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Tor Published the Best Christian Dialogue I’ve Read

March 28th, 2008 | models, science fiction, writing

michael flynn’s masterpieceI’ve heard some folks asking what it looks like when Christian writers weave their faith into novels as a theme.

So often, we are clumsy about this. Very clumsy. We try too hard. Protest too much. Just to moments of conversion and theology without having an organic reason to do so. In short, we cheat. We twist the story and the characters to have our moment of moral parable.

Flannery O’Connor doesn’t do this. Tolkein doesn’t do this. Lewis does a bit, but we forgive him because Narnia is so cool. So when did we lose confidence in the power of stories and characters to express truth with integrity?

All of this talk about writing is fine and dandy, but ultimately unhelpful without any examples. What does it look like when a master craftsman integrates faith seamlessly into a novel? Look no further than Michael Flynn’s recent literary scifi masterpiece Eifelheim.

I hope Tor will forgive me for posting this short excerpt from Michael Flynn’s Eifelheim. It is absolutely the best dialogue I’ve read in a long time, in one of the most surprising science fiction novels I’ve read in a long time.

Here’s the pitch: what would happen if Aliens landed outside a German village in the 1300s just before the outbreak of a plague that wipes out 1/3 of the human race?

Now, a little background on the following scene. The Kratzer is an alien who looks something like a very large grasshopper. He communicates with Dietrich, the local priest, via a translation device they call the Heinzelmaennchen. They are trying to talk philosophy, but for the Kratzer this means physics and mathematics. For Deitrich, it means theology. The misunderstandings that go on in this dialogue are simply fascinating.

Read it and tell me what you think:

“Tell me more,” said the Kratzer, “about your numbers. Do you apply
them to the world?”

“If appropriate. Astronomers calculate the positions of the heavenly
spheres. And William of Heytesbury, a Merton calculator, applied
numbers to the study of local motion and showed that, commencing from
zero degree, every latitude, so long as it terminates finitely, and so
long as it is acquired or lost uniformly, will correspond to its mean
degree of velocity.” Dietrich had spent many hours reading
Heytesbury’s Rules for Solving Sophismas, which Manfred had presented
him, and had found the proof from Euclid very satisfying.

The Kratzer rubbed his forearms together. “Explain what means that.”

“Simply said, a moving body, acquiring or losing latitude uniformly
during some assigned period of time, will traverse a distance exactly
equal to what it would have traversed in an equal period of time if it
were moved uniformly at its mean degree.” Dietrich hesitated, then
added, “So wrote Heytesbury, so nearly as I recollect his words.”

Finally, the Kratzer said, “It must be this: distance is half the
final speed by the time.” He wrote on a slate and Dietrich saw symbols
appear on the Heinzelmaennchen’s screen. His heart thudded as the
Kratzer assigned to each symbol distance, speed, and time. Here was
Fibonacci’s idea, letters used to state the propositions of al-jabr so
succinctly that entire paragraphs could be said in one short line. He
pulled a palimpset from his scrip and wrote with a charcoal, using
German letters and the Arab numbers. Ach, how much more clearly it
could be said! His vision blurred, and he wiped his eye. Thank you, O
God, for this gift.

“So, we see the fruits of the Holy Ghost,” he said at last.

“The Heinzelmaennchen is unsure. ‘Ghost’ is when you breathe out, and
what has this to do with motion?”

“There was a great question for us: Does a man participate in
unchanging Spirit more or less, or does Spirit itself increase or
decrease in a man? We call that ‘the intension and remission of
forms,’ which, by analogy, we may apply to other motions. Just as a
succession of forms of different intensities explains an increase or
decrease in the intensity of color, so the succession of new positions
acquired by a motion may be considered as a succession of forms
representing new degrees of that motion’s intensity. The intensity of
a velocity increases with speed, no less than the redness of an apple
increases with ripening.”

The giant grasshopper shifted in his seat and exchanged looks with the
servant, saying something which the mikrofoneh did not this time
translate.

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