I had the good fortune recently to be able to attend the fourth annual Tolkien lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford, delivered by the inspiring writer, editor, artist, and my dear friend, Terri Windling. There can be few if any who are better read in fantasy literature both old and new, and her lecture, “Reflections on Fantasy Literature in the Post-Tolkien Era” developed into an eloquent and heartfelt plea for “slower, deeper, more numinous” fantasy.
Terri set a challenge to all those of us who write, read, review and love modern fantasy: Tolkien’s themes of epic conflict between forces of good and evil echoed the two great wars of the 20th century; his work was at the time both ground-breaking and relevant. Can we writing today find themes relevant to the problems our 21st-century world now faces, such as the ecological and social disasters triggered by climate change?
You can watch Terri’s full lecture here:
What does this mean? Should we be hunting for a theme and wrapping some fantasy around it? Of course not. You can’t fake sincerity. Message-led fiction of whatever variety is rarely successful. Where there are exceptions (I’ll give you Black Beauty) it’s when such books emerge from long-held inner meditations and conviction. But as John Keats said, “if poetry come not as naturally as the leaves to the tree, it had better not come at all.” By this he didn’t mean “don’t write unless you’re inspired”; he means that the words you write must spring from the truth within you. It can’t be forced. But if there’s no truth, you are short-changing the reader and cheating yourself.
So—can fantasy say anything true or profound? This sort of doubt levelled at fantasy was once levelled at all fiction. What makes a writer choose one genre over another, anyway? Why are some drawn to contemporary fiction, others to historical fiction, fantasy or thrillers? I know and admire a number of authors who can handle a variety of forms, but there are many like myself who stick to a single last. I began writing fairy tales when I was ten, and I’ve been faithful ever since. This doesn’t mean I haven’t had qualms. I’ve asked myself, in the past, what relevance tales of magic and fantasy have or can have to the problems of life. Can they ever really be serious? Shouldn’t I— shouldn’t I? —be writing something more meaningful?
I do find meaning in fairy tales. They offer the kind of metaphorical, personal, elusive meaning that poetry affords; and I have come to the conclusion that what is done with a whole heart, with love, and with as much truth as I can personally muster, must be good enough. More than that is out of my control. I have no choice. There is in writing, as in all art, something that feels remarkably like outside inspiration, a fierce compulsion that grasps you by the hair and demands and absolutely requires: this is what you will write about. This, and this alone. If you disobey it you feel restless, haunted. You can’t forget or ignore it. You can’t turn your back and decide to write about something else. (If you try, it’s likely to go dead on you.)
The problem is that the divine or daemonic impulse only takes you so far. It sets you going and then leaves you to stumble along on your own, as best you can. If you’re lucky you’ll get occasional vivid flashes to light your path, but for the rest, you need to learn the craft. You need technique, patience, persistence and the ability to learn from criticism. This applies no matter what type of fiction you happen to have fallen in love with.
But it’s good to be aware of the particular pitfalls of your chosen genre. I wouldn’t like to speak for others, but in the early stages of my career as a fantasy writer I was anxious about the possibility of getting carried away by colourful but superficial effects, and forgetting or neglecting emotional truth. Fairies are after all notorious for their cold hearts. John Keats, something of a touchstone of mine, warns us in “La Belle Dame sans Merci” that playing with magic is perilous. The faerie lady’s kisses may suck the living soul out of you; the magic casement opens on faerie seas “forlorn”, and: “Forlorn! the very word is like a bell/That tolls me back from thee to my sole self…” Fancy, says Keats, is a “deceitful elf”. Fantasy needs to keep faith with reality, to have at least one foot on solid ground while at the same time leading us away, lifting our eyes to the blue horizon, the edge of the known world, the white spaces on the map. That sense of never-attainable mystery, as Terri reminds us in her lecture, is one of the things which brings us back again and again to breathe the air of Narnia, Earthsea, and Middle-earth.
Characters, too, need space to breathe and live. I don’t know about you but I’m far more interested in Aragorn as Strider, the weatherbeaten ranger from the North, than I would be if I only knew him as the heroic King of Gondor. Ulysses is more than a hero island-hopping from one marvelous adventure to another; he’s a war-weary veteran desperate to get home. Malory’s Lancelot isn’t just the best knight in the world and a hero sans reproche, he’s a breathing, fallible man torn between his honour and his sense of sin, his love for Arthur and his love for Guinevere. He knows he’s unworthy of the Holy Grail—so when he’s finally allowed to perform a miracle of healing, he reacts with uncontrollable tears, weeping “like a child that has been beaten”.
“Slower, deeper, more numinous fantasy”? Yes, please.
This article originally appeared on Katherine Langrish’s blog, Seven Miles of Steel Thistles, on June 17th.
Katherine Langrish is a British fantasy writer whose books include Troll Fell and The Shadow Hunt (HarperCollins). She is the creator of the blog Seven Miles of Steel Thistles which discusses fairy tales, folk-lore and fantasy.
i’m not sure why this is even a question. of course you can find truth and meaning in fantasy (much as you can and do in sf). now, if we are talking about Truths and Very Important Profound Things…well, sure, that too is possible. less likely, because Very Important Profound Things that make Very Important Profound Books are fucking boring subjects. not to mention vastly less important than they think they are.
truth and meaning in literature of any stripe is a deeply personal, subjective thing. you may find deep meaning where there is none for me; just as i may see beauty where you do not. stories always speak differently to different people. worrying too much whether your story is profound or not is, well, silly. it will touch those it speaks to, as it touches those who speak it. that is really all that is important. tell the story you wish to tell and let those who want to hear it, listen.
