 |
[email protected] |
 |
3275638434 |
 |
 |
| Paper Publishing WeChat |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Merlin and Stonehenge in Daina Chaviano’s Fables of an Extraterrestrial Grandmother
Robin McAllister
Full-Text PDF
XML 1065 Views
DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2016.05.005
Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, Ct., USA
When Merlin first appears in Chaviano’s Fables of an Extraterrestrial Grandmother as the wizard Soio, he reflects the imagination of Ana, the adolescent protagonist of the science fiction novel as she is in the process of writing the very novel the reader is reading. Later she will discover that her fictional creations are not the invention of her imagination but exist autonomously in parallel universes and are using her as a vehicle of inter-dimensional travel through time and space. Soio/Merlin gazes into his crystal ball, a microcosm that gathers the space-time energy fields of the parallel universes, and sees visions of the protagonists whose modes of existence are real in one and fictional in another parallel universe. Merlin is a Druid in exile from the Neolithic world of Celtic Britain who has crossed over from earthly life to existence in Rybel, a parallel universe. He had crossed over by lining up the Stone of the Past and the Mirror of the Future at the great circle of Stonehenge. The stone circle functioned as an astronomical observatory. Stonehenge is a microcosm, a circle that reflects and coordinates the larger circle of the universe, symbolized and embodied in the sphere or crystal ball that Merlin transmits to Ana in the form of the novel being read. All the characters are trying to coordinate dimensions of space and time in order to fly from one parallel universe to another. Chaviano emphasizes crossing boundaries of time and space. Her characters live in one world but belonging to another, yearn to make contact with the forces of the universe that will bring them home. Chaviano’s use of the Merlin legend is original and takes into account archaeological evidence about the Celts, Druids, and Stonehenge.
Daina Chaviano, science fiction, Merlin, Stonehenge
Chaviano, D. (1988). Fabulas de una abuela extraterrestre (Fables of an extraterrestrial grandmother). La Habana, Cuba: Editorial Letras Cubanas.
Goodrich, N. L. (1988). Merlin. New York: Harper and Row.
McAllister, R. (2014). Shamanic imagination in Daina Chaviano’s Fables of an Extraterrestrial Grandmother. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 4, 817-821.