The Antiheroes of Modern Christendom

 24/09/21

    Seeing (and reading) the timeless folk tale Coraline has made me consider in some depth the author of Coraline, Mr. Neil Gaiman--but not him on his own; but rather with the other Neil Gaimans of recent in the literary developments of Christendom. I am speaking of the Oscar Wildes and the Andy Warhols of our times--namely, those wild and wonderful artists who seem to have danced the line dividing heterodoxy and holiness throughout their entire lives, perhaps up to their respective deaths.

    Odd, odd men. Neoliberals, homosexuals, minimalists, abstractionists... Artists on whom could be written two cent rags and tabloids. A quick Wikipedia search reveals more than one would desire to know. Yet I feel that each pulsates with a form of orthodoxy that perhaps once their souls were conformed to, and which, inadvertently or not, they cannot help but express. Souls who are so attached to their crooked ways, though look on fondly at the "lighter path" of Catholicism with the solemn, longing eyes of a child lost. But they must pursue their paths of darkness.

    Oscar Wilde, the spurious homosexual--the Wilde who was put on trial for indecent exposure, the Wilde  who wrote epics on his lover, the unmistakably perverse Oscar Wilde, was also the Wilde who left the Lodge at Oxford knowing well it was the "Protestant Heresy" which had allowed him to remain there. The same Oscar Wilde who had an audience with Pope Pius IX in Rome, an event which led him to the brink of conversion, goaded on by that Anglo-Roman St. Newman. He resisted at last, however-- until the moment of his death, in which he was given a conditional baptism by Fr. Cutheburt Dunne. 

    Warhol, too, is far from free in his ties to the stray path. Another practicing homosexual, you can find any number of recorded letters from his lover, and his contraction of a transmitted disease speaks for the unspoken. His art, by far, is not one which elevates the soul. An affinity for meaningless minimalism and abstractionism, in my eyes, is a telling point that the richness of ones aspirations for beauty is being stifled. Yet Warhol funded his nephews seminary from his own sums, and attended Liturgy daily, attending the Eastern Byzantine Rite, signing himself from right to left. He was recorded as never partaking in the Eucharist, the unstated reason I hope being his realization of his state of mortal sin. I cannot say whether or not he died in good graces--what with speakers like Yoko Ono at your Byzantine funeral, it is hard to say. We may only hope and pray. 

    Neil Gaiman is the lesser of these men, in both perversity and magnitude. The most capricious thing I can speak of concerning Neil is that he is my contemporary, and that he is neoliberal in philosophy-- regardless of his oceanic depth in storytelling, his social solutions likely add up to no more than the common mass medias commentary--which is unfortunate. Oscar Wilde wrote treatise on distributist economic theory which attempted to synthesize feudal ideas into the post-industrial world. Gaiman, I believe, has written on how some of his characters are homosexual (post-publication). Such is the sorry state of our culture: the spurious writers of old were so perverse that they could afford to be so orthodox-- they had nothing to lose. The spurious writers of now have everything to lose-- they cannot be orthodox or heterodox. 

    But this is not to detract from Gaiman. While I believe he has failed to apply his genius to his social beliefs, he has found refuge for it in his folk tales-- a place where perhaps he can avoid criticism by those peers who desire him to remain in his box. 

    But before we shirk Gaiman, we must mention the fact that this man was the speaker for the Mythopoeic Society, which focuses primarily on Tolkein, Lewis, and his favorite influence, the inimitable Chesterton. Gaiman has given perhaps the best expression of what Chesterton is and what he is not. From the aforementioned speech: 

    "You see, while I loved Tolkien and while I wished to have written his book, I had no desire at all to write like him. Tolkien’s words and sentences seemed like natural things, like rock formations or waterfalls, and wanting to write like Tolkien would have been, for me, like wanting to blossom like a cherry tree or climb a tree like a squirrel or rain like a thunderstorm. Chesterton was the complete opposite. I was always aware, reading Chesterton, that there was someone writing this who rejoiced in words, who deployed them on the page as an artist deploys his paints upon his palette. Behind every Chesterton sentence there was someone painting with words, and it seemed to me that at the end of any particularly good sentence or any perfectly-put paradox, you could hear the author, somewhere behind the scenes, giggling with delight"

    One cannot but help to appreciate this witticism. Is their a better description of The Walrus of Fleet Street? Again, we read from Gaiman:

