On the Subject of Fantasy (Part 1 of 2)
Okay, so this lengthy post was inspired by one of our Loyal Readers here at FTBG who asked me where I would rate Martin in the grand scheme of fantasy writers. I could answer that question quite succinctly (above average/better than most, I suppose), but I don’t feel that such an answer really gives the requisite background and information that the six people who read this blog deserve. Plus, it makes for an obnoxiously short blog post.
I think it’s a great question to pose; after all, if you bother to pay attention to anything I say, you’d probably like to know what sort of scale and system of measurement I am using when I make my wild-ass claims about how every time Rickon appears on a page, I want to slice my eyelids with razor blades. But, avoiding getting into an extensive recap of my background, there are a few aspects of my life that I think people might find pertinent to my upcoming remarks, as well as to all remarks I make on this bastion of cyberdrivel we know and love as FTBG:
- I am an English teacher
- I do not primarily read fantasy; in fact, it makes up a relatively small portion of my reading activity
- I believe fantasy and everything else that falls under the “speculative fiction” designation is typically underappreciated, but also given too much leeway when it comes to aspects of craft
- As a result, I tend to judge all writing and storytelling with the same criteria
So those points are, in my opinion, the only truly relevant ones when it comes to readers understanding what lens I use to view GRRM and the rest of his cronies when it comes to their works. So let’s begin the journey, if you care to; of course, if you couldn’t give a shit about me or my opinions on the state of fantasy, trust me, more sympathetic I could not be. Poor Pesci has to listen to me bitch almost daily, if I’m not passed out in a stripper’s lap.
As regards Point #1, I am an English teacher, and it is my job to instruct students in the fine art of literary analysis. When reading novels, it is my job to dissect, and help my students dissect, elements of theme, characterization, plot structure, figurative language, tone, setting, mood, all the other bullshit you forgot five minutes after you learned it in high school. In order to help students identify and understand such elements, I must, of course, use texts as models, and I typically believe it is my duty to use only the best models available. As such, I teach stories and novels by Joyce Carol Oates, Tim O’Brien, Toni Morrison, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zora Neale Hurston, and J.D. Salinger. I believe Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” might be the most perfect story ever written. And like Hemingway, I believe in the "iceberg principle" of good writing; namely, that a good writer only gives you about 1/8 of a story on the surface; the other 7/8 is under water, waiting for the reader to discover it. I hate blatant exposition, unnecessary detail, and hamfisted symbolism, strategies that many fantasy writers unfortunately use to excess. But I read constantly and I read everything, and as a result, my opinions on what makes good writing are not restricted by strategy, style, era, or genre. Rather, I believe that there are literary devices and strategies that can be employed deftly to create a powerful and effective story, and that there are a multitude of ways in which one can accomplish such a goal.
As regards Point #2, it is important to note that I do not have the world’s most extensive background in fantasy literature. While I would consider myself more well-read in the fantasy genre than your average reader (that is, the average person who actually reads books on a regular basis, not your average American TV Guide reader), I rarely pick up fantasy that hasn’t been recommended to me by someone first. In fact, I have many of you on this blog to thank for introducing me to new fantasy authors; without y’all and Pesci shouting out your opinions and recommendations, I would have no basis by which to select new fantasy books.
So, considering the above, it should come as no shock to you that the last few books I read are as follows:
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- Jennifer Egan, The Keep
- Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
- Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains
- Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
And if I had to pick, say, my top ten books of all time, that list might (and I stress might) look something like this:
- JD Salinger, Franny and Zooey
- Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- John Irving, The World According to Garp
- John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
- Richard Adams, Watership Down
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
- Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
- Joseph Heller, Catch-22
- John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
- Robert Cormier, The Chocolate War
So as you can see, there is very little fantasy represented in the above lists. I don’t dedicate my summers to Pern or any other namby-pamby dragon lore, I don’t spend months sewing my costume for the Bristol Renaissance Faire, and I have never, ever worn a sword in public. But more importantly, authors like the above in my top 10 are many of whom I use as benchmarks for other books I read. No matter what genre an author writes in, it doesn’t preclude him or her from creating a character as complex and well-drawn as Ignatius Reilly, or using language as well-wrought as Ellison’s, or developing a plot as complex and yet well-pieced together as Irving might do. Good writing takes many forms and uses many styles, but I believe that the core elements-character, plot, language, style-should be considered in all genres.
