A
clarification: I don’t mean that things need to end happily for the characters for
me to enjoy the story. Nor do I mean
that there needs to be some obvious solution around the corner which will
resolve or even ameliorate the horrible state into which things have sunk. What I do mean is that the dystopia needs to
have, even in its brokenness, indications that there is a mastering wholeness within
which it is housed. In other words: a
dystopia should show original sin run rampant.
Most dystopias I think rather show the absence of God. That is what I find repulsive and terrifying.
I
am afraid I cannot quantify exactly what it means for a work to “show the
absence of God.” I am certainly not
requiring that he appear like Aslan in the Narnia Chronicles, nor even asking
for the sort of numinous hints which Tolkien gives in The Lord of the Rings. And
obviously there are lots of books which don’t intrude on territory that demands
a sense of the divine; books which are purposely kept small and human by their
writers. Indeed, I think the vast majority
of books are like this; and some books I very much enjoy—and which are vast in
their own way—are included. Anne of Green Gables; the Rex Stout mysteries;
Cheaper by the Dozen (except perhaps
for its closing reference to mumblety-peg, which is curiously redemptive); the
works of Jane Austen and Dickens.
But
there are other works which in one way or another signal a sense of the divine:
the works of Shakespeare, Evelyn Waugh’s Sword
of Honour Trilogy (a darn sight more than Brideshead, actually), The Wind in the Willows, even something
as horrific as Brave New World.
And
then there are other books in which the divine is not merely unmentioned but
absent. I hardly know how else to
describe the distinction. It is as if
the story requires a numinous presence, however slight of subtle, and instead
there is a hole which, however small, leaves a mark upon the book, not merely
as a matter or irreligiosity, but as a flaw in its artistry. Dorothy Sayers talks in her masterwork The Mind of the Maker about what it
means to be faithful to the story one is working on (not her phrase, but the
best I can remember at the moment to convey what she means). My best guess for the works with God-shaped
holes is that their “father” (Sayers’ term) included the Father, but they would not (Matt. 23:37). And that rejection colors their whole works,
down to their “spirit,” such that the reader can feel sometimes a sense of
oppression.
(Michael
O’Brien has written about a sense of oppression after reading certain
works. I agree with him that it is
possible to feel such a thing, and that it is not always subjective—or at any
rate, that it is something real about the works, even though only certain
readers seem to feel it. But I am not
convinced by his idea that this is a demonic thing—at least, it is not more
demonic than most rejections of God by sin are—it is rather a matter of the “spirit”
being lacking.)
What
sort of stories do I have in mind? I can
only point to examples where I felt, in one way or another, this sense of
loss. I don’t mean, by the way, to say
that these books are immoral (they aren’t) or shouldn’t be read (they should)
or that I don’t like them (I do, for the most part—I just find I must read them
in very small doses to avoid feeling depressed).
The
books include the Harry Potter series by book four (yes, yes, I know, shoot me!
but I do enjoy it), Peter Pan (there’s a reason a series on
this blog tackled, *ahem* is tackling its interpretation), and the recently
acclaimed Station Eleven and Winter’s Tale (neither of which—full disclosure—I
was able to finish, so it is possible
that their holes were eventually filled).
Again,
I’m not calling for Aslan. I only know, as
if by feel or smell, that there is something subtly off about these books, as
there is about the walls and ceiling of the room were Mark Studdock finds himself
in That Hideous Strength.
It
is a subtle thing I’m talking about. It
is all the difference between Hamlet
with “Let be,” and Hamlet without it. But I do not mean by that example to say a
mere word would change things for these books; the words are simply
illustrative. It is an atmosphere, a
tone, a spirit.
I
stress again, it is not a matter of these books being “dystopian” (as you can
see, most of them aren’t), nor even of their being dark. Rather, it is that the darkness, in missing
something critical to its own very existence, is a darkness without truth.
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