Rhetorics of Fantasy. Farah Mendlesohn

will feel overcontrived.

      Inevitably, there will be texts that appear to cross categories, but these exceptions test the rule: where authors move from one category to another within the text, they invariably assume new techniques; the cadence shifts, and both metaphor and mimetic writing take on different functions to accommodate the new category. This shift is at times inadvertent and at other times subject to the manipulation of more ambitious and skilled writers. Yet while many books move internally from one category to another, very few authors produce a single text that exists simultaneously within multiple categories (although as we shall see, immersive fantasy can host an intrusion). These exceptional few will be discussed in chapter 5, and their achievements provide an important caveat for this book: no theory that claims universal applicability is worth a damn. Here I take serious exception with Stanley Fish’s argument that “theories always work and they will always produce exactly the results they predict, results that will be immediately compelling to those for whom the theory’s assumptions and enabling principles are self-evident. Indeed, the trick would be to find a theory that didn’t work” (68). This statement, however amusing, encapsulates much of what is wrong with current “schools” of literary criticism.⁵ This observation may seem egregious, but it is essential when reading this book to know that its author does not necessarily believe in these structures. They are observations, not diktats, and they are powerful only to the degree that they remain arguable.

      This book is very much grounded in a love of forms, but form cannot be wholly abstracted from content or ideology. Furthermore, I have come to believe that form may act to constrain ideological possibilities. Consequently consideration is given to interpretation where the issue is how a particular mode of writing helps to generate, intensify, or twist meaning. A great deal of this book will consider how particular rhetorics deliberately or unavoidably support ideological positions and in so doing shape character, or affect the construction and narration of story. Generally speaking this is a book about structure, not about meaning.

      When I began this book I believed the issue to be taxonomy. Halfway through, I was convinced that I was working within narratology. Later, rhetoric became my principal concern. In the concluding stages I realized I was working within what is described as poetics. Finally, I realized that the most illuminating metaphors came from the world of landscape painting. This book is the result of an extended thought experiment. It is not intended to fix subcategories of genre (as I hope chapter 5 will make clear), or to say, “this is how you do x kind of fantasy.” It is intended solely in terms of “this is what I observe over a wide range of texts.” It is an exercise in almost pure Reason—a rather old-fashioned approach to criticism, I am aware. I have used other critics where I found them helpful, but there is surprisingly little written on the rhetoric or poetics of the fantastic. I am, however, indebted to the work of John Clute and Brian Attebery, whose writings have served as compass poles, and to the “How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy” books and blog discussions of many active fantasy authors. Wherever this text fits, I hope that it provokes more questions than it answers.

       A Note on the Selection of Texts

      No system of selection has been applied to the choice of texts in this book. At best, the selection builds on Attebery’s notion of the fuzzy set—the idea that there are core likenesses around which we can construct ever more distant perimeters—but with one significant caveat. I argue here that rather than a single fuzzy set, from which fantasy moves from genre to slipstream, we can actually identify several fuzzy sets, linked together by what John Clute has termed taproot texts (Encyclopedia 921–922). Inevitably, some forms of fantasy appeal to me more than others and I have yet to find a reader who claims to enjoy all of the kinds I have outlined: to give just one example, readers who like portal-quest fantasies rarely seem to enjoy the liminal fantasies, and vice versa. I have not been able to keep this coloration entirely absent from the text, although where I knew my own tastes might predetermine my analysis, I tackled the problem in part by asking those more enthusiastic for the forms to select my reading. This outside selection is particularly evident in chapter 1 (portal-quest fantasy) and chapter 3 (intrusion fantasy) where all the texts chosen came recommended by friends and members of the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts online discussion list. In contrast the books selected for chapters 4 and 5 are works I had already read, and that had fascinated me. A consequence is that some writers central to the field do not appear in this book: in each case the omission is entirely because my personal taste does not extend in their direction. For these reasons, and aware that the passive academic voice has a tendency to reinforce reification, I have chosen to retain the first person.

      I am not myself always convinced my assignments are appropriate. Some books have been wrangled back and forth between chapters as I have tried to decide in which mode they were written. Dividing between immersive fantasies (which just happened to have intrusions as part of their plot but whose rhetoric emphasized the immersive qualities of the text) and those fantasies set in other worlds (in which intrusion is the source of the fantastic) was not always easy. Whether the choices have been correct or not, the very engagement with them has generated questions about the ways in which the fantastic is written; any disputes as to where I have placed each book will, I hope, generate more.

      Finally, where possible—and unless stated otherwise—I have referenced all texts to the first editions. The major exception to this is in chapter 3 where the classic Gothic novels are all referenced to current Penguin Classics for the ease of both author and reader.

       The Categories

      This book is constructed as a set of interlocking essays: with the exception of chapter 5 each of the essays stands alone while leaning against the arguments and definitions of the other chapters. The critical questions in each chapter are: How do we get there? How do we meet the fantastic? In what ways does this meeting affect the narrative and rhetorical choices? How does this affect the choice of language and in what way does the choice of language affect the construction of the fantastic and the position of the reader? What ideological consequences emerge from the rhetorical structures? Perhaps the most crucial question is, Where are we asked to stand in relationship to the fantastic? It is important to understand that I am not discussing point of view, or what Gérard Génette labeled focalization. Focalization is a matter internal to the story and there is no common choice within any of the categories (although one cannot but notice the extensive use of first person in the liminal fantasy). What I am interested in is the reader’s relationship to the framework. Bijoy H. Boruah, in trying to rationalize the empathic emotions of the reader, wrote, “To appreciate fictions is, to some extent, also to fictionalize ourselves” (126), an activity he called “metaphoric participation.” His phrase is peculiarly apt for what I am arguing. That “reader position” to which I will keep pointing, while on the one hand a reference to our ideal and implied reader, is also an invitation to construct a fictionalized self who can accept the construction of the rhetoric of a particular fantastic text. But the invitation is not free and open: it is an exercise in which the author continually seeks the upper hand. In his reader’s report on this book Brian Attebery wrote, “Characters can be categorized variously as being immersed in, or wandering through, or fighting off invasions of the fantastic; readers, however, can take any or all of these positions at once, since they are constantly mediating between the fantasy world and their own experience” (Reader’s report, 2006). Yet what I shall argue here is that the author seeks to control these choices, even while understanding the polysemous and proactive position of the reader. For many authors the task is to anticipate readers’ strategies as part of their own poetics. The core rhetorical strategy of fantasy remains the same: fantasy is constructed with precision through point of view. Like a perspective