elfs | Oh, what the harsh light of reason hath wrought:

Harsh, but true:

Hollywood has done something even more depressing: It's revealed the "Chronicles of Narnia" books to be what they actually are: a rather lean slice of delightfully wrought but fairly simpleminded, largely hobbled fantasy for the imagination-deprived single-digit set.

You want to have bad dreams? Read Lewis's The Great Divorce and Ted Chiang's Hell is the Absence of God back to back and realize that both Lewis and Chiang are telling the exact same story.

Really.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Bach, Suite for Solo Vioncello #1: Allemande

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From:

caprinus.livejournal.com

W. T. F.

*blinks*

What the hell was that? Ted Chiang's Hell is the Absence of God, I mean -- I just scrolled through it and I am completely stupified. Who is that? Why? Wha Huh Gaaaah? Is this satire? Earnest philosophy? How did you find it? Buh... This really made my brain hurt.

From:

elfs.livejournal.com

Chiang is one this generation's foremost "What if... ?" writers, and Hell is the Absence of God is one of his most poignant stories. HitAoG is a telling of the story, "What if the Christian mythos were true and manifestly visible?"

In our world, some events are mere accidents, and some are described as "acts of God," incomprehensible to men. What if, in those "acts of God" we literally saw the hand of God, or his agents, at work? Chiang takes that "what if" idea to its extreme conclusion.

The funny thing is, if you've read The Great Divorce, you more or less have the same story. Admittedly, the Great Divorce is set in the Foothills of Heaven, where everyone is given one last chance to see the Hand of God at work, but Lewis is telling the same story: What if the Christian mythos were not only true but manifestly visible?

Lewis is clearly rooting for God, so his story comes out as propaganda, as he intended. Chiang is far more ambivalent.