Filed under: Feedback, General Musings, Marketing, movies, Paleo-Future, Pandemic, Plague, Predictions, Press, Promotion, Publishing, Religion, Science Fiction, Society, Space, Titan, Writing stuff
In a post-apocalyptic world a cult of religious cyber-zombies prepare to release a hideous new engineered plague on mankind. On Saturn’s moon Titan, an aging space prospector discovers an ancient alien artifact. It will take the psycho-sexual skills of one lone young woman to unlock the secrets of the device and save mankind – but can she do it, before the aliens return?
Find out with the new Science Fiction special effects extravaganza Titan’s Mistress! Rated PG-13 for violence and language, some nudity.
(Based on the acclaimed novel Communion of Dreams)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK, so here’s the deal. Someone read Communion this spring and *really* liked it. Said person thought that it was a very visual book, and would be perfectly suited to a film adaptation.
That’s all well and good. I’ve heard that from several people.
But this person has some connections into Hollywood.
Huh.
Nothing certain, this person says (and I have reason to trust him). But the novel has been passed on to some people who will at least take a look at it. A serious look. And they’re the sorts who can get things accomplished.
What a weird idea, that the novel could first be sold as a movie. Then it wouldn’t be too hard to do the conventional publishing thing as well.
This is all speculative, of course. And I’ve known about this for a while. But after the last couple of posts being about personal stuff unrelated to the book, I thought I’d mention this.
Could be interesting. Granted, once given the Hollywood treatment, Communion would probably wind up looking like I described above, but still.
So, who would you see in what roles? Any suggestions?
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Failure, General Musings, Health, Hospice, Publishing, Religion, Sleep, Writing stuff
After she finished doing the nursing assessment of my MIL, I escorted ‘Missy’ from the Hospice agency out to her car. We paused just outside the back door, and she looked at me. “You guys are really doing a great job as care-givers.”
She probably tells that to all the people they work with. It’s likely in the manual.
But you know, it was still good to hear.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Every one of family and friends we’ve told have been very supportive. “Glad you’re getting some help.” “About time you were able to find a good Hospice.” “Good that you can have some support.” “Maybe now you can get some regular assistance, even some more respite care in each week.”
But you know, it somehow feels like failure. Like we’re giving up, giving in, saying “we can’t handle this any more.”
I always knew this time would come. Just as I know that someday my MIL will die. Well, part of me knew these things. Part of me didn’t. It’ll take some time for the emotional reality to catch up with the intellectual.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
I found myself while on my morning walk considering what it will be like. To be able to go visit friends without having to coordinate family coming in to stay with my MIL. To not have to listen to a baby monitor 24 hours a day. To get some real sleep night after night after night. Daring to think that I might once again have a life of my own.
Really, that’s how it is. You develop such tunnel vision – everything has to be considered in terms of one objective: being a care provider. Yes, you take breaks as you can, you try and get some exercise, some sleep, eat right. Maybe even do some writing or conservation work. But all of that is secondary. Distantly secondary. Because you have to be there for the person you are caring for. It is a sacred trust, perhaps the only thing I truly consider to be sacred.
But now I start to consider What Comes After.
And it frightens me.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Over 4,300 people have downloaded my novel. That’s an average of 600 people a month. Pretty good for what is basically word-of-mouth. I have a lot of work ahead of me to turn this into landing an agent, getting a publishing contract. If not for this book, then for the next one, on the basis that I have at least that much name recognition, that much of an ‘audience’.
I have the prequel to write. There’s a couple chapters already done that will need to be revised. And outlines for the rest of the book to be reworked.
I have at least two patentable ideas – one firearms related, one a consumer electronics item – that I need to pursue, see what I can do to either formally file a patent, or convince the appropriate large corporation to buy the idea from me with something less formal.
I need to earn some money, pay off debt.
I need to lose a bunch of weight, get back into something resembling decent shape.
