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Yes, Eleta, I think you're right, and I think the manuscript will have to stand as it is, but I am still not happy with it. Perhaps no author is ever satisfied with his work, but I am not happy with it. You understand why I presented the events as fiction — the idea is not without merits. Still, a critic could poke any number of holes in it. Someone who regarded it as fiction would no doubt note that good storytelling and good plot are rarely found together, that forty percent of the plot is glossed over in two short chapters, et cetera. I'm not sure that Taberah would share in all those criticisms — he regarded those long days of conversation with the Kinsellas as the best time of his life, and his influential and turbulent time in the limelight as almost an afterthought in which he repeated impersonally what he had shared personally. At any rate, he would have found his message more important than telling a good story — and he took storytelling seriously. Someone who knew this was not fiction and knew the parties involved would have much more serious criticisms to level. I have captured almost nothing of Taberah's sense of humor — cunning, bawdy, subtle, clever, exquisite, and absurd. After hearing about some of the practical jokes he pulled — from now on, Monty Python will taste like flat beer. It pales in comparison. I also did badly in failing to more seriously address the place of Islam. The influence of Islam in shaping the culture, and why it is by nature coercive is something I just barely nicked — probably just enough to make the reader think I suffer from vulgar intolerance. You know better than that, of course; you know that I enjoyed living in a Muslim country, and that I greatly respect their emphasis on honor, friendship, and hospitality. And that it is my considered judgment — as surely as that Christianity is invariably corrupted when it wields direct political power — that Islam in power is inherently coercive. The role of Islam was one among many important elements of the surrounding culture that I failed to capture. And medieval culture, for that matter. And Taberah's "200 ways to use a magnetic paper clip" — I just don't know what to say. It's both silly and serious, and it was one of the things to motivate me to wonder, "What kind of a mind would think of that?" And I have intentionally left out most of the miracles that occurred — not that there were many, but I didn't want to present unnecessary strain on the reader's willing suspension of disbelief. There was plenty of necessary strain already.
The willing suspension of disbelief accompanying fiction is the real reason I chose to write it as fiction. It's not just that saying I know events three decades in the future would label me as a kook — that's understandable enough, and the real explanation was difficult for me to believe, even having experienced it. The real reason I recorded this story as fiction is that our time has this terrible stereotype of medievals as backwards, and conception of the past as inferior — and a science fiction/fantasy story is almost the only place where something labelled 'medieval' could be respected. What if I told you that an anti-Semitic campaign had taken the name of Einstein, and smeared Jewry by making his name a symbol of idiocy? The truth is that something equally anti-medieval has taken the name of John Duns Scotus, the medieval genius whom Catholics call the Subtle Doctor, and turned it into the term 'dunce'. That stereotype, and the preconception that we have nothing to learn from the medievals, is a force to be reckoned with, and I don't know how this manuscript will fare in its face.
Once one of Karl Barth's students asked him, "Do you believe there was a serpent in the Garden of Eden?" Barth replied, "The important thing is not 'Was there a serpent?' but 'What did the serpent say?'" In a similar insight, I have presented Taberah's story as fiction and tried to draw attention away from the question of "Was Taberah real?" and instead draw attention to the more fundamental question of "What did Taberah say?" — on which account he has much to tell us. After coming into contact with him, I have come to believe that we can be medievals, too.
What do you think?
-Jonathan
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