Hugo Nominations: Pale Realms of Shade, John C. Wright

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In John C. Wright's Hugo-nominated novella Pale Realms of Shade, there really are people with the second sight - and the protagonist, Matt Flint, was one of them, before he died. He was also a private investigator of the hard-boiled variety (I admit I've only read a small sample of Wright's work, but he seems inordinately fond of hard-boiled dicks), the senior partner in a psychic detective agency. He is dead when the story opens, murdered by his rapacious wife who needs him to prove his death wasn't a suicide so she can collect the insurance money - you see, she doesn't remember killing him because she took magic amnesia pills after doing it. He's also angry, because his former partner Sylvester Steel has taken his place in the agency and in his wife's bed. This anger has caused him not only to remain bound to the earth, but to become a poltergeist.

So of course our protagonist goes to confession, but since he is not yet ready to confess his sins, he is cast out of church by the priest's guardian angel and ends up in a pentangle, confronting a hooded figure who holds the Morning Star in one hand. Yep, it's "pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name" time. As devils are wont to do, Lucifer offers our protagonist a bargain - if he takes his vengeance on Sylvester, he will be freed.

Just in case we hadn't figured out yet that we were reading a ham-fisted allegory, Wright does something he obvious thinks is terribly clever. You see, as the devil offers his bargain, Sylvester is standing outside a nearby hotel. Morningstar goes on to say:

"The gas main under the hotel is leaking, and the basement filled with fumes. There is a tiny stone, a bit of flint, which fell long ago from some ill-fitted crate, and there is the broken blade of a knife which snapped off in a man’s ribs and lodged in the wall there. Look. You can see them. ... Ask the flint to raise itself up and strike the steel, and there will be a spark. One spark is all that is needed now."

OK, back to the story. At the last minute, Lucifer says something that makes Matt realise that Sylvester will go to heaven if he dies, and Matt turns down the bargain. Lucifer taunts him with the thought that as a ghost, he can never change, never be saved, and that eventually he will be drawn back to this time and place and do the devil's bidding.

In despair, Matt calls on Christ, and gets an opportunity to confess again, this time to an archangel, and he does so fully, getting out all the nasties - but the archangel does not have to power to absolve his sins. What follows instead is a theological argument over the Pelagian heresy (one of my favourite heresies, in part because the British monk known as Pelagius who authored the heresy is reputed to have been named Morgan at birth). Matt, you see, thinks that man is not born so tainted by sin that he cannot by his own will seek salvation, but can only submit totally to Christ and hope for the unearned gift of grace. Which is totally against orthodox Catholic doctrine.

So the archangel sets Matt straight on that score, and points the way to a multitude of ghosts, all moving toward a point where the Risen Christ will remit their sins. Matt can still find salvation. Hallelujah, amen.

Sigh. Wright may think he has the chops to pull this kind of thing off, but all I can say to him is "I have read C. S. Lewis, and you, sir, are no C. S. Lewis."