Science Fiction Fantasy Chronicles: forums - View Single Post - Some thoughts on the direction Fantasy seems to be heading -- present and future.

Teresa Edgerton · 13th November 2007, 07:30 PM

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.)

13th November 2007, 07:30 PM	#30 (permalink)
Teresa Edgerton Super Moderator Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: California Posts: 4,453	Re: Some thoughts on the direction Fantasy seems to be heading -- present and future. 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.)