Some thoughts on the direction Fantasy seems to be heading -- present and future.

[Teresa Edgerton]

One thing we haven't been talking about is that missing (missing in my opinion at least) sense of wonder.

I'm almost through reading No Flame But Mine, the last book in Tanith Lee's Lionwolf trilogy. And I like the book very much -- a great deal more than the second book, which seemed to wander too far, too often, from the main threads of an already complex story -- but considerably less than the first book, Cast a Bright Shadow.

On the face of it, I should be enjoying Flame more, since the themes are transformation and renewel -- entirely congenial with my personal taste -- and the body count is rather less, while the events of Shadow are far more tragic and cruel, including a mass slaughter. So why do I like Shadow better, when it is full of things that make me cringe? It's because there is so much more in it of the marvelous and the numinous.

Now at least for me any sense of the numinous is getting harder and harder to find, but the marvelous is aparently still alive and well in the genre where Space Ship's efforts are focussed -- the YA Fantasy. Of course this genre has its share of good books and bad books; some of them are simplistic, some of them are shallow. But the best ones are shaking off most of the familiar Fantasy conventions and spontaneously creating new ones. Without melodrama to fall back on, these authors seem to really be stretching the boundaries of their imaginations -- and I predict that the kids who are reading these books now are going to be expecting a lot more from Adult Fantasy when they reach that stage in a few years time. Whether the market will change to accomodate them, or whether they'll be disappointed and we'll lose them is another question.

[j. d. worthington]

There are a lot of interesting thoughts here, and several have points I agree with. For one thing, I've come more and more to note, as Scalem says, that such trends come and go throughout history; sometimes in art, and sometimes in life itself. Certainly our world isn't much (if any) darker than some periods now and again in history; it's simply that we have much more immediate and widespread communication, and are therefore more aware of the darker aspects than we were when the only ways of communicating were word-of-mouth or letters... which could take months or even years to reach their destinations. About the only exceptions to this I can think of are what happened in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, etc.; and even these are only on a larger scale because of the technological ability to carry out such mass murder so quickly -- put the same resources in the hands of a Vlad Ţepeş and you'd most likely have had the same thing then... not to mention a number of other sovereigns of the past.

Which isn't to say that we don't need to address this tendency to see the world as devoid of light -- I'd say we very much do; but to not let ourselves be so discouraged by what we perceive to be a growing trend... for much the same reasons that power the very fictional vices we're talking about here.

On the uses of torture, etc.... despite the egregious behavior we see headlined so often, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the general trend of the human race is away from such brutality; our ethics seem to be going more and more in the opposite direction overall, and behaviors that have long been taken for granted are now generally met with disapproval and even ostracization.

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

One thing we haven't been talking about is that missing (missing in my opinion at least) sense of wonder.

On the face of it, I should be enjoying Flame more, since the themes are transformation and renewel -- entirely congenial with my personal taste -- and the body count is rather less, while the events of Shadow are far more tragic and cruel, including a mass slaughter. So why do I like Shadow better, when it is full of things that make me cringe? It's because there is so much more in it of the marvelous and the numinous.

This one is especially of interest to me, as it's what has been driving me more and more into the older writers, who were so very aware of this very important aspect of literature. It's something that expands our awareness of the world (and the universe) around us, and adds so many levels to our appreciation of life in such subtle and profound ways. It also helps us to recognize our relationship to the "other" -- something that is (or should be) especially a part of sff, I'd say.

One can see this aspect of things even in Robert E. Howard's Conan tales -- e.g., "The Tower of the Elephant" or "Beyond the Black River"; not to mention such writers as Dunsany, Eddison, or even Merritt. This is something I see as having been largely (though not entirely) lost -- perhaps it has to do with a general movement toward the secular and away from the religious or mystical, or perhaps it's for some other reason; but it seems to me that writing has had a trend toward the darker and more brutal and sensational and afraid of a more optimistic or humanistic stance, but we've also become afraid to mull over this aspect of our emotional spectrum -- almost as if we're afraid to admit to having this to our personalities. Good grief, even a hardline rationalist like Lovecraft recognized the importance of this to our emotional well-being.

EDIT: Sorry for any oddities here... computer problems caused it to lock up on me at one point...

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

On the uses of torture, etc.... despite the egregious behavior we see headlined so often, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the general trend of the human race is away from such brutality; our ethics seem to be going more and more in the opposite direction overall, and behaviors that have long been taken for granted are now generally met with disapproval and even ostracization.

