Game of life

At least since the 18th century, there have been periodic complaints that the world has been drained of enchantment. Once, every meadow, grove and stream seemed appareled in a celestial light. People believed in some sort of natural supernaturalism surrounding them, or felt other worlds enriching our own, whether they were the realms of Faery or the Christian heaven.

Then came the fall. Rationalism, new technology, the disappearance of traditional religious beliefs, the population shift from the country to the city, the rise of democratic governments - all leached the marvelous from existence, leaving humanity roiled in the gloomy condition we call modernity.

Is there no way to re-enchant our mundane, dreary lives while preserving the myriad benefits of the machine age?

According to cultural historian Michael Saler, during the late 19th century - the fin de siecle - people attempted to do just this through an increasing immersion in the fantastic. Spiritualism, the occult, Eastern beliefs and extreme aestheticism offered various paths back to Eden. But all too often these creeds - like some of their modern successors - required one to surrender reason and independent thought as a prerequisite to entering the lost garden.

As an alternative, argues this brilliant if sometimes densely written book, one might instead turn to an early form of virtual reality. Through certain literary texts, people found that they could immerse themselves in various imaginary or secondary worlds. Moreover, by maintaining a sense of irony, they could experience enriching delight without surrendering to delusion.

In effect, As If explores the rewards of participatory fandom, concentrating on three groups: the devotees of Sherlock Holmes, especially the famous literary and dining club called the Baker Street Irregulars; the connoisseurs of H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu Mythos; and the scholarly enthusiasts of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.

To some onlookers, people who pretend that Sherlock Holmes existed, who don't laugh at Lovecraft's tentacled or piscine horrors, or who take the trouble to learn Elvish should all go out and get a life. One might reasonably answer: That's just what they've done. By periodically inhabiting vicarious realms, they have created a second life, discovered a way to gladden their souls, gained fresh perspectives on the real world and enjoyed a genuine human connectedness with their fellow enthusiasts.

People accomplish this, Saler repeatedly stresses, through the maintenance of "the double consciousness" of the ironic imagination - a willingness to play a game wholeheartedly while understanding that it is only a game. This is, in essence, the same attitude we bring to enjoying a conjurer's performance: We revel in the tricks and illusions without believing that they are achieved through actual magic.

Such "as if" play, one might argue, is a source of inner enrichment and essential to our full humanity. Virtual communities and environments teach us, in the words of critic Marie-Laure Ryan, "to live, work, and play with the fluid, the open, the potential."

As Saler points out, "as if" activity requires not so much "the willing suspension of disbelief" as "the willing activation of pretense." Historically speaking, certain rich, multi-layered works have encouraged such "activation of pretense" through the use of scholarly and scientific paratexts -- that is, maps, documents, footnotes, charts, glossaries, historical timelines, photographs, illustrations and allusions to events outside the story proper. This material plethora displayed a playful seriousness and encouraged a serious playfulness from readers.

Saler mentions, for instance, the 19th-century Hetzel editions of Jules Verne. These elaborate, oversize volumes, bound in gorgeously decorated covers (featuring a Vernean collage of elephants, submarines and balloons) and packed with detailed yet evocative steel engravings, are book-worlds that one can live in. As a child, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre adored the Hetzel editions, remembering them as "magic boxes" and little theaters. Such works were spectacular, in both senses of the word. (next page »)