Ilana's Journal Week 18: Help Me Appreciate Vampires [ Edited ]

[IlanaSimons]

My friend who’s a literary agent said he found a goldmine of a book last week and is now bidding for it alongside eight other agencies. He described the manuscript as a “Young Adult novel in Salinger style—pretty realistic—but featuring a vampire in the most wonderful way.” He loves vampire stories—and has called the good use of a vampire the sign of a brilliant writing mind.

Help me here. I’ve never turned onto fantasy fiction, and the phrase “features vampires” makes me run the other way from a book. This week I’m not going to talk about anything I’m reading but ask for guidance from you. Does anyone here read much fantasy fiction; if so, help me understand its appeal? I suppose a wide range of books can be called fantasy, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Harry Potter to Phillip K. Dick. Fantasy is a genre that relies on the supernatural but probably has a slightly different mood than science fiction or horror. If anyone can more distinctly describe its voice, do help me out.

I have guesses about why we’d embrace books that feature the supernatural: Something distinctly Non-Real echoes the outsider in us; it kindles the part of imagination that’s otherwise cramped. I would also guess that some supernatural character, when done right, can be a potent symbol for experience that loses something if described directly. For instance, Mary Shelley could have written Frankenstein as a tale about an actual child, but she made that child a monster. By doing it, she got us to think about ordinary life in a distinctly non-ordinary way. She radicalized human loneliness by personifying it in a monster.

I’d like to hear from you: What do supernatural elements add to a story that something like the psychological realism of Crime in Punishment misses?

What Sci-fi or Fantasy books have affected you, and why?

A coda: I’m posting a day early this week because I’m about to go on a trip during which I might not have internet access for two days. I’ll be roaming the Earth like Frankenstein’s lost one. Will be back.

---

-Ilana
Visit my website at http://webspace.newschool.edu/~simonsi.

Message Edited by IlanaSimons on 09-19-2007 09:04 AM

[thinker]

Hi Ilana,

Like you, I’ve never turned onto fantasy fiction myself, I guess the supernatural has never really grabbed my interest much. But I appreciate your mention of Shelley, great book, here though she uses that monster to depict loneliness as you said in these lines “she got us to think about ordinary life in a distinctly non-ordinary way. She radicalized human loneliness by personifying it in a monster.” I look at the book as an inspiration to go above and beyond all that is around you, to go as far as the poles if you have to.

To some readers, I think fantasy fiction gives them the opportunity to escape from reality for a while go to another place where they can either just experience something one can only dream about or perform some “fantabulous” feat not possible in reality.

A friend of mine is a Harry Potter fan and here are her views of fantasy fiction, “Fantasy hypnotizes you, takes you to a totally different level in life”, as regards JK Rowling’s style she says, “Her literary style is unmatched, it brings out true emotion, her writing is almost real, with so much detail its hard to critique, after a chapter or two you forget that you’re reading fiction.”

Well that’s just one view, lets see what others think about fantasy fiction.

[Everyman]

For me to answer intelligently, I need a clearer definition of what is meant by fantasy.

You wrote "I have guesses about why we’d embrace books that feature the supernatural: Something distinctly Non-Real echoes the outsider in us; it kindles the part of imagination that’s otherwise cramped."

By these terms, is the Bible fantasy? It certainly includes features we would consider supernatural: an outside force helping warriors win battles, a voice speaking out of a burning bush, water being turned into wine, walking on water, and on and on. Do you consider the Bible to be an example of fantasy?

What about the Iliad? A fantasy poem? Gods come and go, dashing about, lifting a man up off the battlefield and depositing him in his paramour's bedrooms, the paramour then being forced by a supernatural figure to engage in sexual relations she claims not to want. Descriptions of the gods arguing among themselves, sleeping together, and on and on. Fantasy?

How about Paradise Lost, with angels running around here and there, lakes of burning fire, an angel taking on the shape of a talking animal.

Dante's Divine Comedy certainly includes lots and lots of supernatural people and events.

How about Alice in Wonderland? Is falling through a rabbit hole, meeting talking playing cards, et. al. not fantasy?

I'm willing to bet that you consider all five of those books to be serious literature. And I would be surprised if you have previously defined any of them, except perhaps Alice, as fantasies.

Is there a line between fantasy and serious literature, and if so how and where do we draw the line?