And I’m frightened. For the last four years, none of these goals has really been paramount. So it has been easy to not succeed at them, and not take it as a personal failure. Soon, I will no longer have that excuse.
Can I succeed? Can I accomplish something lasting with my life?
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
A friend sent me the “Quotes of the Day” this morning. It contained one of my long-time favorites:
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
— Thomas A. Edison
Certainly true. One only has to look around at the world to see that. So very few people are willing and able to actually think for themselves. Oh, they may believe this or that, and call it thinking. But to actually stop, and consider, and understand? That is a rare thing.
I have been chronically tired for years now. And my ability to think clearly, or for any length of time, has been correspondingly diminished. I can point to this or that instance recently when I was able to think and work for short periods, once I had a bit more sleep and time to decompress. But it is a fragile thing. And I worry that perhaps it has slipped away. . .
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jim Downey
Filed under: General Musings, Government, NYT, Politics, Predictions, Religion, Society, Violence, Writing stuff
Last weekend a friend sent me a link to a long piece in the New York Times titled “The Politics of God“, written by Columbia University humanities professor Mark Lilla. It was a difficult week here for me, so I didn’t get around to reading the full article until this morning. I recommend you do so at your first opportunity, since the meat of the thing will help you to understand a fundamental threat that we face…it’s just not the fundamental threat that the author of the piece talks about.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the main thrust of the author’s argument is framed in terms of the West’s relations with Islam. This topic tends to dominate the news and what passes for foreign affairs these days, so that in itself is to be expected – it’s how you get published. And he has some valuable perspective to offer on the subject. But it is in his outline of the history of political theology in the West that the real value (and the more important threat) is contained.
In a few quick paragraphs Lilla sets out the basic paradigm of how politics and religion were intertwined in European history, how that lead to the Wars of Religion, then the political theories of Thomas Hobbes and on into the Enlightenment. One nice passage from this:
Fresh from the Wars of Religion, Hobbes’s readers knew all about fear. Their lives had become, as he put it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” And when he announced that a new political philosophy could release them from fear, they listened. Hobbes planted a seed, a thought that it might be possible to build legitimate political institutions without grounding them on divine revelation. He knew it was impossible to refute belief in divine revelation; the most one can hope to do is cast suspicion on prophets claiming to speak about politics in God’s name. The new political thinking would no longer concern itself with God’s politics; it would concentrate on men as believers in God and try to keep them from harming one another. It would set its sights lower than Christian political theology had, but secure what mattered most, which was peace.
Lilla calls this “the Great Separation”. Another relevant bit:
Though there was great reluctance to adopt Hobbes’s most radical views on religion, in the English-speaking world the intellectual principles of the Great Separation began to take hold in the 18th century. Debate would continue over where exactly to place the line between religious and political institutions, but arguments about the legitimacy of theocracy petered out in all but the most forsaken corners of the public square. There was no longer serious controversy about the relation between the political order and the divine nexus; it ceased to be a question. No one in modern Britain or the United States argued for a bicameral legislature on the basis of divine revelation.
OK, that passage about theocracy is where Lilla hangs his argument about the differences between the West and Islam. But it is precisely where I see the real threat: that within our own country there has been a growing movement to once again merge belief with political power. It carries more subtle names now, and is moving slowly, ever so slowly, so as not to alarm the bulk of the populace, but “arguments about the legitimacy of theocracy” are no longer confined to “all but the most forsaken corners of the public square.”
