The proper quote to define Catholic Fabulation

James Jordan · 20 Jan 2003, 18:08 · from urth-v0301.mbox · original

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From: James Jordan <jbjordan4 at cox.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) The proper quote to define Catholic Fabulation
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 12:08:04 -0600
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At 11:50 AM 1/20/2003, you wrote:
>Only because I don't know a better one.
>
>I had resolved to call it "Christian Mythopoeic Fabulation" - but the fact
>is it could as well be done in, for example, an Islamic world, if that wor=
ld
>had any tradition of SF.
>
>But of course it doesn't.
>
>CF requires a fusion of Science Fiction and the religious worldview into o=
ne
>thing.
>
>But SF is a hypostatisation of the European tradition of voyaging and
>colonisation, and that tradition does not exist in other cultures.
>
>Nor, really, in Eastern Europe, so far from the sea -
>
>Which is in fact why "Catholic" is not so bad a fit.  But I'd still prefer
>another name.

         Perhaps an example of Russian Orthodox SF Fabulation can be=20
considered. I recently rewatched Tarkovsky's SOLARIS ("SolYARis" in=20
Russian), which has been released on DVD by Criterion. The accompanying=20
discussions were interesting, but I think missed something important. In=20
Russian Orthodoxy, the Spirit of God empowers nature (that's really true in=20
all Christian thought, but has been stressed in RO). The water and nature=20
scenes in the film have to do with the Spirit. The watery planet Solaris=20
also has to do with God and the Spirit. Tarkovsky could not do everything=20
he wanted in the film, because Lem did not like the religious aspects, and=20
Tarkovsky had to fool the censors. But on the space station near Solaris,=20
near to the Spirit of God, men find themselves forced to confront their=20
sins, and either repent or go mad. The Spirit is operating in this heavenly=20
realm. Descending (ascending fully) to Solaris at the end, the now penitent=20
son is reconciled to a "heavenly father" generated by the planet, in the=20
pose of Rembrandt's "Prodigal Son" (which hangs in the Hermitage, and with=20
which any Russian intellectual was very familiar). As the son begins to=20
repent on the space station, we see an icon in passing as the camera=20
surveys the room. In the last scene, on Solaris, the water of the lake is=20
frozen, iconic. It is the heavenly "sea of glass" before the throne of God.=20
In this way, Tarkovsky makes a religious allegory out of Lem's novel.
         FWIW.

Nutria


--=20

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