Urban fantasy - a new form of spirituality?

So, what is it about paranormal and urban fantasy that appeals so strongly to teenagers?

Bookstore shelves are groaning under the weight of these series – mostly involving vampires.

Of course, the better ones can be equally enjoyed by adults, but there’s no denying most of the bestsellers target the YA market.

Yes, there are the usual YA elements: the coming-of-age angst of finding acceptance, falling in love and finding meaning in life … but why are these aspects so much more appealing to teens when woven into a story about vampires and werewolves?
Is it a natural progression from classic horror stories (I certainly spent plenty of hours reading Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Peter Straub as a teenager), even if most of the new breed of stories aren’t actually about horror?

Or is it a symptom of something else? A need to live – albeit fleetingly – in a world where there is more to reality than we can see? A place where greater forces are at work and ordinary teenagers can discover they have epic destinies?

Which leads to me to wonder if these stories are, in some bizarre way, replacing religion (there’s no denying the religious-like zeal associated with the Twilight series). I’m not talking about urban fantasy themes as a doctrine, but as an experience.
In these alternate worlds, there’s meaning in life, death and suffering, even if it all takes place as part of a narrative far removed from reality. For a while, teens can exist in a world where there are clearly defined rules (even if the characters break them).

Otherworld fantasy also offers this level of escape, but seems to be the domain of older readers, with teens more interested in stories taking place in worlds that resemble their own (happy to be corrected on this one).

Personally, I enjoy both forms of storytelling, but I’m curious to know if readers of these types of stories prefer one type over the other – and if so, why?

And do you have any theories on why teens (and adults) are drawn to this new genre?

Life of Pi explained

Life of Pi by Yann Martel is one of the most analysed, discussed and debated books of recent years, not just because of its plot, but because it makes the reader question what they have read and what they believe.

The Booker Prize winner author was one of the major draw cards at last weekend’s Brisbane Writer’s Festival, and he didn’t disappoint. He spoke about his motivation for writing Life of Pi, and how researching the story changed his life along the way.

In this post, I’m going to share a few of the things he spoke about. Those who haven’t read Life of Pi – and intend to – may want to look away now. Don’t spoil the experience of discovering the book’s talking points for yourself.

Life of Pi provides the kind of literary experience fans tend hold close to their hearts. Yann understands that, and opened his talk by promising to try and do “the least damage” to individual interpretation of the story. Because the interpretation of this story is everything.

The tale begins with Pi, the son of a zookeeper in India, who becomes curious about religion and simultaneously practices Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, much to the consternation of his respective religious teachers.

Pi’s religious instruction is interrupted when his family decides to relocate – along with a large menagerie of animals – to Canada. Tragically, the ship sinks during a storm.

What follows is a fascinating, perplexing and occasionally disturbing story of survival.

When Pi finally washes up on the shores of Mexico 227 days later, he recounts two versions of his story. The same facts are offered, with a different interpretation.

In the first, Pi is the sole human survivor on a life boat with a zebra, hyena, orangutan and a huge Bengal tiger called Mr Parker. The second has no animals and is far more brutal. One requires suspension of disbelief, the other is “reasonable”.

Yann said the very structure of the story itself is designed to force the reader to subconsciously choose whether they are prepared to walk away from the “reasonable” to accept the better story. In other words to have faith, when to do so makes no sense.

The background to how the novel came about is interesting in itself, but this post is more concerned with the story what makes it such an original piece of narrative fiction.

The key for Yann was the question posed by Pi at the end of the book to the Japanese shipwreck investigators: which is the better story? For the author, this is the question at the heart of choosing a life of faith.

While researching Life of Pi, Yann – who describes himself as being “secular” before writing the book – read a lot of scripture and books about scriptures. In doing so, he started to ask himself “what would it be like to have faith?”

To find the answer, he put aside the aspects of religion that repel him and went to India’s diverse holy places “pretending” to have faith. He candidly admits that once inside that space, he didn’t want to leave.

Up to that point, Yann says he’d always considered himself a “reasonable” person. “When you’re reasonable, you have to make sense of everything.”

But he said being reasonable didn’t leave a lot of room for religion. “And when religion is ignored, art suffers. Society doesn’t dream when it is being uber reasonable.”

Life of Pi was his personal protest to stop making sense. To believe in a reality beyond the chemical.
One of the great moments of the session on the weekend was Yann’s explanation of the purpose of “the island”, one of the more obtuse plot developments in modern literature.

