Timewaster's Guide Archive
General => Everything Else => Topic started by: EUOL on October 06, 2003, 11:20:51 PM
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Looking through the staff picks--which was VERY nicely done, by the way. I liked the detailed links to both names and reviews--I noticed a springboard to something I've been curious about for a long time.
Fantasy is a very broad term. It can, in one way, refer to any story whose elements deviate from the natural laws of this world. When most of us say fantasy, however, we are referring to Tolkienesque, or "High Fantasy."
So, what's my point? I'm curious. What exactly would you call this 'other' fantasy. Fantasies such as all of Fell's picks. Groundhog day and Mary Poppins. Is there a term you guys know of to describe this sub-genre?
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I think a good place to start is by arguing about the terms "contemporary fantasy" and "magical realism."
The latter, in my opinion implies a belief that magic (at least of whatever, usually limited, scope contained in the story) is real, and therefore it is not fantasy. Which also makes the phrase "magical realism" semi-redundant, since if magic is real, you don't usually need it as an adjective for realism. In short, I don't really like it for a fantasy phrase, and since it is in use to describe existing works that may or may not be fantasy, let's not use that.
Contemporary fantasy I like better. This is probalby personal bias, but to me it implies "low magic," or at least, as in Mary Poppins, magic that is surprising in its existence. It says to me: "I'm in a setting you already know, but I'm gonna throw in a faerie or a small dragon, or a swarm giant wasps that can only be trapped by building the world's biggest jam sandwich." (sorry, with that last one i'm just remembering a favorite children's book). I wouldn't object grouping Mary Poppins or Groundhog Day in that category.
Now, here comes the part where people disagree with me.
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EUOL, I just spent an entire semester arguing with classmates over the different sub-categorizations within fantasy and what fantasy is. At least within children's literature, there's wide disagreement about what should be considered in the realm of fantasy and how the larger genre should be subdivided. Here's the subcategories I came up with for that final project I was working on. They're fluid, though--some are more for convenience of fitting them into some place, and could go in more than one category, or don't really have a category. (These are not in any particular order, and some might be considered subcategories of another if I thought about it enough.)
Myth, folklore & legend
Turning the old stories on their heads (or, sometimes, not)--Retellings of fairy and folk tales--Using the old stories--fairy, myth, and legend--to fuel new ones
-Fairy/folk stories after the British tradition (including all Celtic traditions, English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish)
-Fairy/folk stories after non-Western traditions
Satire/tall tale/humorous
Toy stories
Witches, sorcerers, and dragons (and other magical people/creatures)
The Quest/High Fantasy
Portals to other worlds
Parallel worlds
Ghost stories
Animal fantasy
Non-human people and/or other weirdos
Wishes
Magical realism
Time Travel (sometimes fantasy, sometimes science fiction)
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The giant Jam sandwhich? I love that book. I mean, it makes perfectly logical sense.
As for fantasy genre names, I find it sort of interesting that we have "High Fantasy" at all, considering how much of it is simply trying to rewrite Tolkein (Not that some isn't original, but there's a lot of pointless fiction out there) It's kind of gotten to the stage where people take things such as Mary Poppins or whatever, that is real fanatasy, and don't really notice it as such.
Feel free to argue the point, since it's probably wrong on some fundamental level anyway.
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And once again british folklore gets mentioned. Are we just really good at making nifty legends or what?
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With Stacer's list, i think we could narrow that down to some more fundamental categories, but I'm not going to do it right now. I think also we should say "British and Western European traditions, esp since there are a lot of books based on French and Spanish ideas (and the French are responsible for half the Arthurian canon, for example).
I also maintain my dislike of "magical realism" as a fantasy subgenre. To be clear that we're nto talking about a subcategory of the realist movement, I still advocate "contemporary fantasy" (which is further broken into "modern" and "historical"). Groundhog Day, for example, being modern, while Mary Poppins is set in a more historical time.
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Isn't there also a science fiction fantasy, like Pern became?
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I think that falls under the "parallel world." How they got there being not important. The science, after all, was highly dubious at best. Taken as a fantasy, it was pretty good.
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I guess the Shadowrun novels are alternate worlds too.
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You could argue that is parallel world or contemporary fantasy. Most likely a combination of the two. This is a good example of what Stacer pointed out, that the definitions aren't hard and fast, but fluid. They do pretty much catch them all, but they don't provide a rigid system that everything fits into neatly.
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I read somewhere (I can't remember where) where someone grouped Groundhog Day into a category called "Sentimental Fantasy". The category included other romantic comedy films with fantasy elements, such as Serendipity, or LA Story.
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Sentimental fantasy? Weird...
I always felt LA story was more of a fun remake of Hamlet myself.
