The Third Hemisphere. Lord Dunsany's Journeys Between The

| Francesco Bernuzzi THE THIRD HEMISPHERE: LORD DUNSANY'S JOURNEY BETWEEN THE REAL AND THE FANTASTIC Abstract The following article considers the peculiarity of fantastic settings in Lord Dunsany’s fantasy fiction. In contrast to many canonical examples of the genre, Dunsany’s works, though openly rejecting realism, never fully exclude reality, creating instead a continuous dialogue between the two dimensions. The article examines the status of Dunsany’s fantasy settings as extensions of reality, as parts of the world beyond the reach of common knowledge, rather than self-standing cosmologies. It studies the role of the first-person narrator, a narrative device frequently employed by Dunsany to present the fantastic tale as a personal experience and to involve his readers in the story. Finally, it analyses the use of irony in Dunsany’s fiction and its importance in prompting reflections on the nature and role of fantasy literature. Key words: fantastic, fantasy literature, irony, Dunsany While frequently neglected by literary critics, in the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries fantasy literature has experienced a remarkable surge in popularity, attested by the wide range of media this versatile genre has in- spired: television and cinema productions, graphic novels, artworks and games. J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973) may be safely assumed to be the leading figure of twentieth century fantasy writing, and his works are a landmark for the compo- 50 The Third Hemisphere... sition, or as he would call it the “sub-creation” 1 of literary worlds of fantasy. Less known to the wider public, but no less established as a “Forefather of Fan- tasy”, is the Anglo-Irish writer Edward Plunkett, 18 th Baron of Dunsany (1878 – 1957). Lord Dunsany constructed his fantasy worlds in ways that may provide an alternative model for fantasy fiction, while also prompting deeper reflections on the practice of myth-making (mythopoeia) and the shifting, complex rela- tionship between fantasy and reality. In Tolkien’s model, the setting of fantasy stories relies on the belief engen- dered in the reader, a belief achieved through the use of literary language. Such a “Secondary World”, as Tolkien called it, is believable and self-standing because it is presented as a fully coherent and self-contained world: it has its own history, mythology and rules and is described as the sole reality in which narra- tion takes place. To break this “spell” would be to let disbelief arise in readers, bringing them back to the “Primary World” and jeopardizing the credibility of the tale. 2 It has not been infrequent then, in fantasy stories of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, to represent the Secondary World as the only possible reality within the story universe, by removing and avoiding any reference to the Primary World. 3 Such conventional understanding of the fantasy world contrasts quite stark- ly with Lord Dunsany’s style of creation, most typically exemplified by a series of short stories published between 1905 and 1919, which will be considered here. Even though Dunsany eschews conventional themes and realist modes and sets many of his fantasy tales in exotic, otherworldly and dream-like realms, art- fully described in an ornate, archaic prose, he never completely removes layers of reality. Rather, he adopts a series of literary devices that engage his fantasy worlds in a continuous dialogue with the real world, make the boundaries between real and fantastic worlds permeable, and pose questions as to the nature of fantasy fiction and the roles author and readers are found to play. Dunsany presents many of his fantasy settings as if they were part of the real world, or somehow connected to it, and thus accessible by real people. This, combined with the frequent use of a first-person narrator who recounts the fantasy tale as 1 J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories”, in: Tree and Leaf , London: Harper Collins, 2001, pp. 1-81. 2 J. R. R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf , p. 37, p. 49. 3 See F. Mendlesohn and E. James (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 66 on some passages where Tolkien himself appears to contravene to his theory by referencing to the Primary World in The Lord of the Rings . Francesco Bernuzzi 51 a personal experience, urges the readers to envisage the possibility of the fantastic in their own lives. Irony itself, a recurrent mode in Dunsany’s narrative style, works less as a strategy to distance oneself from the fantastic than as an effec- tive metafictional device which performs two crucial functions. For one, irony candidly reveals the author as an artisan of the fantastic: one who creates worlds of fiction through literary words. At the same time, irony serves to lambaste the hypocrisy of a materialistic, overbearing society which, in Dunsany’s view, has forgotten and forsaken beauty, especially as embodied in art and nature. 