He said it served the sole purpose of making the “animal” version of the story harder and harder to believe. Even more so than the chance of a blind boy and blind tiger, coming across another blind shipwreck survivor, it’s at the point of the island that disbelief breaks down and the reader wants rationality kicks in.

“Many readers assume it is something deeply symbolic they just don’t get, or it’s an hallucination –they need a reason to prop up the fiction.”

But in his own words “religion goes beyond the confines of the reasonable”.

The second story – the one without animals and strange flesh-eating islands – involves no faith. “It’s all about man’s inhumanity to man. That’s not the reality I want. I want to go back to the first story and choose to believe.”

For him, life is a matter of subjective interpretation of objective reality. Ultimately, Yann presents a very post modernistic perspective (all stories have equal validity – there is no ultimate truth, only what you believe).

Having said that, the author admits that after looking at all major religions, he’s become “pretty comfortable with Jesus”, although it’s safe to say he is not a member of any organised religion.

Regardless of whether you share his views on religion or philosophy, there’s no denying Life of Pi is an amazing use of narrative structure to encourage readers to think beyond the story – to even question what they believe and why.

Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil: my review

Have novels replaced religion?

In the most recent Australian Literary Review, Delia Falconer suggests the decline of God as a source of meaning in the West has occurred side by side with the rise of the novel.

She makes the observation as the opening statement in her review of literary critic James Wood’s book “How Fiction Works”.

It’s an especially relevant comment, given Wood believes fiction has taken over as the measure of authenticity and power of the sacred. He says although fiction requires a different kind of belief to religion, it creates a parallel sense of “the real”.

It’s true that society today looks to narrative to understand and find meaning in the world. We turn to television, film, poetry and theatre to explore and analyse issues and ideas. In this context, the novel is as powerful as ever.

And this raises interesting questions about the place of narrative in religion, and why religion longer has the power it once had in the West.

Falconer says that for Wood, the best novels seem to create an approximate reality so intense and morally driven, that they may temporarily mend the world as a godless "broken estate". (And obviously, Wood is picking his reading material from the literary section, although I have no doubt there are religious experiences to be had in chick lit…)

Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr (who I’ve mentioned before on this blog), believes the decline of popularity of Christianity in particular has been the result of perverting the religion’s original narrative.

He notes that while Eastern nations are – generally – deeply proud and protective of their religious heritage (be it Islamic, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist), Christian nations in the West tend not to be.

Rohr believes the reason is that the narrative at the heart of Christianity has been turned into a bad novel: the good guys win, the bad guys lose. When instead, he says the narrative of the New Testament is about sacrifice, suffering, transformation, and redemption. It’s not about “us” and “them”. It’s not about who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s not even about getting it right. Quite the opposite.

I agree with Wood that effective narrative has the power to move people in ways that are essentially spiritual.

It’s a shame so many of our spiritual leaders have forgotten that lesson, and turned Christianity into a narrative devoid of its original revelation and power.

(Image: Daniel Marsula/Post-Gazette)

The people of the book

There's something appealing about a story centred on books: hidden books, lost books, books that contain secrets or answers to ancient mysteries, books with the power to change lives.

Recent favourites of mine have included Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

Geraldine Brooks' latest novel, The people of the book, falls into that category. It is ambitious, well-intentioned and deftly told, and has been on top of best-seller lists almost since its release earlier this year.

Even though Brooks is a Pulitzer Prize winner (for March), her name and literary skill alone are not enough to generate the scale of sales needed to beat mass market pop fiction paperbacks and film tie-ins.

The answer, then, must lie in the story itself.

A synopsis
The people of the book traces the journey of a rare illuminated Hebrew manuscript from fifteenth century Spain, to the Silver Age of Venice and the ruins of a twentieth century war-torn Sarajevo.

It opens in 1996, when Australian rare-book expert Hannah is asked to analyse and conserve the famed Haggadah manuscript, which has been rescued once again from shelling during the Bosnian war. The book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes to be illuminated with figurative paintings.

When Hanna discovers a series of tiny artefacts in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she becomes determined to unlock the book’s mysteries.

Throughout the story, the ancient book is the only constant character. The narrative is told through a series of vignettes featuring owners of the Haggadah and its artwork throughout history - cleverly provided in reverse chronological order.