I think Lilla knows this, and it is implicit in his argument, however it may be positioned towards Islam. After tracing how a renewed liberal theology developed in Germany in the 19th century, and lead directly to the horrors of Nazism, the central threat of his piece is set forth:
All of which served to confirm Hobbes’s iron law: Messianic theology eventually breeds messianic politics. The idea of redemption is among the most powerful forces shaping human existence in all those societies touched by the biblical tradition. It has inspired people to endure suffering, overcome suffering and inflict suffering on others. It has offered hope and inspiration in times of darkness; it has also added to the darkness by arousing unrealistic expectations and justifying those who spill blood to satisfy them. All the biblical religions cultivate the idea of redemption, and all fear its power to inflame minds and deafen them to the voice of reason. In the writings of these Weimar figures, we encounter what those orthodox traditions always dreaded: the translation of religious notions of apocalypse and redemption into a justification of political messianism, now under frightening modern conditions. It was as if nothing had changed since the 17th century, when Thomas Hobbes first sat down to write his “Leviathan.”
The revival of political theology in the modern West is a humbling story. It reminds us that this way of thinking is not the preserve of any one culture or religion, nor does it belong solely to the past. It is an age-old habit of mind that can be reacquired by anyone who begins looking to the divine nexus of God, man and world to reveal the legitimate political order. This story also reminds us how political theology can be adapted to circumstances and reassert itself, even in the face of seemingly irresistible forces like modernization, secularization and democratization. Rousseau was on to something: we seem to be theotropic creatures, yearning to connect our mundane lives, in some way, to the beyond. That urge can be suppressed, new habits learned, but the challenge of political theology will never fully disappear so long as the urge to connect survives.
So we are heirs to the Great Separation only if we wish to be, if we make a conscious effort to separate basic principles of political legitimacy from divine revelation. Yet more is required still. Since the challenge of political theology is enduring, we need to remain aware of its logic and the threat it poses. This means vigilance, but even more it means self-awareness. We must never forget that there was nothing historically inevitable about our Great Separation, that it was and remains an experiment.
A grand experiment, and the basis for our Republic. But those who wish to turn this into a “Christian Nation” seek to undo it all, to plunge back into the messianic madness of a unified polity and church. They may not admit it, except amongst their fellows. And their followers probably do not fully understand the risk. But it is there, a yawning chasm in the darkness, into which we will fall if we turn from the light of reason.
[Communion of Dreams Spoiler warning.]
That threat, that horror, of course, lies at the very heart of Communion. It is the motivation of the Edenists, and it is reflected in the metaphor of the alien artifact as an object which is impossible to document scientifically yet is individually experienced and transforms understanding when encountered.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Alzheimer's, General Musings, Health, Predictions, Religion, Society
A friend sent me a link to this CBS News item this morning:
Except that the article really isn’t about that. It’s more about where atheism fits in within our society, as seen through the vehicle of former Saturday Night Live actress Julia Sweeney, who discusses her own journey away from belief, and how it was received by her family:
Even more confusing for Sweeney personally was religion. She comes from a large Irish-Catholic family. But in her 30s, Sweeney says she began a spiritual quest. It led her away from any notion of God — a conversion she turned into a monologue, soon to be released as a film called “Letting Go of God.”
But of course, many people would disagree with Sweeney, especially her mother, Geri. She said it was a great shock that her daughter decided that there wasn’t enough evidence for her to believe in God.
“I just couldn’t believe that she had gotten to that place. I’m Catholic. I intend to continue to be Catholic,” Geri Sweeney said. “I think the Catholic Church is a wonderful place.”
It’s a long piece, but here is the bit I was intrigued by:
Julia Sweeney says she simply cannot believe in God because of a lack of evidence, but Prothero (Chair of the religious studies department at Boston University, and author of the recent book “Religious Literacy“) says that is where faith comes in.
“I have no trouble saying that, you know, we can’t prove the existence of God,” he said. “I think most Americans feel the same way.”
Julia’s mother Geri says she was taught in second grade that there was no proof that God exists.
“It doesn’t matter a bit to me,” she said. “I have a very personal relationship with my God and I don’t need any proof. I’m not searching for proof — and she is.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
I was still trying to get to the bottom of my first cup of coffee this morning, when my MIL called for the third time since I had come downstairs about thirty minutes previously.
I entered the dark bedroom (it was barely 7 AM), went over to her bed. I leaned over the railing. “What do you need, MIL?”
