In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Archetypal Exploration

There are two fundamental principles in Jungian psychology: 1) The unconscious part of the mind is indistinguishable from reality, and 2) The self, composed of the conscious and unconscious mind, is indistinguishable from God. As a self-confessed Jungian, Margaret Atwood, undoubtedly unconsciously, employs these two principles wonderfully in her commentary on Science Fiction, In Other Worlds.

Science fiction as a genre is of course a Jungian playground in which primitive archetypes from ancient myths to childhood fears can be given free rein. The constraints of existing technology, social conventions, time, and even fundamental physics can be done away with to form an alternative world which, as long as it is consistent within itself, can be a satisfying experience.

For me, and I think perhaps for Atwood as well, the best alternative sci-fi worlds don’t necessarily have a dystopian or utopian edge, even if they communicate a political or social message. They just are. And what makes them interesting is how a sensory, reflective entity (not necessarily a human being) makes its way in some fundamentally altered set of conditions. The archetypes bend and twist to accommodate these conditions, but ultimately, since they are at the limits of our imagination, they remain identifiable; hence we are able to comprehend and even empathise with otherwise alien creatures from other planets, other times, other eruptions of the multiverse.

So in a sense sci-fi is therapy, a non-threatening exploration of the things crawling around at the very bottom of our collective unconscious, the existence of which is of course confirmed by the worldwide success of works like Star Wars and Harry Potter, not to mention Frankenstein and Superman. The technique is simple: we allow Jungian principle 1 to operate without any of the usual epistemological worries that we carry around with us as a matter of course; then we perform an act of imaginative blasphemy by employing principle 2 - not to make too fine a point, we play God and re-create creation.

Why? I suppose the best answer, and the answer implied by Atwood, is because we can. No, that's too passive: because we must. We are, as social as well as conscious beings, programmed to explore the alternative arrangements of relationships in creation that are contained in sci-fi. Perhaps our myths of origin in sacred scriptures, as ancient as history allows us to recall, are expressions of the same facts of human existence as the superheroes of Marvel comics. (Such a comparison isn’t intended to be disrespectful. In fact, it might be a key to re-invigorating interest in a sacred literature that appears simply incomprehensible to most people).

Atwood’s identification and sifting of the sci-fi archetypes is masterful. She takes the reader from Inanna, the life and sex goddess of Mesopotamia, through the Greek messenger-god Hermes and Shakespeare's Puck to the Wizard of Oz and Plastic Man of the 1940's. And that's just on the topic of flying.

For Atwood the classic Beowulf has a clear association with that truly terrible 1958 British film, The Creeping Eye, aka The Trollenberg Terror. This is an association which, once made, is burned into one's literary psyche - to the benefit of both works I think. Similarly, it's not an enormous leap in imagination from the talking trees of the film Avatar, to the Burning Bush of Genesis. Every connection enhances appreciation of the things connected. This might well be the primary spiritual function of literature, of any sort but particularly that in which the tropes used point beyond themselves in the manner of Russian Orthodox icons. In other words, sci-fi.

Atwood's case for sci-fi as the modern continuation of Renaissance humanistic thinking is interesting. Works like Bladerunner, The Island of Dr Moreau, and Star Trek force a consideration of what it means to be human. As does any purported change in technology or even fundamental physics, as in The Matrix.

The theological import of much sci-fi needs hardly be argued. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Perelandra are popular enough examples to make the point. Less obviously, theology also pervades books like Atwood's own The Handmaid's Tale, not least by exposing the inherent sexism and rationalisation of power by the powerful in much of what passes for talk about God.*

There's no doubt that Atwood does both Jung and Sci-Fi proud in this little book of almost throw-away, thought-provoking thoughts. After all, what else can you do, if you've read virtually everything important ever written, but connect it, probably involuntarily, to everything else? She does it with such ease.

*See for example: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

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