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I think the setting determines the genre. At least that's the way the definitions seems to work on a large, general understanding kind of level. What's the word for it? Resonance, I think. That's why most people (perhaps not afficionados, but most people) will think something along the lines of Tolkien when they hear the word "fantasy." And when you say "science fiction" they're going to think Star Wars, because of the setting. Lasers and spaceships. (Even though some people - not your average Joe but people who study it - consider Star Wars more fantasy than sci-fi.)
So things that are set in versions of the "real world," like Groundhog Day or Mary Poppins, in most people's minds (I think) are not going to be fantasy. Even something as overtly magical and with as many fantasy elements as Harry Potter. I have no proof of this, but I have a gut feeling that people would be hesitant to place the Potter movies in the same catagory with LotR. It might seem strange, even to them, when faced with all of the similarities, but something inside them would resist it. All because of the setting. Harry Potter is set in a version of the real world, not a fabricated one.
I'm not saying I agree with this method of classification. I'm just stating what seems to me to be the way people at large make the distinction. These are just some thoughts. In the English language, it seems that academics can argue what words should or should not be used, but what determines usage in the long run is how most of the people who speak the language use it. (I, along with millions of others, think "they" is a perfect gender neutral singular pronoun, regardless of the grammarians, and history will prove us right.)
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well, there's a difference
On the one hand you're talking language "they" etc.
On the other hand, you're talking about professional definitions. And whatever people want to call the "doohickey" on the back of their computer, it's still going to be a USB port, because professionals need to have specialized vocabulary to do their job accurately and well.
It's the same with Literary studies, which as a Comparitist, and many of us as aspiring authors (or in EUOL's case, a professional author) we havea legitimate interest in specific vocabulary. So Sam Goody and Suncoast and HBO can categorize a move however they want, but when we're talking about genre definitions, my first reaction is to respond as a professional, where "most of the people" don't factor in.
in short, use "they," it really does make sense. At least as much sense as using "he" to be gender non-specific. But if we're going to talk about literary studies, let's use the language of literary studies, not the language of marketing.
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Yeah, I agree with you. I guess I was just pointing out what most people think when you start dropping these words, and if that has any bearing on what professionals decide, because it still seems to be up in the air a bit. Sorry if that last part seemed a tad flippant.
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Let me start by saying that every year, when we go to World Fantasy, the industry leaders shrug off all attempts at categorization with "It's a bookstore thing that isn't really applicable anywhere else." Then they turn around and set up categorical themes (last year's con was focused on horror, and this year it's dark fantasy), so they argue against themselves. So is SE right about the need for labels? That's an entirely different discussion, and possibly a deeper one, than simply figuring out what those labels are.
Kije has a very good point about setting and public perception, though. My mother-in-law, for example, refuses to have anything to do with Tolkien or "high fantasy," and yet she reads the Harry Potter books--despite the fact that the characters in LotR are much more "real" and consistent than those in Harry Potter. It's all about setting, and what you can accept as close to your own reality.
I don't object to the term Magic Realism the way SE does, but I do object to its usage: it's primarily an attempt by the mainstream to dodge the stigma of genre fiction. If anyone else had written the book Beloved it would be called a ghost story and stuck in the horror section; because Toni Morrison wrote it, however, it's suddenly Magic Realism and is acceptable to the masses as real literature.
A better definition of Magic Realism, in my mind, is the one I posed in my review of American Gods. Fantasy shows mundane people doing magical things (like Frodo visiting elves and fighting goblins and whatnot), whereas Magic Realism shows magical people doing mundane things (like the angel living with the chickens in "A very old man with enormous wings"). the trouble with this definition is that it doesn't really apply to many of the books already labeled as Magic Realism (such as One Hundred Years of Solitude), and thus breaks down.
But I'm getting off track, since I don't think I'd call Mary Poppins or Groundhog Day Magic Realism anyway. Field of Dreams, maybe, though that is presented as more of a religious story than a magical one (dealing, as it does, with the aftelife and the guiding influence of an omnipotent force). I'm tempted to say Modern Fantasy, since that's another common industry term, but it's completely unrelated to the Modern literary movement and is thus a little confusing (by that standard, Beloved would be called a Postmodern Fantasy). Nevertheless, if you describe a book or movie as a Modern Fantasy, most people know what you're talking about the same as if you say High Fantasy.
The term Contemporary Fantasy is not one I've ever heard before, so I'm going to assume that SE made it up in a fit of helpfulness. On the surface it seems like just a rephrasing of Modern Fantasy, and thus redundant, though it does manage to sidestep the confusing realtionship to Modernism. The trouble is, I don't really think that Contemporary Fantasy and Magic Realism are trying to say the same thing, so arguing which is better is kind of pointless. The two are only in conflict when the latter is used incorrectly (mostly by people like Toni Morrison who don't want to be thought of as Fantasy).
Dang, sorry for the huge post.
