Notes from a Catholic marriage
Reading C.S. Lewis’s autobiographical Surprised by Joy, I was reminded of a useful distinction between two meanings of the word “fantasy.” One is the meaning I outlined in a previous post, namely a kind of literature that brings one into contact with the Other. The second is the self-indulgent fantasy we turn into the verb “fantasize.” Lewis draws the distinction nicely: Continue reading “Fantasy vs. fantazy”
Last Tuesday, I gave a lecture to the Wyoming Catholic College community about “the Christian dignity of story.” In the Q&A session, a young man asked my opinion about the difference between fantasy and science fiction: after all, they both make up not only plots and characters but even universes, so they seem to operate at a similar level of abstraction from reality.
At the time, I had to confess that I didn’t have an answer. But later, with some help from Joseph Susanka, I reached a point of clarity worth sharing. Continue reading “The difference between fantasy and science fiction”