Uses of Fantasy (Downing).Indd
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KNOWING & DOING A Teaching Quarterly for Discipleship of Heart and Mind This article originally appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of Knowing & Doing. C.S. LEWIS INSTITUTE The Uses of Fantasy by Dr. David C. Downing R. W. Schlosser Associate Professor of English, Elizabethtown College nly a few years after the Although psychoanalysis has become all but ex- phenomenal success of tinct as a therapeutic science, it lives among review- Othe film trilogy based ers and critics as a way of explaining why formidable upon J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of intellects such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien insisted the Rings, C.S. Lewis’s Nar- on creating fantasy stories. Apart from its glib psy- nia books are off to an equally chology, the dismissive approach so often adopted by promising start on the silver journalists also reveals a lamentable ignorance about screen. Worldwide receipts for the fantasy genre itself. Disney/Walden Media’s adap- In middle-brow circles, fantasy has a bad name. tation of The Lion, the Witch and Dr. David Downing Normal, well-adjusted adults are supposed to resign the Wardrobe surpassed a half themselves to the real world. Fantasy is seen as the a billion dollars within three domain of children, the mentally disturbed, or the months of the film’s release, putting it on pace to be- sexually frustrated. In literature too, fantasy is of- come Disney’s highest grossing live-action film ever ten associated with nursery stories, comic books, or (Variety, January 16, 2006). teen-targeted movies. But when writers of the first Although these high-profile cinematic adaptations order—Franz Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Ursula Le Guin, have revived interest in Tolkien’s and Lewis’s fantasy Margaret Atwood, and Gabriel García Marquéz, to books published half a century ago, the film versions name a few—turn to fantasy as their genre of choice, have also revived familiar criticisms about fantasy it is time to ask why serious authors write fantasies writing as a lightweight genre, best suited for chil- and why serious readers turn to them for enjoyment dren—or for adults who wish they had never grown and contemplation. up. In his review of The Fellowship of the Ring, Elvis “The problem with the real world, frankly, is that it Mitchell in the New York Times (December 19, 2001) is the only one we have” (FW 3). This remark by Eric condescendingly described Tolkien’s classic work as S. Rabkin sums up as well in one sentence what other “the most intimidating nerd/academic fantasy classic critics have taken chapters to say: fantasy seems to ever.” Mitchell’s words seem to echo those of critic Ed- begin as an itch in the imagination, a sense that what mund Wilson, who dismissed Tolkien’s massive tale might be, or what could never be, enriches the mean- as “essentially a children’s book which has somehow ing of what is. gotten out of hand” (The Nation, April 14, 1956). In pop culture, the most spectacularly successful In the same way, recent reviews of The Lion, the creators of comic book and film heroes are those who Witch and the Wardrobe echo comments by earlier know how to tap into the collective consciousness of critics about the Narnia books themselves. Charles their times. It is a commonplace of culture studies McGrath (New York Times, November 13, 2005) con- that Superman was created in the late ‘30s not as a cluded that Lewis’s children’s books are not really swaggering Ubermensch but as the friend of ordinary about portraying the author’s world-view, but more folks trying to make ends meet. The Lord of the Rings about his desire to escape. In this off-hand remark, was first published in 1954, but did not become a cult McGrath repeats an oft-sounded theme in A.N. classic until the mid-’60s, when a whole generation of Wilson’s biography of Lewis: that the distinguished young people responded to the adventures of a simple, Oxford don and brilliant Christian apologist was ac- down-to-earth fellow called upon to do battle with a tually a victim of the “Peter Pan syndrome,” a refusal vast, almost faceless, enemy seeking to control a mys- to grow up and see the world as it really is (C.S. Lewis, terious, all-powerful new weapon. In recent years it New York: Norton, p. 26). has been the Harry Potter who becomes a wizard and 2 The Uses of Fantasy Peter Parker who becomes Spiderman—the schlemiel true of fantasy: “It is the function of art to renew our as superhero. perception. What we are familiar with, we cease to see. The basic contrast between the realistic and the