I’ve been reading, in fits and starts, Towing Jehovah, a fantasy novel by James Morrow. The premise of the book is that God has died. The archangel, Rafael, hires a supertanker captain seeking redemption for causing one of the worst oil spills in history to tow God’s two-mile-long body to the arctic to be preserved and, to hide the fact from humanity.
Though I’m not far into the novel, I now realize it’s the sort of thing I want to write. And I didn’t even know I liked reading fantasy. I should have known, as I’ve written (or, in some cases, just started writing) several very short pieces of fantasy—absurdist fantasy I call it— such as The Mane Thing, Sharecroppers, Fulcrum, Turn Back Time, A Curious Experience, and Fairytales on Acid for Demented Adults, right here on this blog. Looking back at several of those pieces this morning, I realized I enjoyed writing them. And, though I do not put myself in the class of James Morrow, I conceived each one of them as a means to espouse philosophies; admittedly, though, I never got to the point of articulating those philosophies in most of them.
It’s odd that I’ve always considered the short fantasies I’ve written as simple diversions, rather than anything I’d seriously pursue. To be honest with myself, I suppose I’ve always considered fantasy novels beneath my dignity; I continue to learn, even at my advanced age, that I don’t know the world, or myself, nearly as well as I sometimes think. I don’t know if I’ll write a fantasy novel. But I admit, now, that such an undertaking could be worthwhile.
