Some thoughts on the direction Fantasy seems to be heading -- present and future.

[Teresa Edgerton]

A note in advance: I fully expect that some people will be riled up by many of the things I’ve said here. You won’t hurt my feelings by telling me so, and I am more than happy to enter into any civil discussion.

Cynicism, Realism, Sensationalism -- and Where DID I Misplace that Sense of Wonder?​

I think I should begin with a few words by other writers, words that have meant a great deal to me over the years.

Fantasy, said J. R. R. Tolkien, “certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of scientific verity. On the contrary, the keener and clearer is the reason, the better Fantasy it will make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not know or could not perceive truth (fact or evidence) then Fantasy would languish until they were cured.

“[Recovery] is a regaining -- regaining of a clear view. I do not say ‘seeing things as they are’ and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say ‘seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them’ -- as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clean our windows, so that things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness and familiarity -- from possessiveness. Of all faces, those of our familiares are the ones most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult to really see with fresh attention.

“We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. We should meet the centaur and the dragon, and then perhaps suddenly behold, like the ancient shepherds, sheep and dogs and horses -- and wolves ... By the forging of Gram cold iron was revealed, by the making of Pegasus horses were ennobled; in the trees of the Sun and Moon root and stock, flower and fruit are manifested in glory ... and actually, fairy-stories deal largely or (the better ones) mainly, with simple fundamental things, untouched by Fantasy, but these simplicities are made all the more luminous by their setting.”

What is the use of Fantasy, Ursula K. LeGuin asked the rhetorical question, and her answer was simply this, the use of it is to give us “pleasure and delight.” She went on to say:

“Those who refuse to listen to dragons are probably doomed to spend the rest of their lives acting out the nightmares of politicians ... A fantasy is a journey. It is a journey into the subconscious mind, just as psychoanalysis is. Like psychoanalysis, it can be dangerous; and it will change you.

“Now I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant. Like all our evil propensities, the imagination will out. But if it is rejected and despised, it will grow into wild and weedy shapes; it will be deformed ... I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing but a growing up; that an adult is not a dead child but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child, and that if these faculties are encouraged in youth, they will act well and wisely in the adult, but if they are repressed and denied in the child they will stunt and cripple the adult personality. And finally, I believe that one of the most deeply human and humane of these faculties is the power of the imagination.”

Now the first question I would like to ask is: Do we, who are now reading and writing Fantasy, agree with Tolkien that this power of recovery is one of the principle aims of fantastic literature. And if we do agree, then the next question follows naturally: Are those of us writing in that genre today coming anywhere close to providing this kind of experience for our readers? Is the Fantasy we write, in LeGuin’s words, deeply humane? (And I do include my own writing in this question, because even though I’m generally regarded as an optimistic sort of writer, I can see very well that my own present work is darker and more violent than anything I wrote ten years ago.)

Do the books being written today encourage us to look at the world with fresh eyes -- or do they merely present, over and over, in endless variation, the same cynical and dreary world view? Are we so locked-in to a single interpretation of the past, present, and future as endless repetitions of the brutal, remorseless, and futile that we are now unable to see beyond it? And if we, who dedicate so much of our lives to exercising our imaginations are no longer able to conceive of any other possibilities -- then who will, who can?

I know there are those who regard optimism as a refuge of the weak, of people who are too cowardly or too lazy to step out of their “comfort zone.” But in my own experience optimism takes effort and an applied concentration of will. Like so many other things of value -- love, loyalty, forgiveness, integrity -- it’s not for the faint (or hard) of heart. Idealism demands much of us; it acknowledges that we can be more than we are, and challenges us to become so. Cynicism, on the other hand, is a far from exhausting exercise. In fact, it seems to be the refuge of the already exhausted. And it is “comfortable,” for all it’s pretended discomfort, because it desensitizes us to future pain and asks of us ... exactly nothing. (I am sure that with no particular effort I could -- and probably have on occasion -- manage to think three cynical thoughts before breakfast any day of the year.) It is, above all else, surrender.

Now I am not proposing that we should eliminate all battle, pain, and heartache from our stories (in fact, it would be nice if more characters had hearts capable of aching). But what I perceive as increasingly missing from the genre is fantasy that gives a more balanced view, that isn’t self-limiting in the way it depicts the human experience, that shows us, along with all the characters who are sooo romantically broken, a few that are actually whole. My friend Katharine Kerr, an excellent writer, once said something to the effect that great deeds shine brighter in a dark world, and I believe that this is true. But are we creating imaginary worlds where there are no bright deeds, no great-hearted people, where there is nothing but pettiness, cruelty, compromise, and self-interest? Do we place our characters in setting so harsh, situations so convoluted (and sometimes so psychologically improbable) ,that the individual is relieved of all responsibility for his own actions, and becomes a perpetual victim of his circumstances? Are we simply revisiting our political nightmares, over and over and over?

