tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8703440748094084752024-02-20T15:46:01.034-08:00Orion's NebulaOrionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04335678085523153916noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-870344074809408475.post-52262617676113161322011-09-01T16:57:00.001-07:002011-09-02T20:21:49.349-07:00Childish FantasiesAs a child and a teenager, I read a great deal of fantasy books. I did this because my father had quite a few in his closet, partly because I'm geeky that way, and partly because I was expected to. Popular wisdom where I grew up, and in fact everywhere in America I have personally been, held that there was a special connection between children and fantasy that rendered younger people more likely to read and fantastic stories than purportedly-mature adults. I have read no studies confirming that this is the case but am provisionally prepared to accept it as truth, at least for people resembling me, that is the children of white, white-collar American families of no great religiosity. The question that interests me is why that should be. I've heard quite a few explanations over the years, but none of them has entirely satisfied me, as most seemed to rely on an uncharitable misunderstanding of either children or fantasy, while the dissenters simply shifted their contempt towards adults and realism.
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<br />For instance, I've often heard that children read fantasy because fantasies has the potential to be extraordinarily simple. The idea is that kings, curses, and magic swords are less complicated than parliaments, psychiatric disorders and ICBM missiles, both because they fulfill thier functions in a more direct and predictable way and because their properties have to be explained in the text. The idea here is that children read fantasy as a default because they can't enjoy other, more complicated stories.
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<br />I don't really buy this explanation because in my experience complexity is not actually a strong deterrent to a child's interest. It's true that children have less knowledge and less capacity to understand than adults, but in my experience children who happen to latch on to something whihc is really beyond them frequently cling to it with all their might. I've seen children happily playing video games too difficult for them to win or complex for them to understand; I've seen them happily read books whose symbolism they can't understand (even children who have no knowledge of christianity like narnia), and I've seen them happily read or watch sci-fi that's full of words they don't understand. In general, the inability to appreciate a text as an adult would does not deter children from enjoying it. Admittedly, I've yet to see an 8-year-old read Proust but if you put a shiny cover on it and left it in the nursery room I wouldn't be surprised if a handful of them did.
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<br />A closely related argument holds that adults, being more sophisticated, are lured away from fantasy by thier newfound capacity to enjoy things like authentic characterisation, moral complexity, topical relevance, psychological realism, virtuoso language or other things one is less likely to find on the fantasy shelf. However, I find that a great many adults choose to read westerns, romances, technothrillers, and other books which typically don't have much in the way of the virtues touted for sophisticated fiction. The question becomes, why is a girl reading "trashy" fantasy while her father reads "trashy" thrillers?
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<br />A handful of people put a positive spin on it by suggesting that children have a special "sense of wonder" which allows them to get joy out of fantasy stories that don't move adults. I find this kind of sentimental child-worship singularly uninteresting and don't intend to say any more about it. Except...
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<br />Except actually, I DO think that children appreciate fantasy stories in ways adults typically can't. I just don't want to attribute it to whimsy or innocence. In my mind, the affinity some children feel for fantasy stories is much more pragmatic. Children are attracted to fantasy because the themes, problems, and characters of fantasy are more relevant to the lives of children than they are to adults. In forthcoming posts, I will endeavor to provide a childs-eye view of topics including ogres, kingship, hobbits, and warfare. For the moment, let me say only this: Children are drawn to fantasy to because children do not, by and large, live in the modern world. an parliaments, psychiatric disorders and ICBM missiles, both because they fulfill thier functions in a more direct and predictable way and because their properties have to be explained in the text. The idea here is that children read fantasy as a default because they can't enjoy other, more complicated stories.
