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My health broke down in the end
I don't know when The Magician's Nephew (1955) became my favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia. I suspect it's because as unassilable as some of the other books are in their characters and imagery, this is the one that's stranger each time I re-read it. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a solstice ritual, to simplify drastically. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is an odyssey. The Silver Chair is a northern quest. The Magician's Nephew is a weird tale detoured into a creation myth—it begins with a mad scientist in the attic1 reverse-engineering interdimensional travel from the dust of Atlantis, moves swiftly through classic science fiction like dying earths and post-apocalypse and time that runs differently in different worlds (and the place between worlds where there is no time at all) before zigzagging back for a comic interlude in Edwardian London, and then we are into the heart of myth: singing the sun up, the animals out of the earth; the boy who let death in. The first words of the story belong to metafiction, the last to self-delusion, as though to remind the reader never to take narrators for granted.2 And yet we're told of beautiful and terrible things, the dead sun of Charn and the growing silence of the Wood between the Worlds, the song of the stars, the phoenix in the garden, the silver apples of youth and the Witch's salt-white face, eternal life stained like blood around her mouth. Children who rescue their parents, a smuggler's cave in the rafters. Polly Plummer is working on a story. It's not a perfect book; I'm not sure any of the Chronicles are. But it's like nothing except itself, if only because it's such a chimera, and that has always worked very well for me.
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fleurdelis28 arrives tonight. I think the last time we saw one another in person, there was snow on the ground and a holiday going on. Maybe I should get out more.
1. Andrew Ketterley thinks of himself as a magician and is acknowledged as such by the narrator, by Digory, and by the scornful Jadis—"a little, peddling Magician who works by rules and books. There is no real Magic in your blood and heart"—but between his experiments and his exploding guinea pigs, he's much more in line with the traditional mad scientists who practice at the boundaries of alchemy; think of the pentagrams in Rotwang's house or Dr. Pretorius' homunculi. He even looks the part, tall and thin and greyly shock-headed. He has the proper obsessed self-concern. Of course, the mechanical, empirical approach Uncle Andrew takes toward magic gets him in far more trouble than mysticism ever would have. "Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny," meet "Who ever heard of a lion singing?"
2. Lewis-as-storyteller claims, "This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child . . . In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road," setting the timeline for fact with fiction. But it is Uncle Andrew, never really quite reformed, who gets in the last word: "But he always liked to get visitors alone in the billiard room and tell them stories about a mysterious lady, a foreign royalty, with whom he had driven about London. 'A devilish temper she had,' he would say. 'But she was a dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine woman.'"
fleurdelis28 arrives tonight. I think the last time we saw one another in person, there was snow on the ground and a holiday going on. Maybe I should get out more.1. Andrew Ketterley thinks of himself as a magician and is acknowledged as such by the narrator, by Digory, and by the scornful Jadis—"a little, peddling Magician who works by rules and books. There is no real Magic in your blood and heart"—but between his experiments and his exploding guinea pigs, he's much more in line with the traditional mad scientists who practice at the boundaries of alchemy; think of the pentagrams in Rotwang's house or Dr. Pretorius' homunculi. He even looks the part, tall and thin and greyly shock-headed. He has the proper obsessed self-concern. Of course, the mechanical, empirical approach Uncle Andrew takes toward magic gets him in far more trouble than mysticism ever would have. "Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny," meet "Who ever heard of a lion singing?"
2. Lewis-as-storyteller claims, "This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child . . . In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road," setting the timeline for fact with fiction. But it is Uncle Andrew, never really quite reformed, who gets in the last word: "But he always liked to get visitors alone in the billiard room and tell them stories about a mysterious lady, a foreign royalty, with whom he had driven about London. 'A devilish temper she had,' he would say. 'But she was a dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine woman.'"
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For years, if asked to pick a favorite of the Chronicles, I would have hesitated between the first three books or pointed to The Silver Chair. Then one day I woke up and realized The Magician's Nephew was the one that had gotten into my brain. I could probably sort all kinds of early imprints out of it. And it's a successful fusion of science fantasy (unlike That Hideous Strength (1945), which I read eagerly after Out of the Silent Planet (1938) and Perelandra (1943) and had such a violently negative reaction to, I have not yet attempted a re-read. I'm not sure if it was the severed head possessed by demons, or the evil scientists and their obvious acronym, or the unforeshadowed Arthuriana that kind of ate the plot, but it did not work for me). Its distinction between other planets and other worlds is one that I'm sure was an introduction to many readers. It might have been mine.
I wonder if Lewis actually invented the magician-as-mad-scientist trope?
I very much doubt it. It's an easily blurred line; Dr. Faustus, Frankenstein, and the two examples I cite all predate him.
I also hope that things are well with you, or at least all right.
Thank you. I'm doing what I can.