I believe I am as aware as anyone of some of the reasons for this spreading gloom, and I certainly have no doubt of the reason it appears in my own recent works. I was writing them during a traumatic period in my life, and most of that time (I didn’t initially know this, but have since learned) I was in a clinical depression. I wouldn’t be surprised if many others SFF writers are right now enduring, or have recently endured, long-term depression as well; after all, it’s said to be more common among creative personalities. (It would also explain a lot of missed deadlines, padded series, and bloated, repetitive writing. Because even though creative people seem to be particularly susceptible, it usually does a very good job of stifling our creative impulses. ) And depression -- whether it’s depression of an individual, a community, or an entire society -- does not lend itself toward obtaining or maintaining a clear and accurate view of life.

How could it, when those in a state of depression are unable to experience life as fully as they did before? Emotions are blunted, things that gave pleasure in the past no longer do so, decision-making on even the most basic level becomes exhausting. As melodramatic as it may sound, when I was depressed I sometimes felt like Frodo crossing Mordor under the burden of the Ring, “no taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower...” Depression does not clear the windows of our perceptions, it only adds further smudges, smears, and obtructions, so that our view of the world grows steadily narrower. I know from experience that this is neither a normal, healthy, or productive way to live. And I would hate to think that this boxing-in, this fatigue of the mental faculties, this anhedonia, were a communicable disease, and that I had any part in spreading it to others. Worse still, that I might be tempted to simulate this condition in my future writing -- as an artistic affectation, or for marketing purposes.

(continued in next message)

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I have often heard that certain authors are expanding the boundaries of the genre, because their books are somehow “different” -- but when I read these books I see only another variation on the familiar faux-medieval setting, and the much-vaunted difference seems only to consist of a grimmer world-view and more sensational plot lines. (And even this is not new; I remember reading fantasy of this same sort thirty-five years ago.) In discussions where readers express their distaste for scenes of particularly gratuitous violence (usually sexual violence) others are accustomed to dismiss their concerns with a glib, “but that’s the way things were back then.” Well, first of all, we are not writing about “back then” we are writing about imaginary times and places. Second of all, even back then it was not “that way” all of the time. If it had been, the race would have extinguished itself several centuries ago, and there would be no “right now.” Moreover, so many other aspects of the medieval setting are changed, distorted, left-out, or misrepresented, why do so many readers and writers insist on that one aspect in the name of greater realism? And do these stories cause us to look at our world and the people around us with “fresh attention,” or do we merely nod our heads wisely and say, “Yes, it’s all just as I thought it was.”

I am reminded of something else that Tolkien said, which was how he found it very strange that some people regarded factories as more “real” than horses. Yet even today, the creature is not quite mythical -- and I have known many people of undeniable veracity who attest to the existence of horses. Could somebody please explain to me how things that do exist, that are done, that have been experienced, could possibly be less real than other objects, actions, or experiences of the same order? Yes, human history is a long record of war and hardship -- but how could we have survived so long as a species if that was all there ever was to it, if there were no people looking out for each other, standing by their principles (not easily for sure, but with concerted effort) or making such sacrifices that they left behind an enduring mark on society? How could we have survived without poets, novelists, painters, and musicians capable of seeing and communicating their own poignant and heart-lifting perceptions of beauty? Do we not, even in this age of increasing cynicism, still derive a large part of our sustainance from friendships, and shared joys, and acts of kindness both large and small? Wouldn’t any genuinely realistic depiction of human beings include at least some of those things? Are we seeding our imaginary gardens solely with weeds, and forgetting that vegetables and flowers exist as well?

And what about that sense of wonder we used to hear so much about? In reading the latest fantasy novel have the scales fallen from your eyes -- have you seen the world anew? Having seen green, are the blues looking bluer, the reds looking redder? When was the last time you picked up a book and walked right into a “luminous setting?” Because I tell you quite frankly that such experiences are becoming less and less frequent for me. Are we becoming so jaded that soon we will no longer hunger for, or even be capable of appreciating, enchantment if it comes? Have we replaced our taste for the fabulous, the extraordinary, with one for mere sensationalism, which more often than not leaves us afterward with a sense that the world is an even duller place than it was before? If writers like Tolkien and LeGuin could tell stories of pain and loss, and still write passages that make our hearts soar, then why can’t we? Are our minds so closed, our hearts so hard, we are no longer capable of receiving new impressions, or perceiving new possibilities?