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<br />Except actually, I DO think that children appreciate fantasy stories in ways adults typically can't. I just don't want to attribute it to whimsy or innocence. In my mind, the affinity some children feel for fantasy stories is much more pragmatic. Children are attracted to fantasy because the themes, problems, and characters of fantasy are more relevant to the lives of children than they are to adults. In forthcoming posts, I will endeavor to provide a childs-eye view of topics including ogres, kingship, hobbits, and warfare. For the moment, let me say this: Children are drawn to fantasy because children do not really live in the modern world.Orionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04335678085523153916noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-870344074809408475.post-68086491834558219752011-07-14T01:33:00.000-07:002011-07-14T01:34:41.483-07:00Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>In the tradition of blogs like Slacktivist, Formerconservative, and Ana Mardoll, I am getting into the Internet game of page-by-page reviewing. The model popularized by these blogs is to take apart one book in excruciating detail, devoting one week and hundreds of words to each 2-5 pages of the original text. In addition to the ordinary function of a review—evaluating the quality of a book and engaging other readers about its themes—this long form criticism has several benefits. First, it allows us to explore not only whether the book works, but how and why it works, which is of interest to aspiring writers and to some kinds of readers. Second, it allows us to story's implicit values and the tropes is uses to get there. Finally, it turns the review into a platform for the reviewer to declaim on a variety of issues tangentially related to the substance of the plot—basically an excuse and a writing prompt for small doses of opinion- and journal-blogging.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>For my object of scrutiny, I've chosen Neil Gaiman's <span style="font-style: normal">first solo novel, </span><i>Neverwhere</i><span style="font-style: normal">. Let me clarify right off the bat that I did not hate this book. Most review blogs I'm aware of use this format for extended deconstruction of a book with either subpar writing, dodgy values, or both. </span><i>Neverwhere</i><span style="font-style: normal"> is not a perfect book and I'm going to talk about things that bothered me, but it's also a very entertaining and largely successful book and I want to talk about that as well. By way of preview, here are a few of the issues I expect to discuss:</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-style: normal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><b>The Plot</b>: The story here is just </span><span style="font-style: normal"><b>fun</b></span><span style="font-style: normal"><span style="font-weight: normal">, so I'll definitely be taking the chance to recap how and why it entertains. That said, there are a couple of decision I'm not sure I agree with, and at least a few scenes I just plain don't get. I'm definitely going to call on readers to help me figure out what was going on in a few of the more mysterious scenes.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-style: normal"><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Magic & Monsters</b>: A great many supernatural beings appear in </span><i>Neverwhere</i><span style="font-style: normal">, including virtually all of the important characters. I'm extremely interested in how they work, because I find them exemplars of a trend in Gaiman's writing which seems to have become very popular in fantasy in general. </span><i>Neverwhere</i><span style="font-style: normal">'s spirits and monsters are all basically incarnations of abstract concepts, but more specifically they're incarnations of </span><i>functional</i><span style="font-style: normal"> concepts. A character's role in the story is to be a killer, or a hunter, or a traveler, and they are therefore endowed with all the powers requisite to carry out their duties. I want to contrast this with the magical creatures of my favorite childhood books, which tended to be designed along </span><i>thematic</i><span style="font-style: normal"> or even </span><i>arbitrary</i><span style="font-style: normal"> lines. Creatures came with diversified abilities which might share a theme like “water” but didn't directly imply a particular narrative role. I have a great deal to say about the advantages of both models, and will be soliciting recommendations to broaden my understanding. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-style: normal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><b>Bildung</b>: </span><i>Neverwhere</i><span style="font-style: normal"> looks very much like a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age story. An adult but basically juvenile man is flung into an extraordinary situation, learns and grows, and ends the story on the cusp of a new set of self-chosen challenges. I want to talk about what the book seems to say about adulthood. This is one of the issues where I expect to be most critical of </span><i>Neverwhere</i><span style="font-style: normal">, because ultimately I'm not convinced what the story passes off as adulthood is the real thing. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-style: normal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><b>Class and Gender</b>: Although </span><i>Neverwhere</i><span style="font-style: normal"> is a story about a white man, it includes a large number of prominent women and minorities. That inclusion alone is good and on the whole the characters are all handled very well. However, I do have some questions. Is </span><i>Neverwhere</i><span style="font-style: normal"> fair to Richard's girlfriend? (no) Are we meant to take this as a flaw in Richard? (not sure) Is the entire book actually one extra-long dick joke? (yes) </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-style: normal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><b>Boundaries & Symbols</b>: </span><i>Neverwhere's</i><span style="font-style: normal"> basic premise is a literal underground society existing in the magic spaces outside and between the cracks and crevices of the city of London. This parallel world is generally undetectable and does not interact with “London above.” However, some apparently homeless or mentally ill people may be members of it. Apart from facilitating swashbuckling adventure, this set-up has some really obvious allegorical potential, but whatever meaning we're supposed to take from this is not spelled out directly in the text. As I go through this book I'm going to share my thoughts on how exactly this shadow world works, where Gaiman seems to be inconsistent, and what lesson the story seems to be teaching.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span style="font-style: normal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Posts will go up weekly, probably on Fridays. Watch this space. </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal"></p>Orionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04335678085523153916noreply@blogger.com0