“Are we there yet?”
“Where?”
“Boonville.” (A nearby town, and where she grew up.)
“We’re in Columbia.”
“Oh.” Pause. “Well, how long will the train take to get to Boonville?”
“Train?”
“Yeah, we’re on a train.”
“Um, no. We’re in your home.” (The home where she’s lived for 53 years.)
“Oh, no, we’re on a train.” She looked around the ample bedroom, complete with bookshelves, a desk, dressers, et cetera. “This is a train.”
“Um, no, this is your bedroom. In your home. In Columbia.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup.”
“How are you sure?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
I am somewhat dismayed when I see the religious responses to this kind of criticism/concern. Because so often it is not a rational “I know there’s no proof of God, but my faith helps me believe”, and instead is something akin to the outright disconnect I get when dealing with my MIL. It’s “Through the Looking Glass” time, where the usual words and understanding that we have of the world around us is no longer in any way related to reality.
Now, many people of deep faith are really decent people, with a good education and the ability to discuss things intelligently. And yet, when pushed, we so often see a believer who is capable of constructing a reality in which his personal saviour is triumphant over the “also rans” of science and other religions.
And that frightens me.
Oh, not so much that mankind is still stuck in magical thinking. I knew that. Have known it for many, many years. But rather that even the intelligent and well educated are capable of warping knowledge to fit their own particular religious perspective.
I will admit to being an elitist. I look at intelligence and education as our only possible hope of progress as a species. I see it as an antidote to ignorance, superstition, living in a fantasy where it is OK for one religious group to hate and kill another.
But when I witness the willing suspension of critical thinking – worse, the twisting of critical thinking to support irrationality – I feel like I am looking into a future in which the whole human race slides into an Alzheimer’s-like dementia, unable to determine where we are, let alone where we’re going.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
After my MIL got up from her nap this afternoon, had a snack, and went in to sit in the front room, we had a storm roll through. Nothing serious, but there was a bit of lightning and thunder. I went to check on her, and it was clear that she was anxious about something. I asked her if she was worried.
“I’m worried about the people.”
“Which people?”
“The people who I was talking with. Before.”
“Maybe that was a dream, MIL. You’ve been here all day.”
“Oh, no, I was up on a hill. Talking with people. They told me to come back here.”
(We live on the highest hill around, and she’d been no where.) “Well, maybe that was in your dream.”
“No, it was at a house, up on a hill over there,” She gestured randomly. “Will you take me up there? I want to make sure the people are OK.”
“I’m sure they’re fine.”
“But you have to take me to go see.”
And thereafter followed 40 minutes of discussion about not needing to take her ‘over there’ in the car so she could check to make sure the people of her dream were OK.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
And therein lies the danger of this – those who have slipped off into dementia are demanding that we all go along for the ride, and that we take them to their imaginary places to see imaginary people and do imaginary things. Why? Because they’re “sure”.
Jim Downey
(A slightly different version of this pertaining to specific people was posted at UTI. I decided that the general idea was applicable elsewhere, so decided to post it here.)
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Astronomy, BoingBoing, Fermi's Paradox, Gene Roddenberry, General Musings, movies, NYT, Predictions, Quantum mechanics, Ray Kurzweil, Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Singularity, Sir Arthur Eddington, Space, Star Trek, tech, Writing stuff
“Grrrr.”
“Easy, Alwyn.”
“Grrrrr! GRR!” His growls grew from a distant throaty rumble into a near bark, as we came around the corner across from the lawn with the sprinkler. Yeah, my dog was growling at a lawn sprinkler. This is not normal behaviour for him.
But in fairness, it was an odd lawn sprinkler. A big plastic dog lawn sprinkler. White, with black spots. Looked vaguely like a St. Bernard in size and shape, but a Dalmation in coloration. The hose attached to the tail, which fanned water all over while doing this odd jitterbug wag. Looked like some overgrown kid’s toy. Which it might well be. Since I don’t have kid, I don’t keep track of these things.
