Sense of wonder
In science fiction journalism, a sense of wonder is a specific, often desirable, intellectual and emotional state evoked in the reader by the genre.
Definitions
This entry focuses on one specific use of the phrase "sense of wonder." This phrase is widely used in contexts that have nothing to do with science fiction. The following relates to the use of "sense of wonder" within the context of science fiction. In Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction the term sense of wonder is defined as follows:Jon Radoff has characterised a sense of wonder as an emotional reaction to the reader suddenly confronting, understanding, or seeing a concept anew in the context of new information.
In the introductory section of his essay 'On the Grotesque in Science Fiction', Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Professor of English, DePauw University, states:
John Clute and Peter Nicholls associate the experience with that of the "conceptual breakthrough" or "paradigm shift". In many cases, it is achieved through the recasting of previous narrative experiences in a larger context. It can be found in short scenes and it can require entire novels to set up
George Mann defines the term as "the sense of inspired awe that is aroused in a reader when the full implications of an event or action become realized, or when the immensity of a plot or idea first becomes known;" and he associates the term with the Golden Age of SF and the pulp magazines prevalent at the time. One of the major writers of the Golden Age, Isaac Asimov, agreed with this association: in 1967 commenting on the changes occurring in SF he wrote,
As a concept especially connected with science fiction
suggests that this 'sense of wonder' is associated only with science fiction as distinct from science fantasy, stating:However, the editor and critic David Hartwell sees SF's 'sense of wonder' in more general terms, as "being at the root of the excitement of science fiction". For Hartwell, "Science fiction's appeal lies in combination of the rational, the believable, with the miraculous."
Academic criticism of science fiction literature identifies the idea of the sublime described by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant—infinity, immensity, "delightful horror"—as a key to understanding the concept of "sense of wonder" in science fiction. For example, Professor of English at the University of Iowa, Brooks Landon says:
Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove's history of science fiction, Trillion Year Spree, also invokes Gothic horror and the concept of the sublime. Paul K. Alkon does likewise in his book on science fiction before 1900, arguing that science fiction provides a way to "achieve sublimity without recourse to the supernatural."
Edward James, in a section of his book entitled 'The Sense of Wonder' says on this point of the origin of the 'sense of wonder' in SF:
James goes on to explore the same point as made by David Hartwell in his book Age of Wonders as regards the relationship of the 'sense of wonder' in SF to religion or the religious experience. He states that:
As an example James takes the short story 'The Nine Billion Names of God' by Arthur C. Clarke. He explains:
Others have opined that Clarke "has dedicated his career to evoking a "sense of wonder" at the sublime spaces of the universe..." and cited his novels like Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama in that regard.
Kathryn Cramer in her essay 'On Science and Science Fiction' also explores the relationship of SF's 'sense of wonder' to religion, stating that "The primacy of the sense of wonder in science fiction poses a direct challenge to religion: Does the wonder of science and the natural world as experienced through science fiction replace religious awe?"
However, as Brooks Landon shows, not all 'sense of wonder' needs to be so closely related to the classical sense of the Sublime. Commenting on the story 'Twilight' by John W. Campbell he says:
Despite the attempts above to define and illustrate the 'sense of wonder' in SF, Csicsery-Ronay Jr. argues that "unlike most of the other qualities regularly associated with the genre, the sense of wonder resists critical commentary." The reason he suggests is that,
Nevertheless, despite this "resistance to critical commentary," the 'sense of wonder' has "a well-established pedigree in art, separated into two related categories of response: the expansive sublime and the intensive grotesque." Csicsery-Ronay Jr. explains the difference between these two categories as follows:
Later in this same essay the author argues that "the sublime and the grotesque are in such close kinship that they are shadows of each other," and that "it is not always easy to distinguish the two, and the grotesque of one age easily becomes the sublime of another." He gives as an example the android in the second 'Terminator' film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, saying that "The T-1000, like so many liminal figures in sf, is almost simultaneously sublime and grotesque. Its fascinating shape-shifting would be the object of sublime awe were it not for its sadistic violation of mundane flesh."