Which brings us to Point #3, that of fantasy and the leeway to which I believe it is given in regards to its quality. First off, I believe defining terms is important. What exactly is fantasy? What counts as fantasy, and what doesn’t, and why? To me, I prefer the aforementioned umbrella term of speculative fiction; that is, fiction that requires the author (and reader) to imagine a world significantly altered from the one in which they reside. Be it horror, medieval, romance, whatever, I believe there are too many authors and novels that blur genre lines for us to even consider “fantasy” as a separate genre for a select few authors. One of my favorites mentioned above, Michael Chabon, has written a historical fiction about the rise of the golden age of comic books, a reimagined post-WWII detective story in which the Jews settle in Alaska, and a serial-style sword and swashbuckler tale called Gentlemen of the Road that is dedicated to none other than the creator of Elric of Melnibone, Michael Moorcock, fer crissakes. Chabon is winning the Pulitzer for fiction, writing for a mass audience, and tipping his hat to one of the more legendary fantasy authors. Meanwhile, every single novel of his requires the reader to speculate (there’s that word!) on an imagined reality, to greater or lesser degrees. So what makes someone a “fantasy author” versus a “novelist” versus a “fiction writer”? To me, it’s all about a good story, no matter what label you want to put on it. Unfortunately, fantasy got relegated to the cheapo bin long ago in the eyes of the American public, and the long rows of equally-sized Tor fantasy novels with interchangeable names (The Winds of Amethyst! Dragon Lords of Blumenthal!) have done little to inspire people to take fantasy terribly seriously. Sure, the busty necrowhore on the cover of the latest Laurel K. Hamilsex novel is fun to look at in a dark corner of Barnes & Noble, but it’s not exactly a temptation for the next NBA awards ceremony.
The next, and perhaps most important question, then becomes the idea of standards. Should fantasy be held to different standards than other works? Not in my opinion, and you can take that positively, negatively, however you wish. I do believe that fantasy authors have much more stringent demands placed upon them in some areas; after all, when you must manufacture unfamiliar territory from the ground up, generating not just names and occupations but entirely new places, technologies, systems of religion, government, etc., it’s a far more imposing task in some ways than, say, discussing your sister’s battle with alcoholism and your mom’s impending Alzheimer’s. Sure, fantasy novelists base many of their ideas on real-world events and constructs, but to make them fit together in an imagined realm, to make them believable, and to make them work harmoniously-that’s a horse of a different color, as sayeth the little green man.
But, there is a flipside to this, and an important one, at that. It’s the difference between what Laurence Perrine called escape literature and that which is interpretive literature. As Perrine put it,
“Escape literature is that written purely for entertainment-to help us pass the time agreeably. Interpretive literature is written to broaden and deepen and sharpen our awareness of life. Escape literature takes us away from the real world; it enables us temporarily to forget our troubles. Interpretive literature takes us, through the imagination, deeper into the real world: it enables us to understand our troubles. Escape literature has as its only object pleasure. Interpretive literature has as its object pleasure plus understanding.” [Story and Structure, Sixth Edition. Perrine’s italics]
And though some consider this elitist, I believe very strongly in this idea. Some writing, be it fiction, nonfiction, what have you, offers us little more than fun and escapism. There is no reflecting on life and the complexities of the human condition after one reads Gar Wilson’s Phoenix Force #128: Singapore SlayFest, or the latest sex-laden piece of Omar Tyree’s industrial fiction (another of my favorite phrases). No, to me, there is a difference between shitty literature and good literature, between time-filler and time well spent. Now there’s nothing wrong with enjoying shitty writing, mind you-I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve read more Stephen King than I have Kingsley Amis-but you have to be prepared to admit that it’s shitty. That’s why I get pissed off when my 17-year-old students rave about Harry Potter or the latest Sharon Draper novel they read. Great, you read a book. Unfortunately, it’s a book for twelve-year-olds, and it did nothing to actually challenge or enlighten you. Let’s throw a party.
With all of the above, I believe that interpretive literature is not the exclusive realm of realism; great romances, great horror novels, great fantasy and science fiction can all cause us to think, to question, to criticize that which surrounds and confronts us. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land wonderfully examines our society’s attitudes towards sexuality, religious zealotry, and individuality. Tolkien, to me-because I know he’s a controversial figure here-presents very legitimate and vivid depictions of internal struggle and the conflict that one-Sam, Boromir, Frodo, Bilbo-can experience between moral and ethical duties. Martin gives us some of that on occasion, but much of that is worn on the sleeve; his characters are often painted in broad strokes, much like Moorcock might do, and very few of them-Jaime, Jon Snow, maybe Sansa-really exemplify more complex struggles from which we as readers can deepen our understanding of our own lives. (Although Sansa, being so damned young to start, oftentimes presents an oversimplification of such dilemmas.)
So where do I rank Martin? Well, it depends on which scale I am being asked to use. In the realm of escape literature, I would rate him quite high, notwithstanding AFFC. The first three books were definitely entertaining; even though many characters annoyed me, and I found some of the scenes between the Stark kids a bit trite, the books had some twists, they had some great fights, and there were some fun characters sprinkled throughout. In the realm of interpretive literature…well, that’s a different story. While I certainly wouldn’t put Martin at the bottom of my fantasy authors when it comes to such a category, I can’t really rate him very high when the series isn’t over. Once I am able to see the grander picture, for better or for worse, I can better assess how his works functions as a text of understanding.
Up next in Part 2: My thoughts on other fantasy authors, and other Really Important Opinions. But until that time, as always, I invite your comments, questions, criticisms, et al.