Robert Suggs (April 16, 1998)I can't seem to get my fingers on E. Bleiler's definition of "the contranatural," and why he campaigned to replace the term "supernatural" with it (his efforts have been hindered by his persisting death during the last few years; Franco's still dead, too). It's in his Supernatural Index, of which I'm pleased to own a fragment. Rbadac, I'm delegating again. Would you do the honors and clue everybody in?Your disciples breathlessly await!
Rob
oOo
Otzchiim (April 17, 1998)
This implies that Everett Bleiler is dead. I got a letter from him about a year ago, and I am sure I would have heard if he had died since. He's up there, but I think not yet a ghost.oOo
Bill Barnett (April 17, 1998)
Now that you mention it, I remember he had a long article in Washington Post Book World last year on an interpretation of Alice Through the Looking Glass. If I recall correctly he was making the case that it's based on the zodiac.oOo
rbadac (April 17, 1998)
> Robert Suggs wrote:
>
> I can't seem to get my fingers on E. Bleiler's definition of "the
> contranatural," and why he campaigned to replace the term "supernatural" with
> it (his efforts have been hindered by his persisting death during the last few
> years; Franco's still dead, too). It's in his Supernatural Index, of which I'm
> pleased to own a fragment. Rbadac, I'm delegating again. Would you do the
> honors and clue everybody in?
>
> Your disciples breathlessly await!Okay, but just remember, you ASKED for this. Are you sitting down?
(From THE GUIDE TO SUPERNATURAL FICTION, Kent State University Press, 1983)
Excerpt from "The Phenomenology of Contranatural Fiction":
"...At this point it might be well to enter a caveat against the word 'supernatural' as applied to the fiction in this book. It is the accepted term and I have felt constrained to use it elsewhere, but I also feel that it has outlived its usefulness. Back in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, supernatural fiction dealt very largely with beings that were in somesense superior to mortals or to living men. Today, it is much less concerned with such beings than with a world view that is in direct opposition to that of materialism. It is 'contrary' rather than 'above,' 'contra' rather than 'super,' and I propose for the remainder of this chapter to use the term contranatural fiction. My thesis is that modern fiction has erected a mirror world based on direct contradiction to what most of us believe, related through the strong principle of positive negation.
The subject matter of contranatural fiction is by and large man and the universe, or to state it otherwise, the individual, space-time, and things. But the exact topics are not always those of the mechanistic world. Contranatural fiction cares little about man as a social being or as a lesson in biochemistry or psychology, nor is it always concerned with exact geography, with the orderly procession of time, or with the world of immutable law. Instead, to use an arithmetic analogy, things are added to, subtracted from, and modified away from reality.
As examples of addition, the powers of man can be increased with a host of paranormal abilities, and evolution can bring further changes. Worlds of if, magic lands, unrigorous futures may appear, as well as objects that contain mana <sic? should be 'man'?> in themselves, to say nothing of manipulative techniques like magic and wish.
Less important are subtractions, which on the whole indicate limitations: loss of personal essence, deprivation of powers, destructions of time and space, new principles of causality of more limited range than the old, and restrictions on man and the gods."
Whoa. He goes on to list themes and variations which would curl your hair, THEN he indexes the 1775 or so titles in the Guide by MOTIF.
And you said he was dead. Tsk, tsk.
Prophet Rbadac, formerly of the Urantia Foundation, now freelancing
oOo
Robert Suggs (April 18, 1998)
Okay, okay. I'm really slipping. This is the second author I've buried alive in the past three months or so. It seems as if when a certain amount of dust collects on their spines, and they begin to yellow around the edges, I decide they've shuffled off this mortal coil. In Bleiler's case, I thought he died sometime in the late 80s. And who's to say he didn't, really? A man who digested that much contranatural nutrient? Well, once again, I throw myself on the mercy of the court and promise to stop killing off valuable authors. If all that indexing he did didn't put him under, I suppose nothing will--not even one of my brain-dead internet posts.Have to say, though, he's not convincing me on this argument about changing terms. Hasn't there always been a little crowd screaming about changing "science fiction" as well? I see his point, I suppose, but literature is not so homogeneous as to carry one unified view of what a ghost is. I doubt it was ever totally "super," and I doubt it's now totally "contra." Words are fluid. Their definitions ebb and flow to keep pace with changing meanings.
Rob
oOo
rbadac (April 20, 1998)
That's my Rob! The Jack Kervorkian of the Web! : )I notice Everett still calls his book THE GUIDE TO SUPERNATURAL FICTION. Even HE has to admit the seniority of the term.
Wonder if there is any correspondence extant between him and S.T. Joshi? Wonder if the mailman has a wheelbarrow?
rbadac
ooOoo