Sam wk 4

Questions answered (attempted) this week;



How does Tolkien (1964) define fantasy? Compare and contrast this to the other definitions from last week’s reader?


Is Tolkien’s notion of the ‘faery story’ linked to fantasy genre? How closely?


Style is important in fantasy for the same reasons consistency is (Attebery, 1980); namely, readers are entering newly constructed realms and the nature of these worlds, their different socio-cultural and geographical flavours are as strongly impressed on readers by the style of the introduction, as much as they are the characters and narrative itself. Stylistic undertones or subtly fixed modalities of description strengthen the idiosyncrasies and subsequent individuality of that world. Tax (2000) enthusiastically confirms Le Guin as a master stylist, recognizing the Earth-Sea books as the result of a writer truly devoted to her craft. She goes on to compare Le Guin to J.K. Rowling, the latter being Tax’s example of an author having allowed herself, and more importantly the Potter universe, to be made a commodity of. The production-line speed at which Rowling produces her next installments (galvanizing an all too eager movie-machine) differs vastly from the meandering arrivals of Le Guin’s Earth-Sea sequels, with many self-reflective years in-between for Le Guin to really expound on her established universe. In Tax’s opinion, Rowling cannot be seriously considered a fantasy writer when she’s stylistically closer to “contemporary realism”, plotting her worlds with parody rather than invention (2000).


Tolkien (1988) identifies the ‘happy ending’, infamously exclusive to the fairy-tale, as that which separates the fairy-story from high-fantasy. Lord of the Rings, what with its “happy ending” could, by a willful amnesia of its monolithic reputation, be considered an elaborate fairytale, rather than the intricately realized fantasy epic it’s been lauded as for decades. Earth-Sea on the other hand is ambiguously tolerant of it’s evil or ‘shadow’, the Roke masters preaching balance over the indelible (dare I say it, Christian) suppression of separatist forces in the land. Earth-Sea, though appearing to end ‘happily’ what with the survival of Ged and tearful reunion of Vetch with Yarrow, remains ideologically (or theologically) un-sugarcoated. Earth-Sea then, by Tolkiens standards at least, is high-fantasy in it’s refusal to designate Absolute Good and Evil in the composition of its unique universe.

Tolkien (1988) also closely observes the ‘fairy’ (or faery) of the fairy story. According to Tolkien it is not the ‘fantastic’ or ‘fairy’ elements of such a narrative constituting the genre, rather constitutive factors are strong moral overtones in which characters (admittedly more ‘fantastic’ than those featured in regular fiction) are brought to moral cross-roads and exposed to the unconscionable, subject to carefully crafted moral dilemmas. In the traditionally oral origins of like-fables (Tolkien, 1988), target audiences would undoubtedly have been children, parents wrapping moral lessons in suitable whimsy hoping to instill the story’s morale with the lure of the ‘happy ending’. Tolkien himself cites the marchen (1988), one of the earliest spoken forms of the faery story as serving purposes far beyond the entertainment-value modernity has stripped them down to, such as imaginatively reconciling the sense of class-oppression as well as the aforementioned moral lessons for the young, among other things.

Beast fables and/or fairy stories in which the ‘fey folk’ literally feature, Tolkien suggests are representative of mans desire to commune with non-human intelligences (1988). It could be speculated that these stories in which animals and ‘sprites’ (or spirits of the earth) speak to man reveal a desire to reconcile his exploitative dominion over the earth, an unconscious wish for equilibrium in which humanity’s needs are met without irreparably exhausting the earth’s resources. Certainly, Earth-Sea is an example of conservationist idealism; the Roke masters themselves warn against manipulating nature, an excess of which might cataclysmically derail the natural order. Earth-Sea’s ‘natural order’ is all-inclusive of what, in other fantasy works, is conventionally labeled ‘evil’, and with it’s protagonist fearlessly merging with his ‘shadow’ encourages readers to similarly face the ‘existential discard-pile’ of other theologically-oriented works (e.g. Tolkien, Lewis).

Fantasy and the faery story are similar in their explorations of good vs. evil. However, the latter hasn’t the scope to question the established conventions thereof, and in fact has other purposes, like with the marchen; it’s the unquestioned absolutism of a faery story’s right/wrong that drives it’s narratives to their happy endings, satisfying in their simplicity. Alternatively, fantasy has the option of breaking with convention, of climactically inverting its good/evil conflict, like with earth-Sea. However fantasy does not have to make use of this potential, and can have the broadest scope while clinging strongly to the devout good/evil simplicity of a faery story, like with Lord of the Rings.