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long post = food for thought. I'm going to have to work out what we're meaning with these. Some immediate comments
I'm not trying to say anyone isn't taking is seriously. I was just suggesting what I felt was neccesary ground work and assumptions for the discussion.
Contemporary fantasy in my usage doesn't imply contemporary for US, but contemporary for the author, and more losely, contemporary for a proposed future setting (like magical cyber-punk).
Magical Realism is already in use for non-fantasy purposes, and while some of that is very disagreeable (and used by marketers as a "safe" term, as Fell pointed out), I don't like it's use for that reason either. We should use a distinct term.
So, a term for what Fell means by magical realism? uh.. "mundane fantasy?" Just another fit of helpfulness, this one perhaps not as helpful
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I also do not object to the term 'Magic Realism,' though I see it as less broad than Fell does. I'm still trying to find the right term to express the "Everything that's not High Fantasy" genre. I don't want fluid catagories or small breakdowns here--I'm looking for the more rigid terms. If High Fantasy is a story that takes place on an imaginary world, with no referances to Earth, then that's a fairly hard-fast genre definition. I'd kind of like an equally hard-fast term to describe everything that does take place in a world that referances Earth.
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Just wanted to let you know that I intend to rejoin the discussion either tomorrow or the next day. I have some interesting articles from my fantasy class, discussing how particular academics have categorized fantasy, that you guys might find interesting (also includes authors such as Susan Cooper). But I've had a really long day--really big presentation today on Marxist literary criticism :P--interesting, but extremely tiring. Then had an activity tonight and just got home. So I can't think straight just yet. But I do want to find those articles and come back to the discussion.
I remember some very interesting comments in the articles on Magical Realism in particular. If I remember right, the way my teacher used it is as a story that is completely realistic except for one small magical thing, but that's problematic, too, as there are lots of books like that that aren't categorized as magical realism. One of the books we read under that category was Skellig by David Almond. Anyone read it? I'd love to hear your impressions of it. I had issues with it, which I won't spend the energy on right now.
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I don't think that you'll get what you want, EUOL. For starters, I don't think that your definition of High Fantasy is right. 'no reference to earth' seems impossible, but even ignoring the absolute nature of the phrase, it doesn't apply to a world like the one Terry Brooks' Shannara series takes place in, which I think falls solidly in the realm of high fantasy. None make direct references to modern earth, but Brooks makes many references that make his world appear to bea post-apocalyptic version of this world (especially in context of his other writings, like the Knight and the Word series). This adds a thick haze to your rigid definition.
I also don't think you'll have a lot of success because of my experience defining terms like this. don't get me started on comics/graphic novels/sequential storytelling/et al. "Art" itself is a HIGHLY ambiguous term. Whenever you try to get precise with terms relating to it, you start to find lots of problems with what you're doing.
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I think you underestimate EUOL's ability to define his own world as he sees fit. ;)
And I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw those references in Brooks, though I never really bought the idea. Not that it is necessarily a bad one, but the execution left something to be desired.
It's funny, but fantasy to me is pretty much anything to do with swords. Which is why I tend to classify stuff like The Mask of Zorro as fantasy even though it doesn't have any magic in it. I can accept Groundhog Day as fantasy, but someone has to point it out to me first.
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You've got this thing with swords, don't you?
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I think that we can safely classify High Fantasy as anything that takes places in a made-up, magical world. This will include things like Shannara and Saberhagen's Sword books (sounds like you should read those, MoD) which are based on vaguely post-apocalyptic concepts. Besides, isn't Middle Earth supposed to be some kind of mythical prehistory to our own Earth? This definition will also include more direct fantasies like Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones (and even some wacky stuff like McCaffrey's Pern books if we decide to let it in).
Alternate History is a pretty safe term for stories that take place in a fantasy version of Earth's past--stuff like Alvin Maker, Deadlands, and the recent Lionheart video game. It's a term that's already in common use and it works well. You can even apply it to Arthurian stories if you decide not to just give them their own genre.
For fantasy stories that take place in the modern world, I'm tempted just to go with Modern Fantasy--again, because it's a word already used in the industry. The trouble is, I don't really think that Mary Poppins, Groundhog Day, and American Gods belong in the same category. I don't think a blanket term for "everything that's not High Fantasy" is feasible.
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The thing about Mary Poppins and Groundhog Day is that a lot of the fantastic elements could be interpreted differently. Did the children in Mary Poppins just have very active imaginations? Mary Poppins herself will never admit to the adventures afterward. And did Bill Murray just have a really vivid dream/vision that caused him to change?
It makes me wonder if those stories should even be classified as fantasy.
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And Kije, what makes you say that? ;)
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If we're going to start discounting fantasy elements as hallucinations or daydreams, we may as well through the whole discussion out onto the street. Couldn't you make the same "overactive imagination" argument about Frodo and Sam? If we're going to look at fantasy seriously we have to accept it for what it is.