    "Father Brown, that prince of humanity and empathy, was a gateway drug into the harder stuff, this being a one-volume collection of three novels: The Napoleon of Notting Hill (my favourite piece of predictive 1984 fiction, and one that hugely informed my own novel Neverwhere), The Man Who Was Thursday (the prototype of all Twentieth Century spy stories, as well as being a Nightmare, and a theological delight), and lastly The Flying Inn"

    This Neil Gaiman, the author who began his book, the story which sends me into fits of daydreams upon seeing it, with a quote from G. K. Chesterton, undeniably has his spirits in the right place when it comes to such men as the inklings-- he has succeeded (for now) in tiptoeing past religion, although he simply cannot seem to get away from it. Whether it be his (sloppily Chestertonian) Good Omens or his attempt at the mythological in American Gods, Gaiman is forever reaching that topsy turvy universe which took Chesterton but the slip of the finger to create-- and what takes Gaiman especially (in the last examples) every justification and mental gymnastic in the book to justify. For Gaiman, it must be, at the end of the day, just a book. It must be just a novel, a symbol, a sign. And thus he must justify it. For Chesterton, Lewis, and Tolkein, it needn't have justification-- it simply is. Fairy tales are real, monsters do live under your bed, and spirits do exist-- especially the greatest One of all. What Tim Burton spends his nights crafting, what Laika Studios belabors, Catholic writers, both secular and otherwise, have a monopoly on. Truth is the right of Catholics, whether it comes from one of Her acolytes or not.

    Neil is fascinated with the premodern-- he wants to encapsulate that horrific charm which the remnants of that ancient age of myths and fairies show forth, although scattered by the so-called enlightenment; he desires that twisted world that St Augustine says is so right because it may be punished-- a perfect world may not be punished. Yet while I believe truly that Gaiman would desire to admit as much, the spirit of nihilism in Lovecraft pulls him closer, with insidious temptations of meaningless suffering. I do not think his has bent to his will yet, and I pray he never does. And while I feel it is the conclusion of the contradictory position he holds, I do not say that has failed resisting. We face the countenance, then, of Coraline.

    Coraline was Gaiman biting the bullet and producing a fairy tale-- a fairy tale which takes a world of shapes and symbols whose essence is forever shifting, forever manipulated. He takes a hint from the same philosophy which governs The Man Who Was Thursday, a horrific nightmare which is akin to walking down a flight of stairs into the same landing you came from-- yet it resolves beautifully, like a chord. And unlike the inhuman and abstract paradoxes of the Twilight Zone, Coraline attests to the fact that contradictions and surrealist experiences are utterly humanesque-- that is, utterly meaningful and not meaningless, insane with nuance but not nihilism. He contrasts that good is a thing uncorrupted yet not unfamiliar with the corrupt (Father Brown), and the things which are corrupt and are all too familiar with the uncorrupt (Lucifer in The Ball and the Cross). Real humans and real scenarios, but lost in the womb of understanding and made present to the delightful and disgusting battles which take place over (or between) our own heads. Gaiman, with a certain quaintness, succeeded in this regard, in the dreamy and dark shapes of Coraline, like a womb of reality, yet twisted by the hands of a corrupter.

    But what differentiates Gaiman from the whole gallery of semi-religious and especially Catholic celebrities, politicians, and other somebodies who flaunt a Christian edge, only for it to be a mere prop for either sympathy or gain? I think the answer lies in the fact of a very important distinction: that while perhaps the President of the Union or perhaps one or two of his speakers and secretaries hold Catholicism in some regard or another, it is ultimately but a tool for their own personal ends or ideals; that is, they have no Faith at all. 

    It is my personal belief that Wilde and Warhol, and ultimately Gaiman--while they hold untenable positions which only will lead to their demise, whether that be in practice or ideology--I truly believe that all three men thought that their opinions, spurious or perverted though they be, could actually be used to aid the Church Militant; that their dubious dogmas were mere tools which perhaps could be used not for their own selfish ends but for the ends of something greater--this is the ultimate distinction between these odd fellows and the President. 

    And while both are objectively wrong in their pursuits, only one is subjectively right; that is, in the eyes of Wilde, Warhol, or Gaiman, they truly believe they are but servants at the altar (of some sort), while certain politicians seem to be of the persuasion that the altar serves them and their personal ideals are primary. 

    There is a sort of attractive innocence in the position of these Artists, like a child gone astray but never for a moment thinking they were not in some way perhaps serving their parents. And it is in this light that I will still praise and enjoy Coraline-- in the same way (on a lower plane) that I will praise the startling Campbell Soup or one of Wilde's works. Such are the Antiheroes of Modern Christendom--for whoever is not against us is for us in this polarizing culture.

    And I cannot say that they are against us.

- BJS