Literature and fantasy. Is it possible to combine both?

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Chandos, with all due respect, I feel you are clutching at straws here. NOG seems have to hit the nail on the head. Can fantasy be good, old, and important? Of course it can.

 

HB - Where did I say it couldn't be? But I was not commenting on fantasy at all in my last post. NOG was complaining that no one bothered to give him a definition of literature, not fantasy and I thought I was agreeing with him on the substance of his post. I guess one of us don't understand the question then.

That was his comment...

 

Is everyone agreeing here that we can't answer the question because literature has no definition?

 

I thought NOG came up with four characteristics that could define a work of writing as literature, upon which I expanded? Maybe I misunderstood him then. I thought they made pretty good sense though.

 

NOG and Chandos did a pretty good job already.

Like I posted above there are some criteria though.

I for one don't think "old" really qualifies, it just makes it easier for the cultural elite to accept a literary work on the basis that it was written in the past. Still I can see the validity of the point being made, i.e. if any work of art can endure that long it means its success is not entirely due to just another fad.

You can define it, no mistake, just don't expect everybody to agree with you. That being said I don't believe in summaries or definitions because it would mean that words have no meaning if you could just sum up in one sentence what took a hundred or a thousand sentences in the first place.

I don't believe in translation or in synonyms either. No words are totally interchangeable.

Giving a simple definition of something so vast , so complex and so rich can only be misleading. It doesn't mean that one shouldn't at least try to define it, quite the contrary actually. Nevertheless, I wouldn't expect anyone to give a definitive definition.

 

My problem is that three of the four criteria I described are either completely or substantially subjective. What I consider to meet those criteria may not be agreed upon by anyone else. I can think of a great deal of fantasy and Sci-Fi that meets those criteria, yet is only really considered 'classic literature' inside the SF/Fantasy crowd. I think everyone agrees on Farenheit 451, but what about Stranger in a Strange Land, The Chronicles of Narnia, or Lord of the Rings? I think the Ringwold series qualifies as well, but how many people agree with me?

The definition of literature given above is like a definition of really high, or expensive, without a context. Or better yet, it's like a definition of good cooking, or tasty ice-cream.

 

Exactly. It has to be experienced as an art form and a means of expressing oneself. That's definitely not something you grade or mark, which doesn't mean that some of the stuff that gets published isn't bad or that everything that is printed is of interest (at least to everyone).

 

Larry Niven performs unspeakable acts involving goats. His writing reflects that personal failing.

 

NOG - There is a text book here on my desk - in fact I have a shelf full of them - on the subject of "literature." If you would like I can just copy from the textbook and that way you could have a "textbook definition" of literature. But I don't think that would be very helpful. To say that it is "subjective" is really spot on. The problem is that you have to defend why you believe something is literature. For you to just to list a few books you like - and I'm not putting you, or your list down in anyway - is not convincing for someone else to believe that a book is "literature." You have to state why you believe it meets the literary standard.

For me, litertaure does not have to be "Art," but it must have the criteria that we mentioned, and agreed on. "Art" is on a different level for me: It must have truth, beauty, power and meaning (and that is subjective). That's four more - it seems our list is growing. I probably should just skip all that.

 

OK then. Are the R. A. Salvatore books about Drizzt classed as literature? If not, why not?

 

I agree on power and truth but not on the other points. Art doesn't have to be beautiful, it can be repulsive and meaningless (which in fact would be a statement as to the meaningless of all things). Of course by writing this down I'm making your point: that is entirely subjective.

I wouldn't consider these books as 'high' literature but they certainly have their own merit. Truth be told I only read one because I wanted to understand the hype among DnD fans (I think it was the Crystal Shard). I found that it lacked originality (but since the story took place in the Forgotten Realms that was to be expected). I could see where the writer got his inspiration at times and that is never a good thing.

Still, these books are interesting from a cultural perspective, they inform us on a particular brand of popular culture and the way it uses traditional literary types to tell stories. I guess if you considered any of these books with the analysis of Russian folktales made by Vladimir Propp in mind you'd find some interesting similarities in terms of plot and characters. If you tried to study its narrative and narrative structure and followed the terminology used by Gérard Genette, you'd probably end up making some very interesting points as well. But since that won't answer that question no need to dwell on that.