[Everyman]

A question somewhat related to my previous post. Do you distinguish between allegory and fantasy, or are some or all allegories also fantasies? Pilgrim's Progress being the classic example.

How about the Narnia sequence. Allegory? Fantasy? Both? (I suppose I should add the Neither choice, but if anybody thinks they're neither I'm going to want a might good explanation of why!)

How about Aesop's Fables with their talking animals -- fantasies?

How about most of our most beloved fairy tales -- The Three Little Pigs (talking animals), Cinderella (fairy godmother, pumpkin turned into a coach), Sleeping Beauty (curse, people sleeping without food or water for a hundred years and waking up fresh and ready for love), Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, you name it. Fantasies? Allegories? Both? Neither? And if neither, what?

[IlanaSimons]

This Potter comment makes sense. I can imagine if a text is emotionally accurate and insightful, the fanatsy elements would gather depth.

---

thinker wrote:
Hi Ilana,

Like you, I’ve never turned onto fantasy fiction myself, I guess the supernatural has never really grabbed my interest much. But I appreciate your mention of Shelley, great book, here though she uses that monster to depict loneliness as you said in these lines “she got us to think about ordinary life in a distinctly non-ordinary way. She radicalized human loneliness by personifying it in a monster.” I look at the book as an inspiration to go above and beyond all that is around you, to go as far as the poles if you have to.

To some readers, I think fantasy fiction gives them the opportunity to escape from reality for a while go to another place where they can either just experience something one can only dream about or perform some “fantabulous” feat not possible in reality.

A friend of mine is a Harry Potter fan and here are her views of fantasy fiction, “Fantasy hypnotizes you, takes you to a totally different level in life”, as regards JK Rowling’s style she says, “Her literary style is unmatched, it brings out true emotion, her writing is almost real, with so much detail its hard to critique, after a chapter or two you forget that you’re reading fiction.”

Well that’s just one view, lets see what others think about fantasy fiction.

---

[IlanaSimons]

These are good questions. I hope someone addresses them. I'm going to think about them...I'm running off to the plane.

---

Everyman wrote:
For me to answer intelligently, I need a clearer definition of what is meant by fantasy.

You wrote "I have guesses about why we’d embrace books that feature the supernatural: Something distinctly Non-Real echoes the outsider in us; it kindles the part of imagination that’s otherwise cramped."

By these terms, is the Bible fantasy? It certainly includes features we would consider supernatural: an outside force helping warriors win battles, a voice speaking out of a burning bush, water being turned into wine, walking on water, and on and on. Do you consider the Bible to be an example of fantasy?

What about the Iliad? A fantasy poem? Gods come and go, dashing about, lifting a man up off the battlefield and depositing him in his paramour's bedrooms, the paramour then being forced by a supernatural figure to engage in sexual relations she claims not to want. Descriptions of the gods arguing among themselves, sleeping together, and on and on. Fantasy?

How about Paradise Lost, with angels running around here and there, lakes of burning fire, an angel taking on the shape of a talking animal.

Dante's Divine Comedy certainly includes lots and lots of supernatural people and events.

How about Alice in Wonderland? Is falling through a rabbit hole, meeting talking playing cards, et. al. not fantasy?

I'm willing to bet that you consider all five of those books to be serious literature. And I would be surprised if you have previously defined any of them, except perhaps Alice, as fantasies.

Is there a line between fantasy and serious literature, and if so how and where do we draw the line?

---

Message Edited by IlanaSimons on 09-19-2007 12:03 PM

[Everyman]

As a broad stereotype, which I recognize is not universally valid but I think nonetheless contains some truth, I think that many academics tend to consider older fantasy as good, and modern fantasy as not good. They will consider the Fairy Queen, for example, as great literature despite some pretty obvious fantasy elements. Similarly Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, Alice in Wonderland, The Odyssey, Frankenstein, and other "classic" fantasies. These are all literature.

But these same academics tend, IME, to almost automatically turn up their noses at, say, Harry Potter, Anne Rice, and the whole host of contemporary fantasy writers. Frankly, I think Harry Potter is more creative and better written than Frankenstein, but that's just a personal judgment. But the point is that I see most (well, at the very least a great many) serious academics who are quite able to see some modern fiction as serious literature being unable to see any modern fantasy as serious literature, despite being able to accept much classic fantasy as entirely serious literature.