4 Yet beauty may still be attained provided that the readers agree to play the game of fantasy and thereby regain their sense of wonder. What is immediately striking in Lord Dunsany’s version of the fantasy genre is the absence of a map, by contrast a relatively common feature of fantasy narratives. Tolkien himself, among many others, included a detailed map that helped his readers visualize the Secondary World of the story and clearly set it apart from real geography. That Dunsany should have failed to include maps simply because he was not involved in the visual aspects of his publications seems unlikely. In fact, his friendship and collaboration with illustrator Sidney H. Sime are well known, and Sime’s artwork has been shown to have affected Dunsany’s creative process on a number of occasions. 5 Ultimately, it is difficult to situate Dunsany’s fictive lands, for his is the geography of dreams and leg- ends. The story titled “Bethmoora” is a fitting example. Its eponymous city lies in view of the Hills of Hap and the mount called Peol Jagganoth, where “syrabub wine” is produced and local musicians play on the “kalipac”, the “tambang”, the “tittibuk” and the “zootibar.” 6 Unlike Tolkien’s, Dunsany’s creative approach was not based on thorough philological accuracy. Nor did he strive to establish a canonical mythology. Rather, he disseminated his tales with a series of striking details of great suggestive power and often phrased in evoca- tive sounds that contributed to the sense of exoticism and otherness while also bolstering the credibility of a Secondary World governed by its own rules and customs. Nonetheless, readers are presented with “familiar” elements that blur the boundaries between the fictional world of Bethmoora and the real world: the story opens with a description of London, and the first-person narrator reveals 4 On the centrality of beauty, nature and art in Dunsany’s work, see: W. F. Touponce, Lord Dunsany, H.P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury. Spectral Journeys , New York: The Scarecrow Press, 2013 and S. T. Joshi, Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination, West- port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995. 5 M. Amory, Biography of Lord Dunsany , London: Collins, 1972, p. 86. 6 E. Plunkett Dunsany, A Dreamer’s Tales , Boston: J. W. Luce & Company, 1910, pp. 53-54. 52 The Third Hemisphere... that he has decided to leave the British capital in order to see Bethmoora. He also adds that there were other European visitors in the fabled city. Similarly, in “The Fall of Babbulkund”, another first-person narrator trav- els by sea and hires Arab guides to cross the desert on a quest to find the city of Babbulkund, carved by Pharaohs out of sacred hills but condemned for its sins by the prophet of a monotheistic religion. The cultural, historical and ethnic ref- erences explicitly remind the reader of the Near and Middle East and its narratives, but the setting of the story also overlaps with the fantastic and the un- known by mentioning the city of Babbulkund and the rivers Oonrana and Plegáthanees, which are nowhere to be found in a real-world atlas. What is interesting is that Dunsany as a narrator often purportedly over- looks the otherworldliness of his settings. He simply presents his fantasy worlds and their stories as if they were part of shared, albeit slightly secretive, common knowledge. In a number of instances, the narrator nonchalantly suggests that some jewellers or antique shops in London in fact obtain their merchandise from supernatural sources, often with the help of thieves, as can be seen from this passage of “The Bird of the Difficult Eye”: Seeing from this that some extraordinary revolution had occurred in the jewelry busi- ness I went with my curiosity well aroused to a queer old person half demon and half man who has an idol-shop in a byway of the City and who keeps me informed of af- fairs at the Edge of the World. And briefly over a pinch of heather incense that he takes by way of snuff he gave me this tremendous information: that Mr. Neepy Thang the son of Thangobrind had returned from the Edge of the World and was even now in London. 7 The character that goes by the exotic and alien sounding name of Neepy Thang, son of Thangobrind (ironically preceded by the domesticating title “Mr.”), will then proceed to reach the Edge of the World, and the Seas of Shiroora Shan, surprisingly enough, by train: He bought the purple ticket at Victoria Station. He went by Herne Hill, Bromley and Bickley and passed St. Mary Cray. At Eynsford he changed and taking a footpath along a winding valley went wandering into the hills.

Load more