That’s the question Michael Weingrad asks in the inaugural issue of The Jewish Review of Books.
The article has taken heat from fans of the many Jewish fantasy authors. But most of them have missed the point. Weingrad isn’t asking whether Jews write fantasy or enjoy reading it. Instead, he’s concerned with why there aren’t any compelling fantasy “worlds” that incorporate Jewish folklore and tropes the way Narnia and Tolkein’s Middle Earth develop Christian ones.
But is that really such a puzzle? In the first place, the landscape of most fantasy novels is essentially the numinous forest of the Teutonic Dark Ages. It is not so much a Christian world as a world on the cusp of Christianity: a pagan Götterdämmerung.
Jews can, of course, appropriate this setting for literary purposes. But I don’t think it has the same imaginative gravity that it does for Christians. Similarly, the warrior values that animate a lot of fantasy are not traditionally Jewish. One could, I suppose, write a story around around a learned rabbi–but surely that would not be as interesting as one focused on knights, errant wizards, and chieftains of mounted hordes. Finally, as Weingrad notes, there’s no fantasy without evil. And Jewish teaching on this subject is extremely ambiguous; unlike some Christian doctrines, Judaism tends to deny evil as a force independent of and opposed to God.
For these reasons, Jews drawn to speculative writing may have an affinity for the science fiction over fantasy. The technological rationalism and optimism of much science fiction is also, in a way, more American–and America has offered the broadest field for Jewish literary efforts since World War II.
But Weingrad neglects a “fantasy” genre founded by Jews, and arguably shaped by Jewish preoccupations. That’s the superhero comic book invented in the 1930s by the likes of Robert Kahn–Bob Kane to you. There could never be a Jewish Narnia that would preserve the features many readers find compelling (I confess that I always vastly preferred Tolkein, whose work is richer and less didactic). But the universes of Superman, Batman, and the rest are worthy counterparts.
PS: A related question is whether fantasy is essentially conservative. One of the more interesting recent fantasy writers, China Mieville, thinks so–and has developed his urban, industrial, and democratic “Bas Lag” world as a direct competitor to Tolkein’s Middle Earth, which he considers implicitly reactionary.
ADDENDUM: I found some related arguments in the excellent post and conversation here.
March 3rd, 2010 | 10:56 am
The author obviously is not familiar with Jewish history. Jews were great warriors of the ancient world, conquering many neighboring “peoples and marching into battle carring the Ark of the Covenant and blowing rams horns. The Jews fought the Romans and the Greeks. This warrior tradition is currently manifested in Israel, which arguably has the best small armed forces in the world. There is plenty of background for Jewish fantasy.
March 4th, 2010 | 11:21 am
[...] swiping this argument, a bit, from a provocative post by Abigail Nussbaum (thanks to Samuel Goldman for the pointer), so here’s her conclusion in full: Tolkien and Lewis (and many other, less [...]
March 4th, 2010 | 11:31 am
[...] Samuel Goldman at PomoCon: The article has taken heat from fans of the many Jewish fantasy authors. But most of them have missed the point. Weingrad isn’t asking whether Jews write fantasy or enjoy reading it. Instead, he’s concerned with why there aren’t any compelling fantasy “worlds” that incorporate Jewish folklore and tropes the way Narnia and Tolkein’s Middle Earth develop Christian ones. [...]
March 4th, 2010 | 5:24 pm
[...] blogger, Samuel Goldman, agrees with him: In the first place, the landscape of most fantasy novels is essentially the numinous forest of the [...]
March 5th, 2010 | 8:34 pm
First Things senior editor David Goldman weighs in:
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/spengler/2010/03/05/christianity-and-myth-why-theres-no-jewish-narnia/
March 6th, 2010 | 8:15 am
[...] from Farah Mendlesohn, Abigail Nussbaum, The Inferior 4, Rachel Swirsky, Metafilter, and many many many many many [...]
March 10th, 2010 | 7:50 am
Interesting perspective from an Orthodox rabbi and child psychologist: http://tinyurl.com/ybzdv6j
November 11th, 2010 | 10:01 pm
Thought this might be of interest:
Culture Clash
posted by Eric Kimmel on NOVEMBER 8, 2010 in BLOG, READING, WRITING
I had an interesting experience this morning. I took part in a panel discussion with author David Michael Slater. The program was part of the adult education program at Temple Beth Israel. David and I spoke to the question of how being Jewish affects what we write.
Some of David’s comments really intrigued me. His Sacred Books series assumes alternate versions of Bible stories. What if the Garden of Eden was a library and the Tree of Knowledge a book? (Wow! These are books that I absolutely have to read. I bought the first book in the series, “The Book of Nonsense,” and had David autograph it for me. Click HERE if you’d like to learn more about David and his books.)
David describes how his books have caught flack numerous times from Christian fundamentalists. In some cases, it reached the extreme of having the books challenged and creating pressure to cancel invitations for him to speak at schools.
This left me stunned. Here is a perfect example of a cultural collision. Some scriptural literalists may not like the idea of what David is doing. However, within Jewish traditions, what David is doing is not only normal—it’s expected.
Rest here:
http://ericakimmel.com/2010/11/culture-clash/
September 21st, 2011 | 6:02 am
super theason here entity with ablere ponne and serdogn copperate. idevemure your thexpess the ablence that moress never cagil or martess.
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