From: Jesper Svedberg <jesper.svedberg@mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: (urth) Re: Gnowing Gnostic Gnovels
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 00:57:19 +0200


> From: "Alice Turner" <akt@attglobal.net>
> Subject: Gnowing Gnostic Gnovels
> 
> A plea for help. I'm more and more thinking I might write something
> about Pullman's trilogy. I'm still reeling at the idea of Gnostic
> juveniles--I wouldn't have thought it remotely possible, and am going
> back to reread. (That first book is ***wonderful!***) Here's a question
> then: Aside from Crowley's books and Bloom's unfortunate novel (what was
> its title, mantis?) are there other *concious* Gnostic novels, not
> counting ones like -Voyage to Arcturus- that seem instinctively to tap
> into an ancient view? (Actually I'd be intereested in thoughts on the
> latter, too.) This is rather off-topic, so perhaps you might email me
> unless you sense a general interest.

Well, how gnostic must a boook be to be called gnostic? There are many
books that are more or less inspired by gnostic concepts and there are
also books that are inspired by things that are related to gnosticism,
like neo-platonism or hermetic magic. Mary Gentle's _Rats & Gargoyles_
deals with many such concepts, but I'm not sure it's gnostic.
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy's entry for "Gnostic Fantasy" mentions Roger
Zelazny's Amber series, E. R. Eddison's Zimiamvia trilogy and C. S.
Lewis's _That Hideous Strength_ and _The Last Battle_. The article also
says that "Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges can be interpreted as
gloomy modern Gnostics for whom the fallen world is an endless labyrinth
of texts and sophistries, without any exit to trancendence."
Other works that might be of interest are H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu
mythos, which may be inspired by gnosticism, various works by Robert
Charles Wilson, for instance _Mysterium_, Philip Jose Farmer's World of
Tiers series and also Guy Gavriel Kay's "Fionavar Tapestry" has a rather
gnostic cosmology.
You might want to search Google's Usenet archive
(http://groups.google.com) for "gnostic" in the group
rec.arts.sf.written to get some more suggestions.

Last year, I read an interesting book, _The Holy Grail_ by Malcolm
Godwin, about the grail mythology. One of the theories Godwin had was
that the gnosticism one one of the central traditions behind the grail
myth. It is a pretty good book, the scholarship isn't exactly impeccable
and it is rather anti christian in tone, but it brings out tons of nifty
ideas from the medieval grail romances that easily would fit into a
Wolfe novel.


  // Jesper Svedberg


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