Actually, JD, I too am convinced that the general trend of the human race is away from brutality and toward ethical behavior, and I've had (still do to a certain extent) little patience with people who over-dramatized the ills of the present as though we were living in some sort of dark age, when even a cursory knowledge of history should tell us we are not.

But I feel that in the last five or ten years Western society has regressed. Not in any grandiose way, but still in ways that trouble me, not because I feel that any long term damage is being done -- the more humane trend will resume it's course sooner or later -- but we have to live now, and our children and grandchildren have to live with the legacy we create for them now, and if it all comes right again in another fifty years -- that's of little comfort to me, and far less, I am sure, to the people being subjected now to the everyday cruelties I mentioned before.

But for the upward trend to resume it's course, people have to believe in it. And just at the moment it seems like too many don't and that saddens me. Above, all young people seem not to believe or care, and that's even sadder. You and I remember well how angry so many members of our own generation were back in the 60's and early 70's; and some of it was misplaced and some of it based on ignorance and some of it was entirely justified; but it was an anger that had much in it of compassion, and a belief that it was possible, and indeed imperative, for groups and individuals to become a force for positive change. And you don't see so much of that kind of anger anymore; instead, the anger seems to be growing increasingly fatalistic. (Except for Al Gore. Yay, Al! But he's one of ours.)

And I look back on all the psychedelic posters and the tie-dye shirts and the unicorns and glitter and all the rest of it -- and yes, it does seem rather silly and naïve, but somehow it all did seem to energize people, didn't it? It was overworked and it was overdone and it eventually became trite and lost its power, but for a while the power was there. And I would like to think that there might be some way -- some way more appropriate to our times -- ideally, some way more sophisticated and more enduring -- that we could tap into that power again and direct it more wisely and keep it longer.

But if the most imaginative part of the creative community (which I modestly assume to be SFF readers and writers and artists, of course), if they can't see their way clear to discovering that power, then who will?

[Giovanna Clairval]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

Honestly, I don't see much evidence that readers are identifying with the victims as much as the aggressors.

I was referring not to the voluntary--so to say-- identification with the victim (poor thing--I wish she could punch the aggressor in the face / escape / become wiser) but to the involuntary variety of identification.

In this unconscious identification, the reader is the aggressor and the victim—as it happens in sadomasochism, where the double noun does not describe two persons, but one, who inflicts (in her mind) and receives pain (and vice versa).

During a rape, the raping one is also the raped one, as weird and kinky as it may sound (it is kinky: it’s a perversion).

Well, a certain amount of perversion, which does not act out, is in everyone’s mind.

I was saying that:

1) Our time is permissive when it comes to giving people the opportunity to experience sensations, as other times were.

2) A great amount of suffering in novels is linked to the authors’ own suffering.

I agree with you, Teresa, on the fact that several authors use 1) for sensationalism = dollars. And, of course, sensations and sensationalism are not the same, and the first trend does not justify the second.

As for Edmond Dantès and Jean Valjean, I simply said that they were subjected to torture, but—and once again, I agree with you—the great, enormous difference between those two characters and others soulless heroes, is that the first undergo a personal growth.

I think that every novel should tackle some kind of evolution of the characters. All books that relate an inner quest teach us something.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well, I hoped to stir up discussion, Giovanna, and you're obliging me, which I very much appreciate -- even though I think we may be not quite understanding each other, and seem to be talking at cross-purposes even where we're basically in agreement.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

Actually, JD, I too am convinced that the general trend of the human race is away from brutality and toward ethical behavior, and I've had (still do to a certain extent) little patience with people who over-dramatized the ills of the present as though we were living in some sort of dark age, when even a cursory knowledge of history should tell us we are not.

But I feel that in the last five or ten years Western society has regressed. Not in any grandiose way, but still in ways that trouble me, not because I feel that any long term damage is being done -- the more humane trend will resume it's course sooner or later -- but we have to live now, and our children and grandchildren have to live with the legacy we create for them now, and if it all comes right again in another fifty years -- that's of little comfort to me, and far less, I am sure, to the people being subjected now to the everyday cruelties I mentioned before.

