Rhetorics of Fantasy

Notes

Notes Introduction (pp. xiii–xxv) 1. A cursory consideration of the contents of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts will confirm this impression. 2. Karen Hellekson made the same decision when she constructed her taxonomy of Alternate History fictions (“Toward a Taxonomy” 251). 3. This itself is ideologically revealing. How many guests in utopia are shown the sewers? 4. Clute and I have had a number of discussions over which formulation of the grammar of Full Fantasy to use here. Clute being Clute, the formulation has gone through several revisions, rethinkings, and renamings. In the end, and knowing this is not his preference, I have chosen to go for the most physically accessible formula; that is, the version in the Encyclopedia. 5. For the importance and critical power of accepting the limits of individual theories, see my article, “Surpassing the Love of Vampires: Or Why (and How) a Queer Reading of the Buffy/Willow Relationship is Denied,” in Fighting the Forces: Essays on the Meaning of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ed. David Lavery and Rhonda Wilcox (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), 45–60. 6. At the end of The Lord of the Rings magic (in the form of grey dust from the Elves) is taken back to the Shire. It is made clear that magic is not normal to the Shire, that it is in fact an intrusion, made acceptable only because it smoothes the return to “normality.” 7. In conversation over lunch in 2003. 1. The Portal-Quest Fantasy (pp. 1–58) 1. Although the first Oz book might more usually be thought of as a fantastical journey, in that the portal is patterned after the incredible journeys of the nineteenth century in which the actual adventures that occur are almost incidental to the text (the whirlwind might be seen as a facilitator rather than a portal). 2. A story that is clothed in the rationalizations of sf while adhering to the rules of fantasy. In this case, Darkover is a colony planet of Earth, whose inhabitants practice matrix science manifesting as telepathy, telekinesis, and other psychic powers. 3. I shall not usually refer to non–English-language texts, given that language is precisely the issue of this book except where, as here, I am describing plot structures. 4. Although in The Lord of the Rings this figure is usually assumed to be Aragorn, Curtis Shoemaker has suggested that Sam also fulfills this role. “Just as Aragorn’s presence renews the White Tree, Sam brings forth the new ‘party tree’: the Mallorn from Lorien, as well as all the other botanical wonders of the Shire’s new age” (26 December 2002, International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts Mailing List). 5. Peter Nicholls writes of Katherine Kerr’s work: “the central operating force is the destiny or Wyrd laid upon the major protagonists by the unseen forces of the universe. This is absolutely, centrally typical of the intellectual constructs found in genre fantasy . . . [but] . . . sooner or later [the reader] feels a sense of claustrophobia as he watches their characters become ever more trapped in their destinies” (34). 6. I am indebted to China Miéville for this succinct term, although he credits it to Guy Gavriel Kay. Its origins may be uncertain. 7. It is difficult to be sure without more research but this mistake appears to be predominantly American. The classic restoration fantasy in which the fated child reaches maturity and a crown is rare in the U.K. fantasy scene. 8. Brian Attebery alludes to this when he describes Dorothy as “aggressively, triumphantly American,” but this is an America of the borderlands, not the more communitarian and conservative America of the cities (Tradition 96). 9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone [Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone] (1997), The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), and A Tale of Time City (1997), respectively. 10. “We live our lives in chronological order. When we remember them, however , our mental movement is almost entirely associational” (Delany 42). 11. “The True State of Affairs” (Diana Wynne Jones [1995]), Vurt (Jeff Noon [1993]), and The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (Michael Swanwick [1994]) in which the quest is for the portal. 12. “By far the most outstanding fact when looking at the titles of landscapes exhibited at the Academy in these early years [1770–1790] is the paucity of placenames . Most landscapes were compositions, John Rothstein’s [1933] remark, ‘a special aim of...