Jewish Fantasy

Nor Isaac Batshevis Singer. *sigh*

Clearly I need to finish the novel I've been writing for the last 15 years, which is, after all, Jewish high fantasy.

the golem is probably the old canon, right? my personal favorite is probably this, umm, i guess it's urban fantasy:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2716235-the-dyke-and-the-dybbuk

(and of course, just as many presumably-xian authors write paganish fantasy, there's jewish author lev grossman and his narnia pastiche "the magicians", which iirc was a nyt bestseller.)

With such history, a Jew should write fantasy?

I wish there was a way to "like" this. Well played, well played indeed.

I KNEW there was a reason to saving the Jewish-inspired Peter Pan/Narnia mash-up I wrote back in college. It was finals week, that was my excuse.

It so happens Jewishness and fantasy are things I have opinions about. And I completely disagree with the author.

And what that opinion is, is that being Jewish is Not Fun. Being the Jewish kid - especially in the Bible Belt - is Not Fun the way being Queer is Not Fun or having bad acne and being bad at team sports is Not Fun. Where do kids go when reality isn't fun? Fantasy. Or science fiction. Or hell, mythology. You notice that Jack Kirby was all about Norse stuff. You notice that when Ralph Bakshi decided to make fantasy films, Jewishness wasn't really in there (but his fixation on roadtrips was!).

Nobody's Christian, nobody's Jewish. You don't even have to think about the problem any more than Elric has to worry about zits or Conan has to feel bad about Belit not being interested in him. Jewishness is the last thing you want in your fantasy. You want your heritage to interrupt your reading about as much as you want to get into another fistfight with another halfback.

And I can't imagine I'm the only one of the potential audience who feels that way.

I really hate the way he has to drag the Shoah into this. Yes it was horrible and made a huge impact, but Jewishness before the Shoah wasn't safe or fun either, and the whole thing makes me pissed off in ways which are a rant for another time. I think a clever author could tie Robert Bloch's weird monsters and strange people, or how wistful and fantastic Maurice Sendak is, to any number of "Jewish experiences."

Yes, thank you.

Just in case you're curious about such a thing, Maurice Sendak collaborated with the dance company Pilobolus on a piece that was very blatantly about being Jewish (during WWII), which incorporated elements of fantasy, and certainly exemplified that "being Jewish is Not Fun". The creative process, and most of the finished result, are available on a documentary DVD titled _Last Dance_; excerpts of the DVD are posted on YouTube, under the name of the finished dance piece, "A Selection".