That’s kind of what I was saying. Only more succinct. :))
The truly beautiful thing about the fantasy genre is that it can be whatever you want. We tend to think of fantasy as only a certain thing, more so now than ever. It’s the long journey fraught with peril of Tolkien, or the borderline nihilistic harsh reality of Game of Thrones. Yet, fantasy can really do, and be, whatever the writer needs of it.
Warcraft, both games and film, are an example of this. More than just a big splashy special effects extravaganza, it also allows a closer examination of The Other, from both sides. How Orcs see humans, and how Humans see Orcs is a central theme, with neither being entirely right. A small number of brave characters on both sides try to bridge the gap, stumble, fail, and try again. There’s massive echos of racial division, the conflicts that rise up around it, and the difficulties of of those who want to overcome it. That’s pretty much taking a modern problem and dealing with it through fantasy, right there.
The thing to remember with fantasy is that the only rules it must adhere to are the rules of the world in which it takes place. That is the reality of the story, and the one that matters most. So, yes, you can explore anything in a fantasy setting, as long as the rules of the world remain consistent.
A world where bi-sexual is the norm, allowing an exploration of relationships from that perspective? Easy to do. A world where women have always been treated with the same respect as men, allowing the writer to explore what effects gender equality would have? Not a problem. A world where excessive magic use is slowly causing the destruction of the environment? Simple to pull off. Even an exploration of slavery, from the perspective of non-human characters, such as Goblins or Kobolds could be done with great ease.
The only thing preventing it is an unwillingness on the part of publishers, for the most part, to break with tradition, and writers too afraid of lashback to tackle the subject. You need both to pull it off, unfortunately, and neither seem over eager to take the chance.
Like you, I’m a writer of fantasy, with my first novel on the way from a small publisher willing to gamble on a fantasy story where the two main characters are women, one of whom is mute. A world setting where Ogres are considered a noble race of warriors, but the first one we really meet is wise and thoughtful. A world where there is little in the way of gender politics, outside a few people who cling to what are considered antiquated notions by the world at large, or backwards villages far removed from the day to day reality, and as such, are stuck in their ways. We see women as soldiers, leaders, and in every profession. We see several who are not the least bit afraid or reticent in their sexuality. We see people of color at every level of society, because skin color is irrelevant. (My novel is the first in a series, so there’s a lot more things coming, such as asexual characters, transgender characters, and looks at many different walks of life.)
Not saying there are no Others, as there are, but the how and why of that is something that does get explored, and will continue to do so. Point is, you can build a world in fantasy that can explore topics from many different angles, and with many different points of view. It isn’t that it’s difficult to do it, it’s that there isn’t a lot of willingness to break with the traditional view of fantasy at every level. Even readers are hesitant to pick up a fantasy novel that explores anything other than killing a dragon or saving the world from evil.
The big ideas, the important things, has come to be associated with science fiction, while fantasy is still considered by many to be the playground of teens and kids. You want to change things, that’s where we need to start. Fantasy can be anything, if people are willing to let it be. It will take publishers, writers, and readers to do that, though, so it’s a pretty big hurdle to clear.
Personally, I’m happy to be someone who is at least trying, and I figure, from the article, you are, too. Who knows, maybe we’ll even manage it.
It always surprises me a bit when I meet people who DON’T realize this; one of the things I really enjoy about both fantasy and sf aren’t necessarily the trappings/worldbuilding (that’s fun too) but the way it can be used to explore other things. Sometimes it is escapism but what we are escaping TO is sometimes very important.
Good luck with the novel, CainSLatrani. Your comment reminds me of Ursula K LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness where she wonderfully explores a world in which people regularly change gender and the human narrator with his fixed gender is politely but definitely regarded as an off-world freak. Fantasy lets us look at ourselves in different mirrors.
LisaMarie, yes!
It speaks to the bemoaned divide between fantasy and literary, the long-lasting desire to have fantasy work recognized by the Booker (sometimes), the Nobel (not yet, I don’t think), etc. and – when it does – not seen as an anomaly. We can’t simply rant that it deserves that level of regard and expect to get it, with fantasy that has too much focus on trends and flash. What does it have to be about, to reach that level, or how does it need to be written? How well we explode tropes is a dead end, for its being a better measure of whether we’re bringing something fresh to a tired genre reader’s eyes than whether we’re actually evolving or “raising” the genre; it’s important but it’s a side issue and the wrong path when aiming for “meaningful”. We do have some good examples, mentioned here, of the correct aim: Ursula Le Guin, etc. I’d also cite Guy Gavriel Kay. Writing that speaks to and illuminates the human condition, causes us to view ourselves in a different way, reflect the zeitgeist of our times as LOTR did. I suspect the surest path is smaller scale, more inward focussed, more quiet, more personal. Steven Erikson’s Malazan had umpteen hundred flashes of it but it all got a bit lost in the size. I’m sure there’s people doing it right, but it’s hard to see or draw attention to amid the trends and flash. Very hard to get genre fans excited about it, or sway the market to support it.
@5
Thank you, very much. So far, the reviews from advanced readers has been extremely positive, which has made me feel better about humanity in general. Fantasy should be a welcoming genre to all, allowing us to see ourselves through different eyes. More than any genre, I think fantasy is capable of that.
And a faint comparison to the great Ursula K LeGuin. Now I’m all nervous and happy! Won’t lie, she was a big influence on me as a writer, along with Tanith Lee and many others.