It is very easy to create a dramatic effect with an act of violence; it is very easy to grab a reader’s attention by hinting at all sorts of awful possibilities, and to keep it by delivering them. Often, a writer doesn’t even have to write about these things convincingly, readers are so conditioned these days to believe. A plot point so strained that it would strike any reader as ludicrously improbable if it led to a happy conclusion, is quickly accepted if the outcome is tragic. Believable human responses and reactions are instantly swept away in service to the great literary gods Conflict and Drama. (A hero can and should have flaws, but must they always be such convenient ones, obligingly appearing on stage on cue, then trotting off when no longer needed?) On the other hand, writing about beauty, integrity, hope, heroism, and all the kindlier emotions, when people are so ready to scoff -- that takes raw courage. Have we, as a community, become so demoralized, desensitized, and exhausted that we no longer have that courage, no longer even value it?

Above all, are we forgetting how to grow into true adults? Are we simply learning, instead, to go through the dreary rounds of our daily lives dragging our dead child-selves behind us? I sincerely hope not.


©2007, Teresa Edgerton

* * * * *

Well, as you can see from the above, I still have many more questions on this subject than I have answers -- although I certainly do have very strong instincts and predispositions in the matter.

So I am very interested to hear what others think.

 

[j d worthington]

Well, I'll take a (short) go at this one tonight -- and hope to get into it more this weekend....

On the whole, I tend to agree with a lot of what you've said here, just as I agree with a great deal of what Tolkien says in "On Fairy-Stories" (one of my favorite essays on fantasy, and certainly one to mull over and read many times). What I would add here is that -- like sf in the 1960s -- fantasy seems to be going through something that more "mainstream" literature went through in the 10's through the 30's, and the mystery/detective tale went through in the 20's through the 1950s (roughly)... the impact of so many disillusionments about long-existing views due to the sciences and what we've learned about our past and our deeper psychological underpinnings, and how that colors what a writer's perception of human motivations are.

In some ways, this is like the phase so many adolescents go through as they leave behind the "superoptimism" (if you will) of childhood and early youth, and have not yet reestablished a new equilibrium in adulthood. It may simply be a part of fantasy "growing up" in some ways; though I will add that, in my own view, if this is the case, it's because a lot of the 20th century was spent in forgetting our roots, which were often extremely dark and bleak -- look at Beowulf, for example, or the Norse myths in general, to take just one small portion -- and have tended to "Disneyfy" fantasy in too many media. (Certainly few fantasy readers seem to have any idea of the breadth or depth of the field and its history.)

I would also say, however, that there's a good deal of truth to the comment about bright deeds and a dark world; though I think sometimes -- when done well -- the darker aspects of fantasy that are most effective are those which see that darkness as something that isn't necessary or "natural"; something which we can change if we have the will, and mourns (rather than bemoans) the fact that we so seldom do. (I think a lot of Ellison here, whose work has always struck me as what I call "angry compassion" -- the awareness that we have it in us to reach for the stars in every way, but so often betray our own humanity not because it is inevitable, but because we give up too easily; and he is constantly urging us, as he says in "Delusion for a Dragon-Slayer" to be able to live our dreams, our greatest dreams, because we've proven ourselves worthy of them.) In other words -- a form of cautionary tale, and one that urges us to be our best while fully recognizing how damnably difficult this can often be.

And on this, you're absolutely right: optimism of that sort is much, much harder than cynicism or pessimism... but worth the effort; and this is something that, it seems to me, is too often forgotten. One of the few fantasy writers I can think of from my own reading who still maintains that view seems to be Michael Moorcock, though his work, too, has become darker over the years; nonetheless, he still seems to express the view that it's not because we're doomed to such an ill world, but that we give in too easily and accept the lesser when the greater may be within our reach... if we are truly willing to struggle to create such.

 

[Erin99]

I completely agree with you, Teresa. From the books I've read, and indeed some young adult books too, writers seem to illustrate the darker aspects of human nature and the world around them. One of the main themes in my book is hope and the effects this has when the characters lose sight of what's important. Yes, our world may be fading, but I don't want to bring that into my stories, the same as I don't watch the news or read the newspapers. Call me unworldly, but I don't want to hear of the endless worsening violence in today's society.

Depression I can also agree with. I suffer from it, yet instead of my dark feelings seeping into my writing, I let it spur me into creating stories with hope and friendship and sacrifice as its main themes. Some writers may argue that my novel will lack tension and conflict, but (and this is my personal opinion) I don't think having these themes has lessened the core conflict. Of course, once my novel is professionally edited, I'll know for certain. As I said though, I don't see why you can't have a story with brighter themes and still retain the book's morals and conflicts.

Unless that's my naivety shining through again?


And now I'm off, for I've been working very hard over the last few days to edit and re-read my book, and I'm only halfway through so far.


