Fantastic Paradox: Secondary Belief and Peter S. Beagle's Metafantasy
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Fantastic Paradox: Secondary Belief and Peter S. Beagle’s Metafantasy The Last Unicorn Marilyn Kamp The 1950s saw the publication George suggesting an encounter, not with a marvelous MacDonald’s Phantastes, J.R.R. Tolkien’s work of fiction, but with an alternate, self- The Lord of the Rings, and C.S. Lewis’ The existing reality. If during a reader’s Chronicles of Narnia. The enormous success encounter with the text he accepts this of these and other works of English fantasy in suggestion and temporarily believes in this the decades that followed sparked a debate alternate reality, Tolkien claims that that that continues to this day: what is “fantasy” reader has adopted Secondary Belief and that literature? The broadest definitions the text has achieved a second essential encompass literature from Beowulf to Kafka, quality of fantasy literature (61). allowing anything that “deals with the Secondary Belief, as described by evidently unreal” to be labeled as fantasy Tolkien, does not require a reader to accept (Irwin 34). In contrast, other definitions are the existence of the supernatural outside of far too narrow. In light of such the text. The everyday world of the reader inconsistencies, frustrated author E.F. Bleiler (what Tolkien terms the Primary World) may concluded, “‘fantasy may be almost all things continue to be explained through natural to all men’” (Manlove 16) phenomena, “natural” being the absence of In spite of its nature to defy definition, anything divine or magical: anything most critics agree that fantasy literature is best incredible or unbelievable. Secondary Belief, distinguished by its inclusion of the which should be maintained throughout the impossible or more specifically, its treatment reading experience, is an acceptance of the of the supernatural as natural (Manlove 16). supernatural as natural only within the world In the world of Phantastes, it is revealed that of the text. leaves, seemingly carried by the wind, are in Secondary Belief, more specifically, is truth carried by small fairies. In the land of belief in the existence of a Secondary World Narnia, the White Witch holds her world in (Tolkien 60). A Secondary World, the everlasting winter—without Christmas. Such imagined fantastical world in which a story supernatural events – supernatural being unfolds, must share some common attributes understood as anything unexplainable by with the Primary World so as to maintain a empirical evidence – are a hallmark of basic level of familiarity with the reader. fantasy. Works of fantasy branch away from Equally important is that it abides by its own the familiar (a term used in the paper to natural laws. As phrased by author John Fox, signify the empirical world of the reader) and it must present history, events, and beings that establish credibility for the incredible, maintain a world as “rigid as realism” (8). believability for the unbelievable. For This inner consistency is crucial because it is example, when the Pevensie children first this foundation upon which Secondary Belief encounter Narnia, their initial disbelief and is built. wonder are soon replaced by the reality of Fantasy authors have often incorporated their experiences. within their works various other modes of A work of fantasy is an imaginative space fiction. The Chronicles of Narnia, for filled with extraordinary characters, worlds, example, is at once an instance of fantasy and and adventures—all presented with a sincerity an extended allegory of the Christian faith. 13 Other literary forms are antithetical to the doing so may be described as narcissistic in nature of fantasy. For example, science nature (Hutcheon 7). This inward focus on fiction, while often presenting a “‘situation the text paradoxically draws the reader’s that could not arise in the world as we know attention outside of the text as a close it,’” always provides a said or inferred examination of the story leads to a broader “speculative possibility” for these events. understanding of its condition as an object in Seemingly fantastic occurrences are given the world (Hutcheon 7). Patricia Waugh natural scientific explanations, thereby summarizes the effect of metafiction as “‘the destroying the necessary inclusion of the construction of a fictional illusion . and the supernatural (Irwin 96-97). Still, there are laying bare of that illusion’” (Pennington 12). other forms of fiction that are at once Thus, the nature of the text itself is complementary and adverse to fantasy. contradictory. Metafiction is an example of such a literary A second paradox is found in the reader’s style. relationship with the text. Like all forms of Metafictions gained popularity in the literature, metafiction requires a reader to be 1960s and are texts that are self-aware of their actively involved in the creative process of own fictional state. In a metafictional text, bringing life to the