fan- The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and as if by tastic is as old as storytelling itself. Plato distinguished magic, we see a new meaning in it.” Thus the fantasy between two types of imitation, the icastic, represent- writer may offer what Kenneth Burke called “perspec- ing things that may be found in the real world, and tives by incongruity,” making us view our own reality the fantastic, things that exist only in imagination. The differently, not by casting a spell, but by breaking the great philosopher was suspicious of literary creation, spell of familiarity. as something was one step removed from physical re- We can see this technique at work in Bernard Mal- ality and two steps removed from the perfect world of amud’s classic tale “Angel Levine,” first published in Forms. Yet to illustrate his point, he resorted to one of 1958. “Angel Levine” is the story a Jewish tailor living the most famous of all literary creations, the parable in New York who endures a Job-like series of reverses: of people living in a cave who only see the shadows his business burns down, his son is killed in the war, of real things outside. his daughter runs off with a lout, his wife becomes Contemporary critics tend to distinguish between terminally ill, and he himself suffers excruciating two kinds of non-realistic stories, science fiction and backaches. The tailor, named Manischevitz, calls out fantasy. They would classify works by Jules Verne, to God for relief and soon receives a visit from a black H.G. Wells, and Isaac Asimov in one category and man in an ill-fitting suit who claims to be an angel on works by Lewis Carroll, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Row- probation sent to help. Though the angel, named Alex- ling in another. The general sense is that in science ander Levine, explains he was an observant Jew in life fiction extraordinary events are brought about by and sonorously recites a Hebrew prayer, Manischevitz imagined but plausible technologies, whereas in fan- just can’t believe that such an unprepossessing, not to tasy the extraordinary is brought about by magic or mention wingless, character could be an angel sent enchantment. Thus, science fiction writers are obliged from God, and so refuses any help. Levine is crest- to explain time travel or the means of surviving in fallen and turns to leave, saying that if the poor tailor space, while fantasy writers may people their stories changes his mind, he can look him up in Harlem. with wizards or talking animals without troubling Soon afterwards Manischevitz sees Levine in a themselves about how such things might come to be. dream preening opalescent wings. His suffering un- This distinction may have heuristic value, but it be- abated, the tailor finally decides in desperation to gins to break down when one considers actual texts seek out the self-proclaimed angel in a part of the by authors such as E.R. Eddison, Arthur C. Clarke, or city he would usually never visit. On his first trip he Margaret Atwood. The more critics have tried to ex- sees Levine drinking in a honkytonk in the middle plain the difference between fantasy and science fic- of the day and so turns back. But eventually he re- tion, the more it seems a matter of emphasis rather turns, overhears a conversation about how the spirit than a clearly definable boundary. One might be able is an immaterial substance, invisible but embodied in to conclude only that science fiction writers make more things of every color, and he humbles himself before effort to make their imaginative worlds seems plau- the slightly disheveled angel and asks for help. Levine sible according to the laws of nature as presently un- bursts into tears, accepts Manischevitz’ apology, and derstood, whereas fantasy writers make less effort. then returns with him to the tailor’s apartment. Sud- The most common charge against fantasy literature denly there is the sound of fluttering wings and Levine is that it is escapist, that it encourages a flight from re- is gone. Manischevitz goes inside to discover his wife ality. But C.S. Lewis responded that there are varieties vigorous and well, busy tidying up what had seemed of escapism. Children may be regaled by Peter Rabbit to be her deathbed. All he can offer her by way of ex- without wishing to become rabbits, but the “reality- planation is “A wonderful thing, Fanny! Believe me, based” story of the awkward novice who becomes the there are Jews everywhere.” star athlete panders to a young reader’s actual fanta- “Angel Levine” is both fantasy and parable, a tale sies and ambitions (SBJ 35). about suffering but one with many comic elements. Lewis’s friend and fellow fantasy writer, J.R.R.