I enjoy reading your posts, Teresa, even if I don't manage to reply to them.

 

[Sephiroth]

I'm the opposite to Leisha there...my world is one very much like this one. But what you say about bright deeds in a dark world really resonates. I do see the world as a dark place, and the positive moments, they all happen between people. The overall tenor is not optimistic, however.

And when is a book optimistic?

If it is terribly dark, but offers hope in the end, is that preferable to something less dark which ends negatively?


I also suffer from depression, although I'm doing better now that I was.


You've given me a lot to think about here, Teresa.

I would like to think that I retain some of my 'childish', positive aesthetic.

 

[scalem X]

It does seem to be a bit of a tendency. Maybe fantasy writing isn't as detached from the world as we imagined. Most fantasy is still about humanoid shaped beings, for example. Does this mean that fantasy is a, be it transformed by imagination, reflection of the real world? Does reading about murder, death and destruction in newspapers guide our writers' and editors' minds to believe that what is violent, is believable?

I don't know, to be honest. But I do know that the power of fantasy lies more in the twists and richness of imagination, than in the power of very good vs. very evil. It is true that up to a point, you (as a reader) will feel more sorry for someone who's parents got murdered, rather than for someone who's sandwich got stolen. But I feel like it's something that rises exponentially. One death will spice up your story, but if you kill six, it won't matter that much if you add another one. But it's in the human mind to deplete every source until it's really drained. I believe that most stories do seem to be special because of various reasons and the difference is just that we lay stress on different aspects.

I guess the fantasy genre will shift. Now it's more violence and evil, maybe in a decade it's more love and chivalry.

In general what do people find interesting about the middle ages (regardless of whether it really happened that way or not)?
The answer to this question changes in time and that is why the success of novels set in the middle ages will have more, or less readers changing over the years.

Just my 2c of course. But consider it more like painting. Periods of (hyper)realism and of more expressionism have always alternated. From what I imagine, after the violence period (in which we are now) you'll have a period of viewpoint shifts (I can feel the roots now). Like a lot of adult novels and movies, who're seen from a kid's point of view. Not focusing on the main hero, but on his sidekick and that kind of stuff.

But that's just a personal impression.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

And when is a book optimistic?

If it is terribly dark, but offers hope in the end, is that preferable to something less dark which ends negatively?

Of course it's all completely subjective. There are a few writers I like very much whose work tends to be full of shadows and terrors -- but then there comes, every so often, that moment of grace, of hope.

And I think a truly cynical person would not be able to recognize those positive moments between individuals that you mention -- they would always color them with some negative interpretation.

And I'm not really worried about individual books or authors, it's the overall trend that concerns me. Books reflect their times, but I believe that in the aggregate they also help to create them.

scalem, I hope you are right and that there is a shift coming. But I'd be equally dismayed if it was all flowers and sunshine and sparkly unicorns; I'd just like to see more balance. I suppose that only really occurs at the midpoint as the pendulum swings back and forth.

 

[Sephiroth]

I agree; they inspire the imaginations of the next generation of readers.


There is a general lack of confidence in the future, in our society. One which I seem to share, unfortunately.

I think you're right, though. I might have described myself as truly cynical, but I'm really not. Really, it's because I still have hope that I can still be disappointed...if that makes sense.


If this general trend is a symptom of some societal malaise, however, then it will take even more than the best efforts of our most brilliant creative minds to lift it.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

If this general trend is a symptom of some societal malaise, however, then it will take even more than the best efforts of our most brilliant creative minds to lift it.

Those efforts have to start somewhere. And if the time comes that someone rolls up their metaphoric sleeves and begins the heavy lifting, it would be nice to think that those in the SFF community hadn't added too much extra to the weight.

Here is something that bothers me: I'll go into a bookstore and start picking up books that look like they might be appealing. And I see book after book after book that includes words like "violent" and "bloody" in the book description and the blurbs. And I know very well that these words wouldn't be splashed over so many different covers if the people marketing these books had not very good reason to believe that violence and gore were actual selling points -- as opposed to characterization, world-building, or the well-crafted plot. As though we may be passing into a period when violence is no longer to be present in service to the plot, but as an aim in itself -- as though plots might be being crafted specifically to accommodate that violence. Or even when that's not the writer's intention, these scenes of battle, rape, and torture may be all that great numbers of readers are taking away.

Another thing that bothers me a lot is that readers won't just say, "I enjoy these books because they're exciting," they have to say the books are vastly different from anything else out there -- when they're not -- or more realistic -- when they're not. And I don't know whether this is because they are trying to make their taste in books sound more sophisticated, or because they subconciously feel that there is something there (or something lacking) that they have to excuse or justify. Better to find out what that is and why they feel that way, then cover it up with spurious arguments.

