Loren Eaton, at I Saw Lightning Fall, writes today about the Via Negativa. That’s the technique of telling a moral story through depicting vice, and revealing its destructive effects.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, if I understand the concept correctly, was largely (not wholly) a Via Negativa story, in that it denounced slavery by examining slavery (it was also a Via Positiva story, in that it showcased the exemplary life of the main character).
When I was a boy, a teetotal relative gave me a copy of the book, Ten Nights in a Bar-Room. This was an 1854 novel, written by T. S. Arthur, in the form of a series of reminiscences by a man who stayed (at infrequent intervals) at a particular inn where liquor was served. By showing the gradual deterioration of the inn, the family that ran it, and the community it influenced, he argued for the prohibition of alcohol. It was a very influential book in its time, and a pure example of Via Negativa.
I often think of a particular scene my own The Year of the Warrior—if you’ve read it, you’ll probably recall the Great Summer Sacrifice scene. I used it to try to express all the horror which (I firmly believe) lurks behind true heathenism (as opposed to the pasteurized, humanist version generally promoted in the West today). No one has ever complained to me about the scene that I recall, but frankly it bothers me. I think I went a little too far, and if I had it to write over, I’d probably do it slightly differently.
I recall a particular novel published in the Christian market (and no, I won’t tell you which one it was), in which the author tried to do something similar, and I felt he’d crossed a line. Maybe I was wrong (the book certainly sold more copies than any of mine, and to a Christian audience). But I know there’s a danger here.
Loren’s article speaks of one danger of the Via Negativa—that the audience will miss the message, and root for the wrong side. I think there’s further danger—that the author will look into the abyss, and find the abyss looking back into him.
In my estimation (and maybe I misunderstand entirely) I thought novelist Thomas Harris succumbed to this temptation to some extent in dealing with his charismatic villain, Hannibal Lector. When Lector first appeared in Red Dragon, and when he reappeared in The Silence of the Lambs, Harris was able to keep his balance, getting deep into the psyche of the villain, but never taking his side. But in the follow-up novel, Hannibal, it seemed to me he lost his bearings, and began to delight, to some extent, in Lector’s atrocities. I never even looked at Hannibal Rising.
That doesn’t make the Via Negativa too dangerous to try. It just means we need to take care.
And choose wise readers to give us feedback.