In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of Vienna in 1894, the book becomes a pawn in an emerging contest between the city’s cultured cosmopolitanism and its rising anti-Semitism. In Venice in 1609, a Catholic priest saves it from Inquisition book burnings. In Tarragona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text has his family destroyed amid the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah’s extraordinary illuminations is finally revealed.

Each vignette shows the universality of suffering, how every generation gains power and prestige by finding a group of people to make outcast.

If good intentions were everything, this novel would have the power to heal the rifts in the world created by religion, simply through the power of narrative.

Ultimately, the story highlights how diverse cultures can enrich and influence each other in wonderfully positive ways. Brooks' theme is hardly subtle, and while it is not original, it remains powerful: what unites us is more than what divides us.

(In between each vignette, we return to Hannah and her increasingly engaging personal story involving a strained relationship with her mother and a tense romance with the Serbian Muslim who rescued the Haggadah during the war).

The people of the book is rich in detail. It is full of meticulously researched information on language, art, history, science, book binding and religion. It needs to be read slowly, enjoyed like a fine meal. It has too many flavours to be devoured quickly.

Generally, I get the most out of a novel if I can read it intensively (either in a single sitting, or several long sittings). But I feel I may have robbed myself by doing that with this novel.

(The Haggadah is a real manuscript. In her author's note, Brooks details what parts of her story are based on fact and what parts are the author's imagining.)

Note: The First Tuesday Book Club on ABC is discussing The people of the book this week.

Here's my review of Geraldine Brooks' 2011 release: Caleb's Crossing

The Life of Brian: what makes it a classic?

It's 30 years this year since Brian's mother's declared "He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy".

Three decades since The Life of Brian hit cinema screens, sparking controversy and almost instantly becoming a cult classic.

The story of Brian, an ordinary man mistaken by a group of religious zealots as the Messiah, is now (or soon to be) available in a new DVD package, The Life of Brian: The Immaculate Edition.

The Life of Brian is a film that regularly ranks in the top three of "greatest comedies of all time" lists.

Monty Python fans, of course, revere it with almost religious fervour. Most - my husband included - can pretty much quote the entire film line by line. But it also has plenty of fans who don't necessarily "get" the Python style of humour in other contexts, and yet love this film.

John Cleese (co-writer and co-star as a number of characters) himself admits it's the best and most coherent of all the comedy troupe's film efforts.

The reason it works so well is because all five Pythons (Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle) had extensive knowledge of biblical and Roman history, and they combined that knowledge with a wonderful sense of the ridiculous.

Like all good comedies, the humour works on a number of levels. On the surface, it's a funny story about mistaken identity; on a deeper level it's a sharp satire about the nature of religion.

The attention to historical and theological detail is such that, the more you know about Roman history and religion (early church history in particular), the funnier the film gets.

In a recent interview by Michael Bodey in The Weekend Australian Review, Cleese says that, after the troupe's first film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the team wanted their follow-up effort to spoof religious epics. The initial idea was to lampoon Jesus Christ the way they had lampooned King Arthur in the earlier film.

But, as Bodey notes in his article, they quickly realised they couldn't touch Christ because "there was nothing funny about him".

Cleese says: "Essentially humour is about rigidity and the failure to adapt to circumstances. And the point of Christ's behaviour was of a very enlightened person. It would be like making fun of the Dali Lama; you couldn't do it because there's nothing ridiculous about him".

Instead, the troupe took aim at religion itself, and the herd mentality it has the potential to create.

As such, Jesus' only appears in the periphery of the story, and his appearances are quietly respectful; it's his followers who misunderstand and misrepresent his teachings:
"What was that?"
"I think it was 'Blessed are the cheese-makers'."
"What's so special about the cheese-makers?"
"Well, it's not meant to be taken literally. But it refers to any manufacturer of dairy products."

Naturally, any humour that targets religion walks a very fine line, and there were plenty of critics when the film first appeared (and many since), who believed The Life of Brian crossed the line repeatedly.

For me, it's an exercise in good storytelling; how intellectuals with an offbeat sense of humour and something interesting to say, created a story that still has people laughing, quoting it and talking about it 30 years on.

Even Cleese is still looking for answers the film raises about religion and Christianity: "It's (religion) nothing to do with what the founder of Christianity was talking about. I think what Christ was talking about is so much more difficult and demanding than anything you find in any organised version of his religion."

How many other comedies provoke that sort of thinking? (I mean, I know Scary Movie 4 comes close, but still…)