A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Gotta love Roger Zelazny. I can just see him getting totally baked one day and bolting up out of his thought stew and going, "Fuck all y'all, I'm writing Sherlock Holmes/Frankenstein/Dracula/poe crossover fanfic from the point of view of Jack the Ripper's dog! Suck it!"

And then he did. This is the deceptively adorable diary of a dog, chronicling his efforts and the efforts of his master as opposing forces gather to keep the demons out, or let them in. Silly, punny – there's this bit about an owl, very close-beaked, you know, doesn't say much, keeps his pinions to himself. *facepalms violently*. This is very clearly a book from a different era, but there's an enduring quality to it. Which I guess is the long-winded way of saying that it's a classic.

And how often do I get to read something at 11 and think it's adorable, and then read it at 29 and think it's adorable? Not that often.




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The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The proper first book. Putting The Magician's Nephew first was just . . . incorrect.

I definitely read this multiple times as a child. Then again, my access to books was extremely limited, so when I could actually get some age appropriate reading (and fantasy!) in Braille or audio, you bet I read it. And keep in mind all my books were borrowed – I would have a selection of maybe 10 for weeks or months on end, so I just read whatever I had in rotation over and over again. I'm remembering all this, because I definitely read LWW, and it was ostensibly fantasy about a magical world, but I didn't love it. And even then I thought that was strange.

Now, I can start to see why. Religious narrative and fantasy literature can converge in a similar place. It's the because problem. The it just is problem. It's Edmund, the Judas of this story, being quite rational if you think about it and asking his siblings how they know who to trust. They've walked through a wardrobe and into a war for political power – how do they know they should trust Aslan and not the Witch? His siblings, of course, and the narrator, and all the weight of this book reply that you just know because you hear Aslan's name and you know. Just . . . because. Between the reason and the knowing is . . . um. Well, it's faith, actually.

I'm trying to get at something about religious narrative and fantasy narrative, about how the times I find fantasy narrative unsatisfying, I think it's because the fantasy is relying on the fantasy magic version of faith in a savior. You just know how to defeat the evil. You just pick up the sword and you can slay the wolf (oi, Lewis, really?). But then again, I think religious faith at its best is probably far more complex than that. I wouldn't know. But I would think so.

And, but then again I think that is too simplistic, because sometimes the sensawunda I can access through fantasy genuinely is a kind of faith. Faith in the world built for me, in the righteousness of its protagonist or the majesty of its magic. A story says to me just because, because this is how the story goes, and I believe it, and I have this complex, textured emotional response that is at its very best, not to put too fine a point on it, transcendant. Which is to say that religious faith and . . . fantasy faith are both intense, extraordinary emotional responses to stories.

And yet, Lewis's massive emo feels about the crucifixion kind of embarrassment squicked me. Like dude, really, put that away. It was kind of like watching someone be brought to tears over their tabletop D&D game with the massively complex rules that he has spent hours explaining to you, but, uh, awkward. You just don't give a shit.

Anyway. I'm not really getting this out. But I guess part of what I'm saying is that Narnia is a religious narrative with the trappings of fantasy literature. And I find the ways they intersect pretty interesting for thinking about fantasy. Particularly since my response to Narnia is so tepid, and I don't think you can lay all of that at the door of atheism.




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