Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
Sometimes I wish I’d gotten an education, rather than a bunch of degrees. Maybe I’d understand more about what makes people tick if I had. Take the business of romanticism, which I’m convinced is at the heart of genre fiction, particularly SF and Mystery.
When I was in high school, I had no idea what “Romance” meant, except that was about being in love. Then I read Heinlein’s “Tunnel in the Sky” and got my first clue.
“…I’m telling you straight: I think you’ve been born into the wrong age.
“Sir?”
“I think you are a romantic. Now this is a very romantic age, so there is no room in it for romantics; it calls for practical men. A hundred years ago you would have made a banker or lawyer or professor and you could have worked out your romanticism by reading fanciful tales and dreaming about what you might have been if you hadn’t had the misfortune to be born into a humdrum period. But this happens to be a period when adventure and romance are a part of daily existence. Naturally it takes very practical people to cope with it.”
Many of you may recognize that as being from the dutch uncle lecture given in Robert Heinlein’s “Tunnel in the Sky” to the main character, a young man taking a course in “Advanced Survival” where the final exam is to be “stargated” to an undeveloped world and left to survive for a few days. For Rod, the main character, and his classmates, it turns out to be more like a few years, but thanks to our author, it doesn’t turn into a Lord of the Flies scenario, but a fairly egalitarian society. Though it’s not a sure thing at all. Still a great read, especially, if you suffer from romantic delusion, like Rod and me.
Recently I was at Capclave, our DC area lit-sf-con, and attended a panel on Military SF, a sub genre that’s a lot of fun, if you like that sort of thing, but which get’s no respect from the literary establishment, unless it’s an anti-war story like Joe Haldeman’s “Forever War.” Which is a terrific book, a great read, and doesn’t come across as an anti-war story at all, though it does point out the folly of the business. But I digress.
I asked Bud Sparhawk, the panel moderator, if Mil-SF had any redeeming virtues, or if it was just porn? This in my not-to-subtle way, was to open the door to a discussion of Mil-SF as a stage for romantic virutes to be paraded on, though Bud nicely turned the tables on me by asking what I had against porn?
Nothing, in and of itself. but it’s not a full meal.
But back to the romantic.
When I was a lad, we turned to either the World Book or the Britannica for the quick answer to life, the universe, and everything. Having sold my Britanica of some years back I now turn to the web, and specifically Wickipedia, as my first source. Then I keep going. To wit, or wicki, we get this gem:
“The modern sense of a romantic character may be expressed in Byronic ideals of a gifted, perhaps misunderstood loner, creatively following the dictates of his inspiration rather than the mores of contemporary society.”
Wikipedia (romanticism)
Seriously, how many people, or heroic stereotypes, can you think of that fit that better than a glass slipper the morning after?
A much deeper dive into the subject, but well worth reading, comes from “The Evil Thoughts of a Decadent Mind,” Daniel Walden German Logan-Scott’s blog on the Romantic. His list of 7 virtues:
1. Wisdom
2. Pride (self-confidence)
3. Magnanimity
4. Passion/Sensuality
5. Enterprise/Self-reliance
6. Chivalry/Grace
7. Gallantry/Charm
Are pretty illuminating for a certain character type, and in fact you can evaluate a whole range of characters by placing them on a spectrum of those characteristics. Want an interesting character? Challenge them by giving them a surplus of any 5 or 6 characteristics, and a shortage of the other two. Add a journey in which they recover their lost virture, and you’ve got everything from The Wizard of Oz to The Wizard of Earthsea, not to mention any flavor of Punk (Cyber, Steam, Watch, or Chocolate), though there tends to be less resolution, which is why it’s punk, after all.