Anyway, it was clear that my dog thought that it was some kind of bizzaro-dog with a serious bladder problem. Perhaps an Alien Zombie Dog or something. So, he did the natural thing: he growled.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
As I’ve noted before, I’m a big fan of the original series Star Trek and of Gene Roddenberry. But one of the things which has always bothered me about that series and most other SF television or movies is the fact that so often the Aliens are depicted as some variation of humanoid, albeit with a little makeup and prosthetics as the budget would allow. Though, in fairness to Roddenberry (and others in different series now and then), sometimes there was an attempt made to depict alien life as being just completely odd, unlike anything we’ve known or seen. This notion that extraterrestrial life might be difficult to even identify is a staple of good Science Fiction, of course, and one of the topics which I explore at some length in Communion of Dreams (and part of the reason why we never meet the aliens responsible for the creation of the artifact). It gets back to “Haldane’s Law“:
Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we CAN suppose.
(Which is decidedly similar to Sir Arthur Eddington‘s attributed comment: “Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.” But since I am talking more about life here than astrophysics, I thought I’d go with the evolutionary biologist…)
But now actual science has perhaps caught up with Science Fiction. From the New Journal of Physics comes a paper discussing what seems to be the discovery of inorganic life. The abstract:
Abstract. Complex plasmas may naturally self-organize themselves into stable interacting helical structures that exhibit features normally attributed to organic living matter. The self-organization is based on non-trivial physical mechanisms of plasma interactions involving over-screening of plasma polarization. As a result, each helical string composed of solid microparticles is topologically and dynamically controlled by plasma fluxes leading to particle charging and over-screening, the latter providing attraction even among helical strings of the same charge sign. These interacting complex structures exhibit thermodynamic and evolutionary features thought to be peculiar only to living matter such as bifurcations that serve as `memory marks’, self-duplication, metabolic rates in a thermodynamically open system, and non-Hamiltonian dynamics. We examine the salient features of this new complex `state of soft matter’ in light of the autonomy, evolution, progenity and autopoiesis principles used to define life. It is concluded that complex self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter that may exist in space provided certain conditions allow them to evolve naturally.
That’s a bit dense, so let’s go to the critical bit from the Press Release:
‘It might be life, Jim…’, physicists discover inorganic dust with lifelike qualities.
Until now, physicists assumed that there could be little organisation in such a cloud of particles. However, Tsytovich and his colleagues demonstrated, using a computer model of molecular dynamics, that particles in a plasma can undergo self-organization as electronic charges become separated and the plasma becomes polarized. This effect results in microscopic strands of solid particles that twist into corkscrew shapes, or helical structures. These helical strands are themselves electronically charged and are attracted to each other.
Quite bizarrely, not only do these helical strands interact in a counterintuitive way in which like can attract like, but they also undergo changes that are normally associated with biological molecules, such as DNA and proteins, say the researchers. They can, for instance, divide, or bifurcate, to form two copies of the original structure. These new structures can also interact to induce changes in their neighbours and they can even evolve into yet more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest structures in the plasma.
So, could helical clusters formed from interstellar dust be somehow alive? “These complex, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter,” says Tsytovich, “they are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve”.
Obviously, there’s more to it, and it is worth reading at least the entire press release, or the full paper if you have a chance.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
There’s another possibility, of course. This one can best be summed up as being that life is “a dream within a dream“. The latest popular version of this is “The Matrix“, wherein life is an artificial reality construct, designed to keep the human ‘power cells’ docile. But this too is an idea extensively exploited in Science Fiction, with many different variations on the theme. Of late, this idea has been more and more tied to the concept of a ‘Singularity’ , with speculation being that we are just some version of post-human research/recreation as a computer construct. And in a piece published yesterday in the NYT titled “Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch” this gets the mainstream religion treatment:
Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.