I think the big thing about the Drizzt books is that the author had to work in a frame that didn't allow much space for creation. He made up Icewind Dale after all but working in the Forgotten Realms setting is a strict limitation. Judging from what I've read it isn't stellar writing and it isn't bad either. To me it didn't stand out from the regular DnD stuff (no offense meant). You've got nothing really new: Dwarves, Halflings, Barbarians... Drizzt is somewhat interesting because of his origins but let's face it he is a typical romantic hero while Artemis Entreri is a very melodramatic antihero in the great tradition of pulp fiction. I don't think the author would disagree on that point. IMO the book I read felt like reading an account of a series of gaming sessions (without the snacks and crisps) and to me that is not what I long for in literature.

That may be unfair, I'll have to concede that it's not really worse than the Conan stories by R. E. Howard (although I enjoyed these a lot more). Being a gamer you take on a jaded perspective on basic fantasy stuff (especially when it is Dungeons and Dragons). I guess it's possible to find a message in the Drizzt books (the constant rejection of an individual solely on the colour of his skin should clearly be enough to qualify this as a novel dealing with racism) but it seems we're just meant to enjoy the ride (which is not that bad since IMO didacticism is the worst flaw when telling a story).

To conclude I'd say that this author's main problem is that he is certainly a gamer and a big fan of the Lord of the Rings (in the Crystal Shard I remember a part about a dungeon that was clearly the Moria with a different name, there is a fine line between homage, reference and plagiarism -mithril is the stuff that fantasy is made of).

Is it possible for a gamer to write good fantasy fiction that qualifies as literature?

 

Caradhras - thank you for at least attempting to justify your views, which is more than we have seen so far in this thread. Being able to state a case like this is probably as good as we're going to get here in answering the original question.

 

Well, I will dive in, too.

There are a number of books widely read in American high school English courses that certainly were fantasy or science fiction when written. Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Orwell's 1984, and Swift's Gulliver's Travels all come to mind. You may decide that the latter two are political satire instead, but they are couched as alternative realities or set in a future world and that is surely an aspect of fantasy/sci fi.

Being taught in high school English probably isn't enough to qualify as "literature." But being widely taught in an academic setting is surely one non-subjective criterion for whether a work qualifies as literature.

Beyond that, I can only say that what I consider to be literature - now we really are being subjective! - involves such things as the beauty of the prose, the quality of the characterization, the possibility of finding deeper meanings in the work, and - the most subjective of all! - the sense of satisfaction the reader feels upon completing the book.

So, to respond to the question as initially posed: yes, it is possible to combine literature and fantasy. But whether that is a common feat is another matter altogether, and I think that it is not often accomplished.

 

Those things are spectularly subjective and difficult define, even using something like an R. A. Salvatore novel as a subject.

 

Absolutely true, Harbourboy, which in part accounts for the vicious infighting among college literature departments.

Still, some things make it into the canon of the syllabus, and some of those things look suspiciously like fantasy or sci fi.

And I can see no reason in principle why the genre should not produce literature. Saying that it usually doesn't is not the same as saying it never does. Most fields of fiction fail to produce literature most of the time.

 

Tolkien is fantasy and he is taught in some English classes at some very good colleges. I posted some links to Rice Univeristy on the Tolkien thread. I also think he is popular in some English departments at the university level in England as well.

 

I've been meaning to come back to this, because I think it is such a good point regarding the state of Art. But I would counter that no work of Art is completely without meaning, or repulsive. The creation of Art is, in itself, the urge towards meaning and beauty. Sometimes the deeper the darkness, the more that just a small sliver of light can be beautiful in the repulsive sorroundings or what seems meaningless. If an artist, or writer, truly believes that life is completely meaningless - then why bother at all with it? Art is often about the possibilities.

 

This thread reeks of pretension, in my honest opinion.

 

Well you would be the expert there..."SuperGuyTurbo."

 

Our greatest living literary critic thinks Paradise Lost is best read as "gorgeous science fiction".