Saturday, March 27, 2010

More on Jewish Fantasy Literature

I posted about an excellent essay by Michael Weingrad at Portland State University about Judaism and fantasy literature here, entitled "Why There Is No Jewish Narnia". It received some criticism which Elliot sums up over at CotC. Weingrad has written an enlightening response here.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Ummmm Superman, anyone?

Written by a Jewish writer, he used HEBREW for heaven's sakes (Kal El) for the names of characters and places.

Relied on Moses and Noah myth archetypes.

Superman is right up there with Tolkien and perhaps greater than Narnia in its cultural pervasiveness.

Jim S. said...

He addresses that in the first essay. By "fantasy", he's referring to a more specific type of writing, namely, the swords and sorcerers genre. So writings that have a fairly strong connection to our world and time aren't what he's talking about.