But for the upward trend to resume it's course, people have to believe in it. And just at the moment it seems like too many don't and that saddens me. Above, all young people seem not to believe or care, and that's even sadder. You and I remember well how angry so many members of our own generation were back in the 60's and early 70's; and some of it was misplaced and some of it based on ignorance and some of it was entirely justified; but it was an anger that had much in it of compassion, and a belief that it was possible, and indeed imperative, for groups and individuals to become a force for positive change. And you don't see so much of that kind of anger anymore; instead, the anger seems to be growing increasingly fatalistic. (Except for Al Gore. Yay, Al! But he's one of ours.)

And I look back on all the psychedelic posters and the tie-dye shirts and the unicorns and glitter and all the rest of it -- and yes, it does seem rather silly and naïve, but somehow it all did seem to energize people, didn't it? It was overworked and it was overdone and it eventually became trite and lost its power, but for a while the power was there. And I would like to think that there might be some way -- some way more appropriate to our times -- ideally, some way more sophisticated and more enduring -- that we could tap into that power again and direct it more wisely and keep it longer.

But if the most imaginative part of the creative community (which I modestly assume to be SFF readers and writers and artists, of course), if they can't see their way clear to discovering that power, then who will?

First, I'd rather thought that was your approach from many things you've said. I was speaking in the general sense of our current society seems to have this perception of things; and this, I do think, is part of the "growing up" or disillusion in the true sense of outgrowing illusions of the past but not yet having accepted and come to terms with realities as valid and emotionally fulfilling... and not finding them to be so yet simply because they are different than what we've always been taught to expect reality to be. So this seems to me the sort of overreaction with which such a transitional period is rife.

As for the idea of writers contributing to such changes as you speak of -- I agree here, as well; in fact, this also is one of the major themes of Moorcock's work of the past two decades: that we create these myths because they are important symbols for us, and then we try to create a world that makes the best (and sometimes the worst) of these myths reality -- but that we (as a species or as a society) are constantly searching for the ennobling myths because they are more satisfying and richer in the long haul. And, of course, in books like Blood, Fabulous Harbours, The War Amongst the Angels, etc., he stresses the popular myths created by writers and taken as part of popular culture which help to remodel that culture's psyche. And these books, dark as they are at times, are among the most life-affirming pieces I can think of.

And what you say about the various aspects of the 60's is, I think, what I've argued with people about for years (usually those who weren't there to see it): that yes, some of this stuff really did get silly, but there was a commitment to make a better world then, and a joy in life that we've been lacking, in the main -- here in the States -- since Watergate. It's true that our government hasn't done a hell of a lot to rebuild that feeling of confidence and hope for the future; if anything, the venality, lies, and shadow-plays they've been staging for the past 40 years have done more than perhaps anything else to leech such out of the people. Yet I, too, would say that there's still a way to have a more sophisticated version of that sort of optimism, if we are willing to work at it... and perhaps to take more of the realities into account so that we don't become disillusioned (in the more negative sense) so easily, but can adjust to the realities without losing our goal of making positive changes.

And on this one... I think we do need a more balanced view in fantasy; not starry-eyed optimism or Pollyannish views of the world, but to recapture that awareness that we're seeing in the sciences right now of the incredible complexity and richness of existence; except that fantasy, being the sort of beastie it is, really would prove able to help us, as Tolkien said (albeit I'm using my own words), see the world through new eyes -- to be once more captured by the wonder of a bud bursting and becoming leaves, or petals... or the immese golden depths in the eye of the humble toad. To quote from The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao: "The whole world is a circus if you look at it the right way. Every time you pick up a handful of dust, and see not the dust, but a mystery, a marvel, there in your hand. Every time you stop and think, 'I'm alive, and being alive is fantastic.' Every time such a thing happens, you, too, are a part of the Circus of Dr. Lao."

[Giovanna Clairval]

Still wondering what the definition of a novel is...

And also... in the 60s, before the arrival of new writers like Roger Zelazny (and Moorcok, and many others), SFF literature was stuck with well-worn icons; this topic has already been explored here. But with the new authors, the accent was put on renewal as personal growth and belief in the possibility of a deep change in society--all revolving about spiritual advancement seen as a quality intrinsic to Humanity.

After the Watergate scandal in the US, and the concomitant reaction against the students' (and workers') tentative revolution in Europe, the genre has mirrored the general loss of hope, reverting to either comfortable clichés or dark post-modern pseudo-nihilistic streaks.

It is a phase the genre is traversing, a mirror of the sentiments of what has been called "the lost generation". But I think that something is stirring...

[iansales]

Originally Posted by Giovanna Clairval

Still wondering what the definition of a novel is...