You're closer to the academic world today than I am, Ilana. Do you find this point reasonable, or am I misjudging today's academics?

[KathyS]

Have a good trip!
K

[Everyman]

One more comment, then I'll shut up for awhile (and high time, too, I hear some of you saying, but I will of course be too high minded to pay any attention to such impolite comments).

You wrote "the phrase “features vampires” makes me run the other way from a book."

Does the phrase "features one-eyed monsters, cannibals, and supernatural transformations" make you run the other way from Homer's Odyssey?

If not, why not?

[IlanaSimons]

I think you're generally right about academics. That said, there have been an increasing number of panels at conferences on Fantasy and Sci-Fi. Phillip K. Dick is a modern mind that's highly regarded.

---

Everyman wrote:
As a broad stereotype, which I recognize is not universally valid but I think nonetheless contains some truth, I think that many academics tend to consider older fantasy as good, and modern fantasy as not good. They will consider the Fairy Queen, for example, as great literature despite some pretty obvious fantasy elements. Similarly Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, Alice in Wonderland, The Odyssey, Frankenstein, and other "classic" fantasies. These are all literature.

But these same academics tend, IME, to almost automatically turn up their noses at, say, Harry Potter, Anne Rice, and the whole host of contemporary fantasy writers. Frankly, I think Harry Potter is more creative and better written than Frankenstein, but that's just a personal judgment. But the point is that I see most (well, at the very least a great many) serious academics who are quite able to see some modern fiction as serious literature being unable to see any modern fantasy as serious literature, despite being able to accept much classic fantasy as entirely serious literature.

You're closer to the academic world today than I am, Ilana. Do you find this point reasonable, or am I misjudging today's academics?

---

[IlanaSimons]

Thanks, KS

---

KathyS wrote:
Have a good trip!
K

---

[KathyS]

E -
You've brought up some super points to discuss...and who am I to tell you to shut up?! Ha!
Carry on -
K.

[thinker]

Hi Everyman

As regards your questions these are just my views

First we have to distinguish between allegory and fantasy. An allegory is a story with a symbolically represented moral.
A fantasy is a story totally out of the imagination and unrelated to reality.

So if its related to something real or has some moral teaching in it, its not a fantasy.

Aesop wrote fables to teach persons valuable lessons in life, these aren’t fantasy, talking animals were used symbolically, so let’s see, allegories?

Harry Potter, a story conjured up in its creators’ mind, I’ll call it fantasy.

Fairy tales, these are mainly fantasy stories to me.

And hey Alice in Wonderland, definitely fantasy!!

The Bible, I wont call it fantasy, not even fiction, but that goes with religious beliefs, and that’s a totally different discussion.

What do you say?

[Everyman]

Can't there be stories that are both? Very few stories, IME, are unrelated to reality. The Narnia tales, for example, are totally made up, but at the same time are, I think, related to reality. They take "normal" children and put them into abnormal situations. Almost every child does this in their real life imagination; I would worry about any child who didn't. But they are also clearly, I think, intended to be allegorical.

---

thinker wrote:
[edited] First we have to distinguish between allegory and fantasy. An allegory is a story with a symbolically represented moral.
A fantasy is a story totally out of the imagination and unrelated to reality.

---

[Choisya]

Ilana wrote: I have guesses about why we’d embrace books that feature the supernatural: Something distinctly Non-Real echoes the outsider in us; it kindles the part of imagination that’s otherwise cramped.


Perhaps it is significant that the genre of books we now regard as Sci-Fi and Fantasy have arisen since the decline in reading/believing the stories in the Bible or other religious works? Maybe people are searching for the 'supernatural' in other sources?

---

IlanaSimons wrote:
My friend who’s a literary agent said he found a goldmine of a book last week and is now bidding for it alongside eight other agencies. He described the manuscript as a “Young Adult novel in Salinger style—pretty realistic—but featuring a vampire in the most wonderful way.” He loves vampire stories—and has called the good use of a vampire the sign of a brilliant writing mind.

Help me here. I’ve never turned onto fantasy fiction, and the phrase “features vampires” makes me run the other way from a book. This week I’m not going to talk about anything I’m reading but ask for guidance from you. Does anyone here read much fantasy fiction; if so, help me understand its appeal? I suppose a wide range of books can be called fantasy, from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Harry Potter to Phillip K. Dick. Fantasy is a genre that relies on the supernatural but probably has a slightly different mood than science fiction or horror. If anyone can more distinctly describe its voice, do help me out.