 

[SpaceShip]

As someone who is probably a lot older than most of you, and having seen a lot of the realism of life through at least seven decades, and probably read some brilliant and some dire stuff in my time, I find I am not in the least drawn to "bloody, violent or other darker writings" in this genre.

My own work is aimed at YA readers and even if there are not many out there reading my work, I just love being lost and immersed in writing it and find as I see the actors playing out the scenes (instead of merely the words on the page) that I am recalling that innocent but exciting time when all of those characters really existed and enjoy bringing them back to life (or even inventing a few).

I hope there is a shift back to real fantasy instead of just this sensationalism that seems so popular right now.

Thanks Teresa for this thread and your time in putting it together. Much appreciated.

 

[Giovanna Clairval]

Here (not in short, alas!) the reflection your billet d'humeur --that is to say opinion piece--inspired me, Teresa.


In the Real World – Medieval violence in modern Justice and how it was banned.

Torture before a trial was commonplace up to the beginning of the 20th century in Europe.
A few years ago, I was working on my research at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and, because of a mistake in the filing system, I was given a pamphlet on torture, written by a jurist under Napoleon. I learned that medieval torture was still used in Switzerland on A.D. 1803.

A real story had me gaping. A judge had put a suspect to the question by using iron greaves. The man wore these special leggings a bit too long, and his shins were irremediably burnt. Later on, he was found to be innocent. In the following year, the victim, leaning on his crutches, would wait in front of the judge’s houseand would painstakingly follow him to the Hall of Justice. At the end of his day’s work, the judge would find the cripple waiting for him again. This went on for months. The man never said a word; the magistrate handed out his resignation.
Never had this modern Inquisitor incurred a disciplinary procedure. He had just been doing his job, if with too great a zeal.

The French jurist who wrote the pamphlet was echoing a debate that had been sparked by Italian jurist Cesare (Marquis of) Beccaria, who had published his Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and on Punishments) in 1764, in which he put forth the first arguments ever made against the death penaty. The same short treatise advocated reform of the criminal law system.

Beccaria also suggested—for the first time—that criminal justice should conform to the rational principles of the Illuminism.

Michel Foucault in Surveiller et punir: naissance de la prison (1975; Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 1977) explains how corporal punishment, especially when administrated publicly, was a symbolic substitute for the King’s personal retaliation after an offence.

“[Foucault] argues that the public spectacle of torture was a theatrical forum which served several intended and unintended purposes for society. The intended purposes were:

• Reflecting the violence of the original crime onto the convict's body for all to see.
• Enacting the revenge upon the convict's body which the sovereign seeks for having been injured by the crime. Foucault argues that the law was considered an extension of the sovereign's body, and so the revenge must take the form of harming the convict's body.

Some unintended consequences were:
· Providing a forum for the convict's body to become a locus of sympathy and admiration.
· Creating a site of conflict between the masses and the sovereign at the convict's body. Foucault notes that public executions often led to riots in support of the prisoner.
Thus, he argues, the public execution was ultimately an ineffective use of the body, qualified as non-economical. As well, it was applied non-uniformly and haphazardly. Hence, its political cost was too high. It was the antithesis of the more modern concerns of the state: order and generalization.” (Source: Wikipedia)
In this perspective, the humanisation of convict treatment is not the effect of a growing respect of the person advocated by the Century of the Lights; on the contrary, humanism would have gained permission to express itself because of the introduction of more effective punishment…

I will not comment on this. It is just a theme of reflection.

The second part: Violence in Fiction, in the following post.

 

[Giovanna Clairval]

In Fiction – Violence as the expression of a writer’s suffering

First, I would like to recall that XVIIIth literature was complacent towards torture. I will only quote Voltaire’s, whichcomprises at least two scenes of corporal punishment. I have never seen any disapproval in the author’s rendering of these scenes.

This disappeared (in the same, realistic and complacent form) with the IXth century, although Edmond Dantès and Jean Valjean were not treated very well either.

The expression of violence in literature depends on the amount of liberty--or libertinage--a particular society allows to the authors of Adult fiction.

If the genre is filled with violence, if blurbs mention grit and blood to incite the buyer to buy, it is because western modern society is much more permissive towards anything that is sensual. They even coined a word to depict this social trend: Sensualism (my 1945 Pocket Oxf. Dic. has only “sensualist”, which is something else).

Well, I didn’t need to bother writing a short essay to tell you that sex sells. And a return to sensations as opposed to pure intellect is not that bad. But why does violence sell? And, at the same time, does this recrudescence of grittiness and violence in F novels amount to a general disillusion and decadence of our society?

