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Culture and Fantastical Fiction 1843-1973 Paul Mcadam Durham E-Theses Negotiating the real: Culture and fantastical ction 1843-1973 McAdam, Paul How to cite: McAdam, Paul (2005) Negotiating the real: Culture and fantastical ction 1843-1973, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2864/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk McAdam 1 Abstract Paul McAdam Negotiating the Real: Culture and Fantastical Fiction 1843-1973 This dissertation examines the growth and practice of two distinct reading techniques, with reference to fantastical fiction from 1843 to 1973. While acknowledging that specific reading practices are not exclusive to particular groups or individuals, it is proposed, broadly, that readers fall into two categories: those who tend to be distanced from the text and approach it analytically; those who tend to embrace the text and immerse themselves in its narrative. These two groups, critical readers and experience readers, have their reading habits determined by basic philosophical assumptions. One aim of the dissertation is to explore the link between this division and divisions within the literary hierarchy, articulating a methodology/typology of reading. Criticism of texts in this dissertation involves discussion of the above hypothesis, assessing the value assigned to literary works by each group of reader and considering how the texts themselves investigate the hypothesis. Various theories and critical concepts are engaged with, including those of Marxist aesthetics, psychoanalysis, liberal humanism, cultural studies, and postmodernism. The aim is to demonstrate the practice of both reading techniques and to draw conclusions concerning their respective psychological and social significance. The dissertation argues that fantastical fiction is often a site of interaction between such binary opposites as realism/fantasy, high/popular, ideas/escape, and polemic/amusing. The struggle between these opposites may provide a dialectic of "critical'" and "experience" reading. McAdam 2 A copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Negotiating the Real: Culture and Fantastical Fiction 1843-1973 Paul McAdam Ph.D thesis. The University of Durham, Department of English Studies. 2005. McAdam 3 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Chapter One: Charles Dickens and the Fantastic 90 Chapter Two: H. G. Wells's Scientific Romances 139 Chapter Three: Twentieth Century Science Fiction 208 Chapter Four: The Fantastic in Postmodernity 274 Conclusion 319 Appendix: Materialism 326 Works Consulted 329 McAdam 4 Declaration The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published in any form, including electronic and the Internet, without the author's prior written consent. All information derived from this thesis must be acknowledged appropriately. McAdam 5 Introduction As a rule, an aesthetic preference is either something completely inexplicable or it is so corrupted by non-aesthetic motives as to make one wonder whether the whole of literary criticism is not a huge network of humbug. George Orwell' And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds. And binding with briars, my joys & desires. William Blake^ ' George Orwell, "Charles Dickens," An Age Like This: 1920-1940, eds. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, vol. 1 of The Collected Essays. Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. (London: Seeker, 1968)449. " William Blake, "The Garden of Love," Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Souf ed. Geoffrey Keynes (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1970) 150. McAdam 6 The historical division of culture into high and low or popular has been problematic both ideologically and aesthetically. Often, popular works have been considered less significant or even worthless, a judgement that may be aesthetic or politically-based. However, much literary criticism on both sides of the political spectrum sees "true" or "real" or "important" literature as that which challenges pre-conceptions. Arguably, by dismissing popular fantastical works, these critical positions abandon one source of that challenge: the fantastic. This term - "the fantastic" - is here used to describe any literature that departs from consensus reality."' The departure may be in the content of a piece, the obvious example being a story about magic or wholly imaginary worlds. These works of fantastical content, which will be labelled "fantasy", should not necessarily be confined to the popular genre of the same name (i.e. the so-called sword and sorcery novel); soap operas, romance fiction, and detective stories are just a few other manifestations of fantasy. Seemingly, fantasy is a common, perhaps definitive, feature of the popular. Of course, not all fantasy fiction can be classed as popular culture. Critics who deride genre fantasy, for whatever reason, are less likely to be hostile to texts like Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis. In order to distinguish high and popular fantastical literature, the term "popular-fantastic" will be applied where appropriate. While "fantasy" is distinct from "phantasy", a compensatory performance of wish-fulfilment emerging from unconscious drives, the fonner can be seen as a literary expression of the latter. Hence, "popular- fantastic" also conveys a link between the popular and wish-fulfilment, what is usually called "escapism". To avoid confusion when an adjective is called for, the word "fantastical" will be used. McAdam 7 The fantastic can also deny apparently objective reality through its form. An ostensibly realist work, one which could not be considered fantasy, might qualify as fantastical through, for example, a style of description in which realism is undermined by overt use of metaphor and/or unusual language. Certain literary techniques and effects may thus confuse the real and the unreal. Although "popular-fantastic" generally defines works of fantasy (works with fantastical content) not considered high literature, it may also include popular fiction in which the fantastic occurs through form rather than content. If the popular is dominated by fantasy and wish-fulfilment, then this may explain critical reaction toward it. When critics sympathetic to the popular and/or the fantastic are compared to those who are less approving, there is a bewildering opposition: the same justification, the same acknowledgement of the preponderance of escapism, is utilised in evaluations by both sides in this critical divide. Thus, the popular-fantastic has been labelled trivial and profound, damaging and beneficial. It has been regarded as part of the culture that imprisons us, and a means of liberation from that culture. If the same texts generate these disparate positions then it is likely that differing criteria are being used for their assessment. This dissertation argues that such differences result from a fundamental philosophical (that is to say, epistemological) assumption that informs how an individual reads. The majority of readers who begin from a position of materialism tend to favour text-based, analytical reading and contemporary high culture.'' This In this dissertation, the terni "materiahsm" will chiefly be used in connection with Marxist and other critical reading strategies. See Appendix. McAdam 8 "critical reading" is not necessarily to be considered synonymous with close reading, which can be associated with the attempt to transcend the materiality of the text or even materiality itself, as is the case with biblical exegesis. A useful example of critical reading is that employed by members of the Marxist group the Frankfurt School (including critics such as Theodor Adorno). Their self-aware negation of the conventions of capitalist society often depended on reading against a text and analytically considering literary effects rather than actually experiencing them. It was believed that, through this, social ideology could be deconstructed. These critics would therefore see escapism as a kind of sleep in which individual readers are ignorant of the real conditions of their lives. Opposing critical reading are readers allowing for transcendence, the possibility of to some extent escaping material, deterministic forces. They incline toward a more immersive reading style, what might be called "experience reading". Readers in this group actively, sometimes fully self-consciously, embrace escapism and are at least open to the popular-fantastic on its own terms (as opposed to those cultural critics who use the popular to expose ideological trends). This approach can be seen in the Robert Louis Stevenson essay "A Humble Remonstrance" (1884). Gently arguing with Henry James, Stevenson contrasts the novel of character with what he calls the "dramatic" novel. This passion-based
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