The Huga Award defines a novel is anything over 40,000 words.

Originally Posted by Giovanna Clairval

And also... in the 60s, before the arrival of new writers like Roger Zelazny (and Moorcok, and many others), SFF literature was stuck with well-worn icons; this topic has already been explored here. But with the new authors, the accent was put on renewal as personal growth and belief in the possibility of a deep change in society--all revolving about spiritual advancement seen as a quality intrinsic to Humanity.

The New Wave stressed "inner space" over outer space, but I'm fairly sure spiritual advancement wasn't on the agenda. They were a pretty secualr bunch.

Originally Posted by Giovanna Clairval

After the Watergate scandal in the US, and the concomitant reaction against the students' (and workers') tentative revolution in Europe, the genre has mirrored the general loss of hope, reverting to either comfortable clichés or dark post-modern pseudo-nihilistic streaks.

And yet there is no comparable event in British history - the Winter of Discontent, perhaps; although that was the late 1970s. Certainly the Brits had plenty to be miserable about, and it showed in their fiction.

And now, it seems the situation has reversed - the Brits have the optimism, and the americans don't. There was a panel devoted to the subject at Novacon. Charles Stross suggested that this is because the US confidence is at an all-time low - an unpopular government, embroiled in pointless wars, the realisation that they're no longer liked abroad...

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by Giovanna Clairval

It is a phase the genre is traversing, a mirror of the sentiments of what has been called "the lost generation". But I think that something is stirring...

I hope you are right; not only because of all the reasons I've stated before, but because it would provide something in the way of variety.

As for what constitutes a novel (Wasn't that question asked in another thread? I'm confused), I suspect the ultra-literary establishment would reject any definitions put forward by the Hugo Award committee because they're all genre writers. However, my husband's desk dictionary (I'm not going out to my office to look at mine) is on the side of the Hugo. It describes a novel simply as "a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length."

[j. d. worthington]

On the definition of novel, the American Heritage Dictionary has something very similar, though with a bit more detail:

1. A fictional prose narrative of considerable length, typically having a plot that is unfolded by the actions, speech, and thoughts of the characters. 2. The literary genre represented by novels.

while Skeat's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language goes with its original meaning (new, strange), and how that relates to the modern usage, deriving from what was originally called "innovator", as novel as a form of literature originally meant "news":

novel, sb., a late word in the mod. sense, but the pl. novels (= news) occurs in the Towneley Mysteries (see Trench, Select Glossary); novel-ist, formerly an innovator (Trench)

As for the following:

And also... in the 60s, before the arrival of new writers like Roger Zelazny (and Moorcok, and many others), SFF literature was stuck with well-worn icons; this topic has already been explored here. But with the new authors, the accent was put on renewal as personal growth and belief in the possibility of a deep change in society--all revolving about spiritual advancement seen as a quality intrinsic to Humanity.

while there is some justice to this, it is by no means the whole picture. For one thing, we had innovators like Bradbury, Kuttner, Moore, Bester, Dick, (Oscar) Lewis, Farmer, etc. working through the 50s (and some through the 1930s and 1940s, as well). Even many of the more traditional writers would step outside the more accepted motifs now and again, from Heinlein to Asimov to Clarke to Aldiss.

Still, as a general statement, it's a useful distinction (though I think I'd date it to the birth of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Galaxy, both of which began in the 1950s....) And, while Ian's right in that they were largely a secular bunch, there was a certain amount of mysticism involved in the work of some, as well....

Again, however, this is dealing with sf, rather than fantasy, which also had a fair amount of leeway -- look at such writers as Gerald Kersh (who wrote some excellent fantasy tales), Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Kuttner and Moore (again), Clark Ashton Smith, H. P. Lovecraft, James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, Arthur Machen, etc., etc., etc....

[Giovanna Clairval]

Sorry for the thread-concertinaing, Teresa.

But thanks for the definitions, J.D.W.
We see here the difference in the history of our languages and literatures--"novel" as opposed to the French roman, the Italian romanzo, and the German Roman, but novela in Spanish, while "short story" becomes nouvelle in French, Novelle in German, racconto in Italian, and cuento in Spanish.
So, my mostly Italian and French vision of what a novel is directly stems from what I've learned when I was warming up my chair in school, covertly reading the Orlando Furioso by good old Ludovico Ariosto. I kept the book hidden under the "official" text of the day, and I was interested in those passages that were never picked by the prof for commentary.