I have guesses about why we’d embrace books that feature the supernatural: Something distinctly Non-Real echoes the outsider in us; it kindles the part of imagination that’s otherwise cramped. I would also guess that some supernatural character, when done right, can be a potent symbol for experience that loses something if described directly. For instance, Mary Shelley could have written Frankenstein as a tale about an actual child, but she made that child a monster. By doing it, she got us to think about ordinary life in a distinctly non-ordinary way. She radicalized human loneliness by personifying it in a monster.

I’d like to hear from you: What do supernatural elements add to a story that something like the psychological realism of Crime in Punishment misses?

What Sci-fi or Fantasy books have affected you, and why?

A coda: I’m posting a day early this week because I’m about to go on a trip during which I might not have internet access for two days. I’ll be roaming the Earth like Frankenstein’s lost one. Will be back.

---

-Ilana
Visit my website at http://webspace.newschool.edu/~simonsi.

Message Edited by IlanaSimons on 09-19-2007 09:04 AM

---

Message Edited by Choisya on 09-20-2007 06:06 AM

Message Edited by Choisya on 09-20-2007 06:07 AM

[thinker]

These are great points, i agree with you guys.

Everyman,
Yes, I suppose the allegory and fantasy can go together

Choisya,
How do we differentiate between Sci-fi and fantasy
Uh, lets see, fantasy's theme is more a supernatural one and Sci-fi still has some connection to reality?
Or would you say they are almost the same.
Then if we add in horror here........hmm hmm

[IlanaSimons]

Welcome back, Choisya. I'd love to hear how your trip was. I want to think a little more about the historical trajectory you're suggesting, because some people call Beowulf Fantasy, afterall, but I deeply connect with your idea here: that our impulse toward fantasy--toward finding meaning in supernatural events--is akin to our connection with the Bible.

---

Choisya wrote:
Ilana wrote: I have guesses about why weâ  d embrace books that feature the supernatural: Something distinctly Non-Real echoes the outsider in us; it kindles the part of imagination thatâ  s otherwise cramped.


Perhaps it is significant that the genre of books we now regard as Sci-Fi and Fantasy have arisen since the decline in reading/believing the stories in the Bible or other religious works? Maybe people are searching for the 'supernatural' in other sources?

---

[Everyman]

---

Choisya wrote:
Perhaps it is significant that the genre of books we now regard as Sci-Fi and Fantasy have arisen since the decline in reading/believing the stories in the Bible or other religious works?

---

Reports I read do suggest that interest in organized religion is indeed in decline in England and Europe, with their decaying cultures, but the same is not the case in the US. Here, religion and spiritualism are still going strong. Sales of the Bible are still very good, as a look at the sales figures of on-line retailers will show, and while mainstream churches are showing declines, this is more than offset by increases in church attendance and spiritual experiences in other venues.

If there were indeed a link between rising interest in fantasy and declining interest in Bible reading were the case, then the resurgence in Christian fundamentalism in this country, at least, should be showing up in declines in fantasy writing, which isn't the case.

We have seen a number of genres of writing arise or increase greatly in the past fifty years: detective fiction, horror, chick-lit, self-help, romance, true crime. Are all of these also to be linked to declines in reading the Bible?

We must beware of using post hoc propter hoc thinking to seek to justify opinions dear to us.

[IBIS]

In an interesting chat with the writer, book critic for NPR, and reader extra-ordinaire, Alan Cheuse, I asked him if he often came across the religious texture of contemporary writing--if many current authors write about characters who are faith-filled:

He wrote:
These particular characters (from his novellas THE FIRES) are searching, rather than having found an answer. Which may be characteristic of a lot of western people today.
In the work of other writers we find the life of the spirit answered
in the absence rather than in a positive way. With the exception of
some of Updike's characters, and the fallen Catholic aura in the best
work of Robert Stone, I don't know many writers who add this breadth to
the lives of their characters.

This begs the question: Does the popularity of the para-normal, vampires, werewolves, and the rest, fill a contemporary need for the supernatural? Or is the absence of this need as vital as its presence?