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With Mary Poppins, you CAN almost make the argument that it's their imagination, making it the realm of the Fantastic (I described in another thread) rather than fantasy. The problem, at least with the Disney film, is that we get to see Mary do magic and talk to an inanimate object !!! when the kids aren't around or looking. In fact, we're explicitly told that they are essentially ignoring Mary at the time. So no, you can't really conclude that it's their imagination.
It doesn't work with Groundhog Day either. He knows things and has skills that he didn't possess before he changed. If he was dreaming, than the dream suddenly has a supernatural power to give you abilities you didn't before dreaming. It's still supernatural. So on even internal grounds, neither of these films is "fantastic" rather than fantasy. We have to accept it both for practical discussion and because of an internatl textual reading.
There are books that make that hesitation and ambiguity a focus of the book. Where you can argue whether it is fantasy or not because the book isn't clear on whether you are supposed to take it as magic or not, but nothing we've discussed in this thread qualifies.
We also need to get MoD off this swords = fantasy kick. Cool as swords are, that's just not what fantasy is. swords usually mean action, but they're certainly not fantasy by definition.
I still think we need to go with some bigger categories than we've got. High fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy, and Magical... something or other.
High fantasy would be the invention of new worlds where magic and the unreal are primary characteristics of those worlds. Subgenres would include sword-and-sorcery, the quest, etc
Contemporary Fantasy would be books like the Knight and the Word, Shadowrun, etc. WOrks in which the real world is used as a starting point, but then magical features and the unreal are added as major features. Under this we have historical works, like Arthur stories where magic appears, as well as "Modern Fantasy," stuff that happens in our own time, like "American Gods."
Magical... something or other (help me with a term besides magical realism here) also assumes the real world, but only adds minor magical influences, like when Jane Eyre "senses" her boyfriend's recovery, Groundhog day (it's important to the plot, but it's only one magical effect, and it only effects ONE person).
My only problem with this is that it seems to put My Little Pony into the same Category as Lord of the Rings...
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No, no, I know that swords don't equal fantasy.
So, in essence we are defining High Fantasy as "in the past or like the past" and Contemporary Fantasy as "in the present"?
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Well, *I'm* not. I don't think it's right. I'm defining High Fantasy as "new/invented world" while Contemporary Fantasy is "our world, altered significantly to include magical, unreal elements"
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Ah. Well, given those classifications, all fantasy would fit somewhere.
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That is my object. I don't think I'm satisfying EUOL or Fell with my nomenclature, however.
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Nomenclature?! I hate nomenclature! Chemistry has taught me to hate it and its nomenclature! Damnation!
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feh. "Nomenclature" merely refers to a system of naming. I would hardly subject you to something so painful as Chemistry. As you can see, this nomenclature, however much you disagree with it, is pretty benign.
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Oh, well sure. Whatever. I just wanted to contribute to this conversation. I have no real value here.
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Must... resist... temptation to... take advantage... of opening....
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I like SE's definitions. I just wish that whoever had come up with the classification for what we call "High Fantasy" had decided NOT to use the word fantasy in the term. That's what is really confusing, in my opinion. Fantasy is too large a blanket term.
My question is, have any of you read or seen arguments made by scholars in the field relating to this? I was kind of wondering if, rather than terms we invent, there is a discourse that includes definitions for these elements.
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Most of what I have read on it is written by Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. They don't really use terminology. they mostly talk about th eimpact of "fairy stories" and their implication.
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And the Term Epic Fantasy is used as often if not more often to describe their work anyway.
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Edit: Augh! I hate the whole quote problem.
Like I said, I read quite a few articles by scholars in the field for my fantasy class. I don't have time tonight to sum up; will do that tomorrow. Here are the references:
This one's considered a standard in the field, at least as far as children's fantasy goes:
Sheila Egoff, "The Matter of Fantasy" from Worlds Within: Children's Fantasy from the Middle Ages to Today (1988)
Here are some others:
C. W. Sullivan III, "Fantasy" from Stories and Society: Children's Literature in its Social Context (1992)
Diana Waggoner, "Theory of Fantasy" from The Hills of Faraway: A Guide to Fantasy (1978)
Susan Cooper, "Escaping into Ourselves" from Celebrating Children's Books (edited by Betsy Hearne and Marilyn Kaye) (1981)
Elliot Gose, "Introduction" from Mere Creatures: A Study of Modern Fantasy Tales for Children (1988)
Jean Murray Walker, "High Fantasy, Rites of Passage, and Cultural Value." In Teaching Children's Literature: Issues, Pedagogy, Resources (1992)
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There are some articles in my book for the class I took with Doc and Sally. I lent that book out to a friend whom I won't see until Christmas though....