It is certainly true that society is traversing a phase of disillusionment that began in the seventies. The values of Illuminism—especially the Goddess Reason, and the inevitability of Progress—are questioned by the way the world is going.

But my point here is that violence in fiction is linked to the Author’s and the Reader's suffering. This suffering has always existed.

Today, violence expresses itself in writing because:

1) it can—society gives the Author some slack;

2) is routed in the Author’s secret grief—a child who suffers growing into a psychologically ailing adult.

Fiction unveils psychological truths by wording the souls' pains.
Writing may, in this way, help exorcise what is intolerable in suffering and anguish.

Kafka wrote The Judgement in a single night.

Parental characters (not necessarily parents, but reminiscent of parents) can show up in any novel and torture the protagonists by the sheer, terrible power of words.

Love and hate intertwined may thus, under cover of duty and virtue, borrow the language of altruism: “It's for your own good”… I am thinking here of Poil de Carotte by Jules Renard, a tale of daily humiliation and abuse.


In conclusion

Authors, who are human beings, have always suffered, only they can let it out it now, and readers can buy their books and identify with victims and aggressors.

Indefinitely.

Without something happening in one’s life: professional help, personal growth of any sort…
it is an endless circle, and history repeats itself.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Authors, who are human beings, have always suffered, only they can let it out it now, and readers can buy their books and identify with victims and aggressors.

Honestly, I don't see much evidence that readers are identifying with the victims as much as the aggressors. What I do hear is readers and writers making excuses for the most egregious behavior on the part of their favorite characters. Rather than understanding and forgiving the faults of these characters (for the sake of their humanity) they are not recognizing the faults at all; they are not only justifying them, they are actually dismissing them. And if violence and its consquences are not treated truthfully -- and if there are none of those moments of grace I mentioned in a previous message -- then nothing is exorcised, nothing is learned, and suffering is trivialized as mere entertainment. It is possible to describe horrifying things with compassion and so excite compassion in the reader; it is also possible (and I believe increasingly common) to present them in such a way that the reader is encouraged to accept them as natural, inevitable, and right.

You mention Jean Valjean -- a character who certainly suffers, who is the victim of many injustices, and yet in his story that are also many passages where we see how individuals may be elevated and ennobled through acts of compassion. You mention Edmond Dantes. But this is a character who, even as he relentlessly pursues his vengeance, also pursues justice for others, commits extravagant acts of gratitude, and is ultimately healed by the power of love. When it comes to depicting the gentler, more generous emotions, I believe that nineteenth-century writers were far more courageous than we are today. Now, these seem to embarrass us, which shows, I think, a set of priorities that are very much skewed.

And I think it is a mistake to associate the sensual with the sensational in fiction. One is an authentic and direct experience, the other is a second-hand version and subject to falsification. I am afraid we are becoming a less compassionate society, a desensitized society, partly as a result of this kind of falsification -- not only, or even principally in books (but books are what we discuss here), but throughout the arts and media, and certainly in the speeches of politicians.

And it's not just the violence and gore. Fantasy is taking on some of the worst sins of the romance genre by depicting relationships which are deeply toxic and deeply dysfunctional and then representing them as true love -- and many readers are accepting this! It chills me to think what their own relationships must be like (or, if they are young, will be like) if this is what they believe.

We need not, as a result of becoming increasingly desensitized, go out and commit atrocities for society to be harmed. That harm may come instead in the form of a multitude of everyday cruelties: bullying in the schoolyard; domestic violence; physical and emotional abuse of children; sexual harrassment in the workplace. And if these propensities are being exorcised through literature and the arts -- then why are they escalating?

I think there is a point where we stop exorcising our demons, and begin to fall in love with them instead.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

In what you have said, Giovanna, I sense an assumption that writers who make pain and suffering their main theme have necessarily known great pain and suffering themselves. Yet why is the verity of this kind of writing so readily accepted, and why should it not be subjected to the same expectations and the same kind of scrutiny as writing of a more hopeful and life-affirming nature? Too often, I think, the darker books get a free pass.

I have not said the suffering and violence should be eliminated from our writing -- that would be hypocritical, because it appears in my own writing -- I do ask why this one particular aspect of the human experience is considered by so many the most important, the most valid? Why so much of our art and our efforts are concentrated on exploring the dark side, to the neglect of so many other aspects of our common humanity? Can anything so one-sided be absolutely truthful?

 

[enchanted_ghost2001]

Those efforts have to start somewhere. And if the time comes that someone rolls up their metaphoric sleeves and begins the heavy lifting, it would be nice to think that those in the SFF community hadn't added too much extra to the weight.