[Fiction4Sale]

I recently kicked around this topic with Kathy where I wrote:
I watch movies for relaxation and it amazes me how many are vampire related. What's the great fascination? Is it the search for immortality? That is, a metaphysical solution to death? Is it in some ways a Hegelian dialectic to Christianity? Body over soul as pathway to immortality? Is it the "blood" of the Eucharist turned to the carnal level? And speaking of the popularity also of zombie movies, is that the secular version of "body of Christ" in the Eucharist? That is, eternal life being "tasted" in the flesh of the victim. Are these rituals and obsessions the denied in the consciousness of the Christian? Clearly, there's a great magnetic attraction to the subjects. Be interesting to hear all the readers out there expound on their love with blood and flesh eating "humans" as popular narrative. Oh, and let's not forget the vital element of sexuality, especially in dracula tales.

I tested my Eucharist structural inversion theory on a group of Harvard MBA types this past weekend and got a secular marketing echo: it's the money! Just that simple! And it's driven by the generation of video game players. That is, (and I'll have to take their word on this since I'm not drawn to video games...seem an incredible waste of precious human time!)this banging away at zombies, the humorous take even in the British film industry, is all just in fun. There's nothing supernatural or religious or significant about it. Just more feverish marketing and money making. Thank you, boys and gals in blue.

Now, frankly, I'm of the school that human action has always a cultural context. This secular vein of marketing and money is a Western theme of capitalism woven into a centuries old development of commericial culture...now driven to every inch of the globe. But this is also doped into the "aquarium water" of Judeo-Christian-materialist culture. We Western fish are not that good at drinking and swimming in the Western waters and distinguishing its interpenetration by religious themes.

I would continue to make the argument that Dracula, werewolfies, and staggering zombies (horror movies in general) have a great deal to do with a loss of faith in the belief in the immortality of the soul along Judeo-Christian pathways. Updike struggles openly with faith; so do most liberal theologians. String theory is a popular sermon topic (multiple universes). This uncertainty mode or "decadence" in a civilization opens the doorways to doubt; the vacuum of doubt fills with answers of immortality along other lines: drinking the blood of victims, the un-dead eating the flesh of the living. These structural inversions of the sacred "cannibalism" of Christianity (Eucharistic blood and body, wine and wafer conversion, the monopoly of a possibly decadent, fading church) lead to binary solutions on the dark side of a decadent society...

Here a civilization or set of intertwined societies suffer "susto" or soul loss in its confidence in the soul's immortality. I would guess this soul loss in fact leads back to the rampant riverun greed of corporate materialism and the drive to ever greater levels of consumerism...a faithless inversion of the sacred tradition of simplicity and modesty.

Decadence in civilizational movements, exhaustion of the soul of societies, is really nothing new. Our earlier discussion of modernists like Mann speak to these themes. This isn't late breaking news. I'm just echoing a diagnosis of Western civilization made by many scholars over the past hundred years or more. The interesting thing about living in decadent civilizational periods however is the amazing creativity arising from so many levels of society, the sciences, the arts, the realm of ideas...but the center has slipped away and the balance and sureness is gone. Relativity is center and circumference. No solid ground remains unless grasped in a terrific effort of blocking the outer shifting realities. Check out Imperial Rome.

So, in a roughed out fashion, I'd say the fascination with the dark side of the flesh and blood needs of the un-dead is just the continuing mythic search for immortality common to most of mankind; and when the core institutions fail to provide through the "light", the "dark" legions step forward to carry the mythic journey forward. The oscillation of this metaphysic has no end...but meanwhile...Hollywood and publishing profit in the gorey battle of light and dark. Soon we will all be asked to worship in the shadow of the globe's elite trillionaires...and no doubt some scriptwriter-novelist will merge the Book of Revelation's Apocalypse with the Ascension of Supreme
Evil (the Evangelicals much feared AntiChrist) in a global scenario bringing all these creepies together in a convulsive End to Mankind's Journey (...or not...sequel expected)!
See you at the movies...or read the pulp novel in the comfort of your armchair...this again is hardly new news...but as some wit once said, literature is the news that remains news. We'll have to see about that on this genre. What's that creepy scratching at my study's door?

Message Edited by Fiction4Sale on 09-21-2007 07:16 PM

Message Edited by Fiction4Sale on 09-21-2007 07:27 PM