In a discussion of her recent Aikenesque historical novel, Jenny links to a reviewer who liked the book but didn’t think the fantasy elements fit in so well with the rest of the book. In this case, the fantasy part involved communication between living and dead people (“spiritualism”). Jenny then links to Colleen Mondor, who also liked the book and said that she didn’t mind the fantasy element since she (Colleen) has talked to dead people herself.

On this particular point, I have no problem with people talking with dead people. But I’m skeptical about claims that the dead people are talking back.

Here I’m talking about real life, not fiction. I certainly agree that fiction can be “true to life” even while violating recorded history or the laws of physics or just about anything else. Think about Stephen King, for example. I imagine there must even be some stream of science fiction (if you’d call it that) centered around, not new technology or alternate history or fantasy, but violations of logic and continuity. For example, a guy goes out of the house wearing a red shirt and later it’s green. Or he gets in his car to go to work, but when he gets to work, he’s getting off the bus. That sort of thing is impossible by anyone’s standards–of course I’m excluding rational explanations, blackouts, Mission Impossible-style kidnappings and staged sets, etc.–but in some ways it’s true to lived experience. (Yes, I realize that some of Philip K. Dick’s books are sort of like this–for example, Time out of Joint–but here I’m thinking of even more extreme continuity violations, the sort of thing you’d see in a poorly made low-budget movie where somebody lost the script.)

Anyway, my point in bringing this up is to separate any disagreements about the ability of dead people to talk, from the larger question of getting human insight (or at least a good story) from something that not only didn’t happen, but couldn’t happen.

P.S. All this blogging is a clear sign that I have lots of work I’ve been putting off! One thing that happened is we just moved (around the corner). Our new apartment has an airy living room with lots of bookshelves, and sitting here seeing all the books gets me thinking more about literature. . . .