But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.
. . .
David J. Chalmers, a philosopher at the Australian National University, says Dr. Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis isn’t a cause for skepticism, but simply a different metaphysical explanation of our world. Whatever you’re touching now — a sheet of paper, a keyboard, a coffee mug — is real to you even if it’s created on a computer circuit rather than fashioned out of wood, plastic or clay.
You still have the desire to live as long as you can in this virtual world — and in any simulated afterlife that the designer of this world might bestow on you. Maybe that means following traditional moral principles, if you think the posthuman designer shares those morals and would reward you for being a good person.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
My own prediction is that unless we are extremely fortunate, and extremely open-minded, we’ll stumble badly in our first encounter with any real extra-terrestrial intelligence. Chances are, we’ll completely mistake it for something else, or try and see it through our limited perspective, not unlike how my dog mistook a lawn sprinkler for a wierdly-colored St. Bernard. If we’re lucky, we’ll survive that first contact, and then go on to see the universe with less prejudiced eyes.
If we’re *very* lucky.
Jim Downey
(Some material via BoingBoing.)
We’ve recently had to make a change in strategy for dealing with my mother-in-law’s confusion (related to her Alzheimer’s). Heretofore we’ve tried to keep her “grounded” in reality, through a series of questions about recognizing family member’s pictures, asking if she knew where she was, and so forth. Generally, after a couple of minutes of this, she’d be pretty well settled about where we were, who was who, and so forth. It helped to keep her anchored in the real world.
But then last week I noticed that she was starting to become more anxious as a result of these questions. When she couldn’t come up with a name, or wasn’t sure whether we were in her parents home or someplace else, it just made her embarassed and worried. She’d resort to trying to construct a reality that made sense of her mixed memories, and get hostile if you tried to challenge that reality.
The last thing we want is to have her upset. Not only does this make things more stressful and difficult in caring for her, but it sort of defeats the whole purpose of our caring for her here at home (her home of 53 years). Clearly, we had to change our strategy.
Now we don’t try and ‘lead’ her to any particular view of the world, and rather concentrate on letting her know that she is loved and safe where she is (wherever she thinks that is). We’ll answer her questions honestly, if she wants to know who is who in a photo, but we don’t press her to come up with answers herself, or try and correct her if she volunteers an opinion. I mean, if she’s wrong, so what? Nothing really hinges on whether she gets someone’s name right, or if she thinks that we’re in some other place.
But this is surprisingly difficult, if you don’t make a conscious effort to allow her to be in her own little world. The tendency we all have is to try and coordinate on what reality is – to have a shared view of what the world is like. When confronted with someone who disagrees on something as fundamental as your location, it is easy to get your back up. You’ve probably experienced this with a friend or spouse when traveling, both of you looking at a map and drawing different conclusions about where you are – such disagreements become heated very easily, and can take on an importance beyond just a simple determination of location.
And I think that this is at the root of many of the disagreements which exist between believers and non-believers. In some very basic way I see the world differently than someone who is a believer. I look at the evidence around us, and say “there is no indication that there is anything other than natural process at work”. Someone else looks at the same material and sees plenty of evidence of design. I think that he’s wrong, and being somewhat stubborn in consideration of the evidence. And he most likely feels exactly the same way about me.
Now, the difference between this situation and the one with my MIL is that if she is off in her own little fanasy land, it makes little or no matter. Whereas the kind of world-view that exists on the part of believers vs. atheists can matter a lot, in any number of ways here in the real world. How to proceed in regards to, say, the environment, depends on whether or not you expect the world to be around for a while or if the Second Coming is just around the corner. I address this issue at some length in Communion, because it deals with a changing paradigm forced by the discovery of an alien artifact. But I am still always surprised when it plays out so clearly in discussions I have over at UTI and elsewhere. Which reality you subscribe to really does make all the difference in the world.