Here is something that bothers me: I'll go into a bookstore and start picking up books that look like they might be appealing. And I see book after book after book that includes words like "violent" and "bloody" in the book description and the blurbs. And I know very well that these words wouldn't be splashed over so many different covers if the people marketing these books had not very good reason to believe that violence and gore were actual selling points -- as opposed to characterization, world-building, or the well-crafted plot. As though we may be passing into a period when violence is no longer to be present in service to the plot, but as an aim in itself -- as though plots might be being crafted specifically to accommodate that violence. Or even when that's not the writer's intention, these scenes of battle, rape, and torture may be all that great numbers of readers are taking away.

Another thing that bothers me a lot is that readers won't just say, "I enjoy these books because they're exciting," they have to say the books are vastly different from anything else out there -- when they're not -- or more realistic -- when they're not. And I don't know whether this is because they are trying to make their taste in books sound more sophisticated, or because they subconciously feel that there is something there (or something lacking) that they have to excuse or justify. Better to find out what that is and why they feel that way, then cover it up with spurious arguments.

I am bothered by this too. This is why I am such a picky reader. I started writing because I couldn't find anything that I liked to read. Violence for violence's sake doesn't appeal to me. I can't and won't read a book unless it has good characterization, world building and is well written. Sadly it seems less authors are willing to put the work into their storys to do just that. No matter how appealing the book cover looks or the back blurb sounds, I have to read a few paragraphs to get a sense of how it is written. Most of the time the book goes back onto the bookstore shelf. I hope something changes soon and better writing makes a come back because until then my bookshelves will remain woefully bare. Also and maybe this is off topic but has anyone else noticed that an awful lot of books are written in first person? Sometimes I don't mind it but most of the time I find its annoying.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

One thing we haven't been talking about is that missing (missing in my opinion at least) sense of wonder.

I'm almost through reading No Flame But Mine, the last book in Tanith Lee's Lionwolf trilogy. And I like the book very much -- a great deal more than the second book, which seemed to wander too far, too often, from the main threads of an already complex story -- but considerably less than the first book, Cast a Bright Shadow.

On the face of it, I should be enjoying Flame more, since the themes are transformation and renewel -- entirely congenial with my personal taste -- and the body count is rather less, while the events of Shadow are far more tragic and cruel, including a mass slaughter. So why do I like Shadow better, when it is full of things that make me cringe? It's because there is so much more in it of the marvelous and the numinous.

Now at least for me any sense of the numinous is getting harder and harder to find, but the marvelous is aparently still alive and well in the genre where Space Ship's efforts are focussed -- the YA Fantasy. Of course this genre has its share of good books and bad books; some of them are simplistic, some of them are shallow. But the best ones are shaking off most of the familiar Fantasy conventions and spontaneously creating new ones. Without melodrama to fall back on, these authors seem to really be stretching the boundaries of their imaginations -- and I predict that the kids who are reading these books now are going to be expecting a lot more from Adult Fantasy when they reach that stage in a few years time. Whether the market will change to accomodate them, or whether they'll be disappointed and we'll lose them is another question.

 

[j d worthington]

There are a lot of interesting thoughts here, and several have points I agree with. For one thing, I've come more and more to note, as Scalem says, that such trends come and go throughout history; sometimes in art, and sometimes in life itself. Certainly our world isn't much (if any) darker than some periods now and again in history; it's simply that we have much more immediate and widespread communication, and are therefore more aware of the darker aspects than we were when the only ways of communicating were word-of-mouth or letters... which could take months or even years to reach their destinations. About the only exceptions to this I can think of are what happened in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, etc.; and even these are only on a larger scale because of the technological ability to carry out such mass murder so quickly -- put the same resources in the hands of a Vlad Ţepeş and you'd most likely have had the same thing then... not to mention a number of other sovereigns of the past.

Which isn't to say that we don't need to address this tendency to see the world as devoid of light -- I'd say we very much do; but to not let ourselves be so discouraged by what we perceive to be a growing trend... for much the same reasons that power the very fictional vices we're talking about here.

On the uses of torture, etc.... despite the egregious behavior we see headlined so often, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the general trend of the human race is away from such brutality; our ethics seem to be going more and more in the opposite direction overall, and behaviors that have long been taken for granted are now generally met with disapproval and even ostracization.

One thing we haven't been talking about is that missing (missing in my opinion at least) sense of wonder.

On the face of it, I should be enjoying Flame more, since the themes are transformation and renewel -- entirely congenial with my personal taste -- and the body count is rather less, while the events of Shadow are far more tragic and cruel, including a mass slaughter. So why do I like Shadow better, when it is full of things that make me cringe? It's because there is so much more in it of the marvelous and the numinous.