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I sort of liked That Hideous Strength, myself, but I don't think it was as strong a book as Out of the Silent Planet or Perelandra. There was an un-evenness to the Arthurian aspect, I think.
Its distinction between other planets and other worlds is one that I'm sure was an introduction to many readers. It might have been mine.
Good point.
Actually, this reminds me of a fanfic
I very much doubt it. It's an easily blurred line; Dr. Faustus, Frankenstein, and the two examples I cite all predate him.
I expect you're right, although Faustus is, in a sense, the product of a time predating the separation of magic and science, and I'm not sure that Frankenstein, much as his methods seem more magical than scientific through modern eyes, quite counts as an intentional case. Can't speak to Rotwang or Dr. Pretorius, I'm afraid, as I've not read the books they're in.
Thank you. I'm doing what I can.
You're welcome. I reckon that's all any of us can do.
*Because it had talking horses, of course. In a sense, it may've shaped some of my attitudes about romance, as I think about it, although perhaps I would've been like that in any event.
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Didn't he study alchemy as well as chemistry? His obsession with life—created, resurrected, prolonged—begins with figures like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, who must be classified more on the side of the occult than the rigorously rational. He's titled after Prometheus, but he owes a debt to Faust.
Can't speak to Rotwang or Dr. Pretorius, I'm afraid, as I've not read the books they're in.
Films. The one is from Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), the other James Whales' Bride of Frankenstein (1935). My icon is an image from Metropolis overwritten with the Dresden Dolls' "Girl Anachronism."
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He may well have done, as I think about it. I have to confess it's been a very long time since I read that book.
His obsession with life—created, resurrected, prolonged—begins with figures like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus, who must be classified more on the side of the occult than the rigorously rational.
This is true, although I'm thinking it's also couched in terms of things that were going on in science at the time--Galvanic force, Volta's experiments with the battery and the severed frog's leg, and all of that. But yes, Frankenstein is probably late enough that he can be called well more than half a magician and less than that a scientist.
Films.
Oh, I see. Thanks. More films that I probably ought to see, at some point.
I'd somehow realised whence came the text of your icon, but I'd not realised the image's source. Thanks.
It's slightly off topic, but this made me think of it: did you ever read Melissa Scott's Roads of Heaven trilogy? A lot of standard space opera-esque tropes--energy weapons, planetary bombardment, FTL--but all of it explained by alchemy and a sort of Paracelsian ritual magic.
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My argument is not the percentage of magic versus science in Frankenstein's work, but that there is a historical overlap between the two professions, thank you, alchemy, natural philosophy, and Hermes Trismegistos; the older types of the mad scientist tend to lean toward this mixture more than straight technological innovation (contrast Doc in Back to the Future, who for all his eccentricity is in no danger of being mistaken for anything other than a wildly experimental physicist), which is why it interests me that Andrew Ketterley, the self-identified magician, so resembles a research scientist with his methodology and tinkering: while still as solitary as the magus who does not belong to a laboratory, the turn-of-the-century character looks forward to the time of his creation, post-World War II when scientists were all over the zeitgeist and so was the atomic bomb, the implications of unchecked knowledge. C.S. Lewis even differentiates between inborn magic such as Jadis possesses and Andrew's facsimile, knocked together out of trial and error. He's not good enough to play God. He might be flattered to be mistaken for Aleister Crowley.
A lot of standard space opera-esque tropes--energy weapons, planetary bombardment, FTL--but all of it explained by alchemy and a sort of Paracelsian ritual magic.
Thank you for the recommendation; I never did. I am familiar only with A Choice of Destinies and her three novels with Lisa A. Barnett.
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He might be flattered to be mistaken for Aleister Crowley.
Probably, although I imagine it would be difficult to confuse the two.
Actually, it would be interesting to know how Jack Parsons approached magic. Did he follow an experimental methodology?
Thank you for the recommendation; I never did. I am familiar only with A Choice of Destinies and her three novels with Lisa A. Barnett.
You're most welcome. I adore the three novels with Lisa A. Barnett. A Choice of Destinies I've not read, although I think I do have a copy somewhere. I probably found it when I was in the wrong humour to read it.
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Heh. I had never heard of him: between the rocket science, the moonchild, and death by mercury, there should be an incredible secret history here. Thanks!
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You're most welcome!
I'm pleased to've introduced something to you. His is a fascinating, albeit sad, story. Rocket scientist, ceremonial magician, link between L. Ron Hubbard and Aleister Crowley--that last, especially, is so wonderfully odd to me*.
I think I first ran into Parsons in an article in Parfrey's Apocalypse Culture. I believe somebody wrote a book about him a couple of years ago. I've never read it, but should, sometime.
*Once, when I happened to say something to the effect of "You know, W.B. Yeats was an associate of Aleister Crowley, Crowley was an associate of Jack Parsons, Parsons was an associate of L. Ron Hubbard...", a classmate said "Do you realise what this means? Yeats is within six degrees of Kevin Bacon!"