Jim Downey
Filed under: General Musings, Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, Predictions, Press, Publishing, Religion, Society, Writing stuff
[SPOILER ALERT – this post contains information about the final book in the Harry Potter series which some may consider spoilers. You’ve been warned.]
A good friend sends me links to book reviews. She knows that I don’t generally read book reviews, but every so often will see one that she thinks might tempt me, and passes it along. Every once in a while I’ll actually be interested enough to read one of the reviews she sends.
That was the case when I saw a link to a piece by TIME Magazine’s book reviewer, Lev Grossman, a couple of weeks ago which was titled “Who Dies in Harry Potter? God.” Given that this piece was published about 9 days before the last Harry Potter book was to be released, I thought it curious that the writer was making such a claim. So I read it.
It is an odd piece. I say that having read it four or five times. Here’s the relevant bit:
Rowling’s work is so familiar that we’ve forgotten how radical it really is. Look at her literary forebears. In The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien fused his ardent Catholicism with a deep, nostalgic love for the unspoiled English landscape. C.S. Lewis was a devout Anglican whose Chronicles of Narnia forms an extended argument for Christian faith. Now look at Rowling’s books. What’s missing? If you want to know who dies in Harry Potter, the answer is easy: God.
And he ends his piece with this prediction:
When the end comes, where will it leave Harry? He’ll face tougher choices than his fantasy ancestors did. Frodo was last seen skipping town with the elves. Lewis sent the Pevensie kids to the paradise of Aslan’s Land. It’s unlikely that such a comfortable retirement awaits Harry in the Deathly Hallows.
OK, Grossman sure got *that* wrong. But in his actual review of the book, published July 21, he once again makes the assertion that JK Rowling has eliminated God, in this passage:
Her insistence on this point is a reflection of the cosmology of the Potterverse: there are no higher powers in residence there. The attic and the basement are empty. There may be an afterlife, and ghosts, but there is certainly no God, and no devil. There are also no immortal, all-wise elves, as in Tolkien, nor are there any mysticalMaiar, which is what Gandalf was (what, you thought he was human? Genealogically speaking, he’s closer to a balrog than he is to a man.) There is certainly no benevolent, paternal Aslan to turn up late in the book and fight the Big Bad. The essential problem in Rowling’s books is how to love in the face of death, and her characters must arrive at the solution all on their own, hand-to-hand, at street level, with bleeding knuckles and gritted teeth, and then sweep up the rubble afterwards.
I haven’t read either of the two novels that Grossman has written. And, as noted, I don’t read book reviews except very rarely and don’t believe I’ve ever read one of his. So I can’t say what his thoughts are on God and whether he intends this as a slam or not. But I have to say that I am not in the least bit bothered by the fact thatJK Rowling doesn’t turn to a super magic man to resolve things, and instead forces her characters to come up with their own solutions – to grow, struggle, and learn and then to live with the consequences of their choices. This is exactly the reason I have said all along that these books are not ‘children’s books’ in the usual sense.
Perhaps it is a commentary on how our society has changed since the time of Tolkien and Lewis that these books are different in this fundamental way, and are yet so phenomenally popular. But I don’t see it. Religion has a stronger hold on our culture here in America than it did some 50 years ago, and there have been concerted efforts by the far fringe faithful to ban the Harry Potter books from schools and libraries on the basis of them promoting witchcraft. No, I don’t think that Rowling has tapped into some kind of anti-religious Zeitgeist. Rather, she has told her tale with amazing skill, and has left plenty of room for belief or non-belief in the background, where it belongs. While many people of faith use that belief as a crutch, that is not a fundamental aspect of religion, nor is it an excuse for not growing up and dealing with the world in mature terms. We, all of us, people of faith and no faith, have to be responsible for the here and now, have to make difficult choices and live with the consequences. That is the pre-eminent message of the entire Harry Potter series, and I was very glad to see that Rowling did not shy away from maintaining that message to the very end.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Communion Of Dreams 