a Jules Vernes-ian adventure for modern mystics
Two years ago I re-read The Chronicles of Narnia for a book club. And while it still has some wonderful images, Narnia disappointed me this time around as being a slog at times, and sometimes even felt off-putting to me. Its mostly-absent God who only visits Narnia every few centuries seemed more deistic than Christian, the total separation of creature and Creator seemed a reinforcement of bad Sunday School teaching, and its near-total disinterest in peacemaking and justice betrayed a tremendous missed opportunity.
This time, decades after I had left my youthful Fundamentalism behind, I wished that Narnia had a deeper spirituality. But after reading David Bentley Hart’s Kenogaia (A Gnostic Tale), I’m finding it fits that YA-spiritual-adventure space in my heart much better than Narnia now.
Kenogaia is the world where 13- year-old Michael Ambrosius is growing up, a fantastic world reminiscent of a Jules Vernes-ian Europe, but with unique technology: although electricity remains undiscovered and land travel is limited to carriages, manipulation of wind, air, and minerals has resulted in “anemophones” which enable people to speak across distance, aerial barges for travel and transport, and the crystals in “phosphorions” give artificial light, among many other inventions in this richly-envisioned world.
Their astronomy (“ouranomony”) is vastly different from ours; not only do its people believe that the moons, sun, and planets travel across the sky in nested, transparent spheres as we used to imagine, but they know it as a simple fact: Kenogaians can see the gears that move the spheres, and so praise the “Great Artisan” for his handiwork, broken sprockets and all.
The action opens with Michael’s father confiding his discovery of a new star—rapidly approaching Kenogaia—to his son. This seems impossible given the nature of the spheres, but his illegal telescope confirms his observations, and he charges Michael to keep the new star utterly secret, since in this world, knowledge and belief are controlled by an authoritarian fusion of science, religion, and psychology, and those who diverge too much live in dread of being imprisoned and subjected to corrective “therapy.”
That same evening, Michael’s father is arrested, and a few weeks later Michael learns that the “star” is bringing a mysterious visitor to Kenogaia.
Kenogaia is loosely inspired by a beautiful poem, The Hymn of the Pearl, found in The Acts of Thomas, an early gnostic Christian writing. A flowing translation of the entire poem (presumably by Hart himself) is presented as epigraphs for the major parts of the book. The Hymn of the Pearl tells of a child’s journey to a strange land to seek a stolen, priceless pearl and return it to his homeland. Hart skillfully uses the essence of the journey as the plot’s foundation, and avoids any temptations of trying to use Pearl too literally. The protagonist of the journey, is the visitor, Oriens, who also appears as a child. Michael and his friend Laura commit themselves to protecting and aiding Oriens on his journey while they also search for Michael’s father.
There’s more than just a Jules Vernes current here; I feel something like Lewis as well, but minus the dogmatics and with more discovery. Or try to imagine (if possible!) Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials without the bitterness and cynicism. Trying to be more specific would give too much away.
Humor counterbalances the adventure in delightful ways. A comical police briefing had me laughing out loud, and reminded me of Monty Python at their best. Those already familiar with David Bentley Hart probably know that he owns one of the largest vocabularies in North America and isn’t afraid to use it. Hart reserves this arsenal for his disdain of villainous and arrogant authorities, and to great effect. Still, the book is a somewhat demanding, and some adults might doubt Hart’s description of it as “a young adult fantasy novel,” but anyone with a love for reading science-fiction or fantasy should be able to surf the words sufficiently well, and find the language greatly entertaining.
Kenogaia excels at more than just adventure and world-building; its spirituality resonates deeply with me, and some images are going to inspire me for a very long time. Anyone already on a mystical path will appreciate the rich and profound spiritual themes here.
Kenogaia has some flaws, however. Two minor nits are that Michael seems too mature and eloquent as a thirteen-year-old (their years resemble ours), and Laura has very little to do.
Kenogaia major flaw is that it can needs more editing. Its 420 pages are printed in a rather small type; it’s really about 500 pages in a more typical size, and the story does not fuel that amount of verbiage. Many huge descriptive paragraphs could be trimmed, and some action scenes as well – cross-cuts between what insignificant characters are doing in the background often fragments more important actions in the foreground, inundating the reader with tsunamis of detail. Editing—the dying art of eliminating the good to illuminate the best—could turn Kenogaia from a delightful experience to an unforgettable one.
That said, even its length is a relatively minor flaw. I read Kenogaia in five days, and truly found it hard to put down, which haven’t been able to say about any speculative fiction since I read Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash last year. Kenogaia is that compelling, and it satisfies like a great first meal at a new restaurant. I hope this book finds much wider readership. If you like spiritual SF, you’ll definitely enjoy Kenogaia.
DBH, if you’re reading this, thank you for your beautiful work. May this “pneumatagogue” fly!
Kenogaia (A Gnostic Tale) David Bentley Hart, Angelico Press, 2021