characters, settings, and characters may refer to their own fictional events of the story. The reader of metafiction, roles or narrators may directly address the however, is continually reminded of the reader. Whatever the technique used, the artifice of the text before him. He is asked reader’s attention is directed toward the simultaneously to acknowledge a work as textuality of the text (i.e. its existence as fiction while “engage[ing] himself language), the fictionality of the fiction, the intellectually, imaginatively, and affectively artificiality of the art (Foust 9). While in its co-creation” (Hutcheon 7). In other reading such a text, a reader must truly will words, the reader is essentially asked to himself to a “willing suspension of disbelief.” examine the fictionality of his real experience After all, the text itself flaunts its fictional in which imagination grants reality to fiction. state. It is in this complex metafictional form In an extensive study of metafiction, that author Peter S. Beagle wrote his fantasy Linda Hutcheon identifies its popularity as an novel The Last Unicorn. By employing expression of a post-modern culture metafictional techniques, Beagle does not obsessively preoccupied with its own self- destroy the possibility of Secondary Belief awareness (xii). Metafiction, by but rather alters the nature of that belief, incorporating itself as part of its subject, which moves beyond belief in another world becomes “its own first critical commentary” to belief in the meeting and blurring of two (6). In doing so, it does not provide the worlds: the fantastic and the familiar. reader with simple analysis of its organization Through the very act of reading a text, a and content. On the contrary, postmodern person becomes co-creator of a story metafiction tends to “play with the (Hutcheon 142). In the case of metafantasy, possibilities of meaning . and form” (xiii). the reader joins the author in the creation of a One result of this manipulation of meaning is Secondary World. The possibility of that paradoxical relationships are formed Secondary Belief is then rooted in the within the text itself and within the experience of the reader who becomes a relationship between the text and the reader. medium by which the impossible is made Metafictions continually draw attention to possible: two mutually exclusive states their own natures as artifacts (Foust 9), and by (reality and fiction) collide and at moments 14 converge, allowing the fantastic to be made Shortly into her journey, the unicorn familiar and the familiar to be made fantastic. meets a wandering butterfly who speaks to The reader’s experience is modeled and her through a series of allusions to literature, supported by a series of coexisting popular songs, and commercial slogans found contradictions at narrative, thematic, and in the Primary World of the reader. These linguistic levels of The Last Unicorn. allusions, as pointed out by literary critic At the most foundational level, Beagle use David Becker, blur the lines between “the of language contributes to the metafictional ‘reality’ of everyday experience and the form of the story. The novel is “a hand book ‘illusion’ of a story” (13). The confusion of figurative devices” and becomes “self- between reality and illusion is furthered reflexive at the phonological level” (Foust because the allusions cross both culture and 11). For example, alliteration is found time, ranging from a line of William throughout the work: “By the sorrow and loss Shakespeare’s King Lear to a twentieth and sweetness in the faces she know that they century American Jazz song: recognized her, and she accepted their hunger Death takes what man would keep . and as homage” (23); “a friendly heart—however leaves what man would lose. Blow, wind, and foolish—may be welcome as water one day” crack your cheek. I warm my hands by the fire (44). Such a preoccupation with sound and get four-way relief . Won’t you come continually reminds the reader that the tale home, Bill Bailey, won’t you come home, before him is of an artificial world removed where once he could not go. Buckle down, Winsocki, go and catch a falling star. (8) from common everyday world of language, and thus from realism (Foust 11-12). The butterfly becomes a medium between the Beagle’s story begins with the unicorn at Primary and Secondary worlds. He conflates home in her timeless lilac wood, listening as myth and reality into one seamless dimension two hunters pass by and casually debate the (Pennington 13) and by doing so validates the existence of unicorns. They conclude that all coexistence of the fantastic and the familiar. unicorns, if there ever were such creatures, The butterfly reaches outward to the world of have long ago gone away. The unicorn, the reader, and an unspoken question unwilling to accept that she may be the last of emerges: Will the reader reciprocate by her kind, decides to enter the time bound reaching inward to the world of the unicorn so world of men in search of others like her.