This one is especially of interest to me, as it's what has been driving me more and more into the older writers, who were so very aware of this very important aspect of literature. It's something that expands our awareness of the world (and the universe) around us, and adds so many levels to our appreciation of life in such subtle and profound ways. It also helps us to recognize our relationship to the "other" -- something that is (or should be) especially a part of sff, I'd say.

One can see this aspect of things even in Robert E. Howard's Conan tales -- e.g., "The Tower of the Elephant" or "Beyond the Black River"; not to mention such writers as Dunsany, Eddison, or even Merritt. This is something I see as having been largely (though not entirely) lost -- perhaps it has to do with a general movement toward the secular and away from the religious or mystical, or perhaps it's for some other reason; but it seems to me that writing has had a trend toward the darker and more brutal and sensational and afraid of a more optimistic or humanistic stance, but we've also become afraid to mull over this aspect of our emotional spectrum -- almost as if we're afraid to admit to having this to our personalities. Good grief, even a hardline rationalist like Lovecraft recognized the importance of this to our emotional well-being.

EDIT: Sorry for any oddities here... computer problems caused it to lock up on me at one point...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

On the uses of torture, etc.... despite the egregious behavior we see headlined so often, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the general trend of the human race is away from such brutality; our ethics seem to be going more and more in the opposite direction overall, and behaviors that have long been taken for granted are now generally met with disapproval and even ostracization.

Actually, JD, I too am convinced that the general trend of the human race is away from brutality and toward ethical behavior, and I've had (still do to a certain extent) little patience with people who over-dramatized the ills of the present as though we were living in some sort of dark age, when even a cursory knowledge of history should tell us we are not.

But I feel that in the last five or ten years Western society has regressed. Not in any grandiose way, but still in ways that trouble me, not because I feel that any long term damage is being done -- the more humane trend will resume it's course sooner or later -- but we have to live now, and our children and grandchildren have to live with the legacy we create for them now, and if it all comes right again in another fifty years -- that's of little comfort to me, and far less, I am sure, to the people being subjected now to the everyday cruelties I mentioned before.

But for the upward trend to resume it's course, people have to believe in it. And just at the moment it seems like too many don't and that saddens me. Above, all young people seem not to believe or care, and that's even sadder. You and I remember well how angry so many members of our own generation were back in the 60's and early 70's; and some of it was misplaced and some of it based on ignorance and some of it was entirely justified; but it was an anger that had much in it of compassion, and a belief that it was possible, and indeed imperative, for groups and individuals to become a force for positive change. And you don't see so much of that kind of anger anymore; instead, the anger seems to be growing increasingly fatalistic. (Except for Al Gore. Yay, Al! But he's one of ours.)

And I look back on all the psychedelic posters and the tie-dye shirts and the unicorns and glitter and all the rest of it -- and yes, it does seem rather silly and naïve, but somehow it all did seem to energize people, didn't it? It was overworked and it was overdone and it eventually became trite and lost its power, but for a while the power was there. And I would like to think that there might be some way -- some way more appropriate to our times -- ideally, some way more sophisticated and more enduring -- that we could tap into that power again and direct it more wisely and keep it longer.

But if the most imaginative part of the creative community (which I modestly assume to be SFF readers and writers and artists, of course), if they can't see their way clear to discovering that power, then who will?

 

[Giovanna Clairval]

Honestly, I don't see much evidence that readers are identifying with the victims as much as the aggressors.

I was referring not to the voluntary--so to say-- identification with the victim (poor thing--I wish she could punch the aggressor in the face / escape / become wiser) but to the involuntary variety of identification.

In this unconscious identification, the reader is the aggressor and the victim—as it happens in sadomasochism, where the double noun does not describe two persons, but one, who inflicts (in her mind) and receives pain (and vice versa).

During a rape, the raping one is also the raped one, as weird and kinky as it may sound (it is kinky: it’s a perversion).

Well, a certain amount of perversion, which does not act out, is in everyone’s mind.

I was saying that:

1) Our time is permissive when it comes to giving people the opportunity to experience sensations, as other times were.

2) A great amount of suffering in novels is linked to the authors’ own suffering.

I agree with you, Teresa, on the fact that several authors use 1) for sensationalism = dollars. And, of course, sensations and sensationalism are not the same, and the first trend does not justify the second.

As for Edmond Dantès and Jean Valjean, I simply said that they were subjected to torture, but—and once again, I agree with you—the great, enormous difference between those two characters and others soulless heroes, is that the first undergo a personal growth.

I think that every novel should tackle some kind of evolution of the characters. All books that relate an inner quest teach us something.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Well, I hoped to stir up discussion, Giovanna, and you're obliging me, which I very much appreciate -- even though I think we may be not quite understanding each other, and seem to be talking at cross-purposes even where we're basically in agreement.