And, J.D.W., I wasn't referring to mysticism in SF/F... I was talking about the protagonist's personal growth more or less developed in both story and character-building... a sort of Adult novel of learning, an Erwachsenenbildung, if I may say so, as opposed to the full-fledged austronaut coming out of the Author's head. This happened--to make a long story short--with Zelazny bringing structures of literary fiction into Science Fiction (well, especially SF).

[j. d. worthington]

Not to take away from Zelazny -- whom I respect greatly -- but this is something he brought his own slant to, rather than bringing it to the genre. Other writers had been doing that at least as far back as Stapledon, Sloane, etc. Even some of the pulp writers brought some of that in. It was, however, in the 1960s that it became one of the more predominant aspects of the genre.

As for fantasy (rather than science fiction), it has a long history of including such things in its parameters; in part because fantasy (until -- again -- the Tolkien boom) has traditionally been an enormously broad genre that encompassed such things as the Gormenghast books, Charles Williams' or George MacDonald's allegorical novels, the almost unclassifiable novels such as E. H. Visiak's Medusa, the delicate fabulism of Lord Dunsany (or, before him, Poe and Wilde), the unabashedly archaic novels of E. R. Eddison, and tales of modern urban life as seen through the lens of the fantastic (Charles Beaumont, Harlan Ellison, Kuttner and Moore, etc.)....

Oh, and it's very nice to see a reference to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso... an absolutely marvelous (no pun intended) tale, indeed.... (Incidentally, you may be interested in Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague de Camp's original stories of Harold Shea, a fantasy series whose modern-day character ends up in such settings as that of the Norse myths -- just before Ragnarok, of course!; Spenser's Faerie Queene, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, the Irish myths and legends, and the Kalevala....)

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Charles Williams' or George MacDonald's allegorical novels

Are you saying that Charles Williams wrote allegorical novels, JD, or am I reading that sentence wrong? I haven't read everything by Williams, but the books I have read don't seem to fit neatly into allegory. They're certainly deeply spiritual and symbolic, and you can see the influence of MacDonald, but I don't find the kind of direct correspondence in terms of the metaphors that I associate with allegory.

And as far as Eddison goes, along with the archaism there is the abstruse philosophy running through all of his novels (though less obvious in The Worm Ouroboros than in the others).

[GOLLUM]

I don't know much about Charles Williams I have to admit but I do know that there's an old work that examined the allegorical nature of his works entitled Some aspects of allegory in the novels of Charles Williams The reason I know this title so well is because a friend of mine who knows a lot more about this author than I ever will has been trying to obtain a copy of it, so perhaps there's something in what Mr Worthington is alluding to.

I'm sure he'll arrive soon enough and provide an explanation in his trademark articulate style...

Then again it could be a matter of interpretation like you said?

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well, Gollum, my thinking on this is that there is a difference between stories which contain elements that may be regarded as allegorical, and that work as allegory, and novels that are themselves allegorical, in terms of the plot and characters.

Tolkien, as we know, resisted all such interpretations of The Lord of the Rings, and even went on to say that he hated allegories. But if Leaf by Niggle and Smith of Wooton Major aren't allegories, then what are they? They seem to me to contain, or even consist of, extended metaphors in the same way as MacDonald's "The Day Boy and the Night Girl." But what Williams was doing in terms of meaning and symbolism and applicability (you may remember what Tolkien said about confusing this last with allegory) seems closer to LOTR than to any of these others I have just mentioned.

In my opinion (and there's no doubt there are many who would be aghast by this heresy) novel length works do not easily or gracefully lend themselves to allegory. Invariably, there is a strain, as the characters continue to act like personifications of whatever it is they are supposed to represent instead of interacting with believable human motivations. I don't see this strain in anything I have read by Charles Williams.

But to pull this message back on topic ... I do see in Williams that sense of wonder that is missing so often in recent fantasy. In his stories there are always powers or entities or objects that defy human comprehension, that are beyond human control, which his characters try to control or tamper with or possess at their peril. There are always encounters with the numinous and the sublime, and individuals within the story who are either transformed or destroyed or translated by these encounters. (But there are also characters who are simply too blind to see what is happening and insist on interpreting events in the most mundane way possible. These are the characters who come the closest to being allegorical, as they steadfastly insist on playing their given roles: as the skeptic, the sensualist, the man of business, or whatever it might be. But the main characters are too three-dimensional and unpredictable to fit in with my idea of allegory.)