Lem a écrit :Félix Bodin, dans Le roman de l'avenir a écrit :Pour le moment, la question est de savoir si (…) il est possible de trouver quelque chose de nouveau et toutefois d’analogue ; quelque chose qui ne fût ni d’une fantaisie trop dévergondée, ni d’une intention purement critique, ni de cet esprit philosophique qui nuit à l’intérêt et à l’illusion en substituant toujours des idées aux personnages, et en subordonnant l’action et les caractères à la thèse qu’il soutient…
Intéressant : c'est l'un des reproches les plus classiques adressés à la sf.
"For an example of the use in science fiction of a living religious mythos one may turn to the work of Cordwainer Smith, whose Christian beliefs are evident, I think, all through his work, in such motifs as the savior, the martyr, rebirth, the "underpeople". Wether or not is a Christian, one may admire wholeheartedly the strength and passion given the works by the authors's living belied. In general, however, I think the critics' search for Christian themes in science fiction is sterile and misleading. For the majority of science fiction writers, the themes of Christianity are dead signs, not living symbols, and those who use them do so all too often in order to get an easy emotional charge without working for it. They take a free ride on the crucifix, just as many now cash in cinycally on the current occultist fad. The difference between this sort of thing and the genuine, naïve mysticism of an Arthur Clarke, struggling to express his own, living symbol of rebirth, is all the difference in the world"
"Like all artists, we science fiction writers are trying to make and use such a connection or bridge between the conscious and the unconscious - so that our readers can make the journey too. If the only tool we use is the intellect, we will produce only lifeless copies or parodies of the archetypes that live in our own deeper mind, and in the great works of art and mythology. If we abandon intellect, we're likely to submerge our own personality and talent in a stew of mindless submyths[ j'ai coupé mais par sous-mythe, il faut comprendre toute la quincallerie, robots, savant fou, etc], themselves coarse, feeble parodies of archetypal origins. The only way to the truly collective, to the image that is alive and meaningful in all of us, seems to be through the truly personal. Not the impersonality of pure reason ; not the impersonality of "the masses", but the irreducibly personal - the self. To reach the others, artists go into the self. using reason, they deliberately enter the irrational. The farther they go into the self, the closer they come to the other"
(s'ensuit une discussion sur l'inconscient collectif de Jung)
Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction, 1976. U.K Le Guin.
