for many un-Christian novelists.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean you personally were optimistic; I know you are a heathen..:)
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