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amergina| Book: The Fantastic: A structural Approach to a Literary Genre Author: Tzvetan Todorov 175 Pages Short Thoughts: Very Academic. |
I should mention that I wrote this partially to be notes for my genre essay in the fourth term, so I don’t have to re-read the book. My thoughts are scattered within.
Literary Genres
The first chapter discusses how one can look at genres without having to read all of the works within a genre (an impossible task!) By trying to take a more scientific approach to looking at art of literature, literary theorists have borrowed the idea of genre or species from biology as a way of dividing works. However, the “evolution” of literature works backward. Every new book in a genre modifies the concept of the genre, the sum of all possible works. It opens new possibilities for works to come.
Todorov discusses many other theories of genre before abandoning them for his own: There are three aspects of a literary work (that you can use to define a genre):
-Verbal - The actual sentences that compose the work, the POV and relation to the reader
-Syntactical - The composition (how parts of the work relate to themselves, logically, temporally, and spatially)
-Semantics - Themes of the work
The second and fourth chapters touch on the first aspect of a literary work, the verbal, while the third chapter touches on an offshoot of the second.
Definition of the Fantastic
The second chapter discusses what the Fantastic is, which is not what we think of today as Fantasy. Todorov says that the fantastic is that knife edge between knowing the unexplained is either explainable or supernatural.
Three conditions of the Fantastic are:
-The reader must consider the world of the characters to be the world of the living, that is, our world.
-The hesitation must be felt by both the reader and the character, thus the reader experiences the story through the main character
-the reader must reject allegorical and poetic interpretations of the text.
The Fantastic, at least to me, seems to be manifest in classic horror and in the gothic novel, where you do not know if what you (through the eyes of the main character) are experiencing is real or not. There’s a logical explanation for everything, and yet there isn’t.
Once you know an event is either the result of the supernatural or has a perfectly normal explanation, you tumble off into two related genres: The uncanny and the marvelous.
I like the idea of the knife’s edge of knowledge. While my novel isn’t fantastic by Todorov’s definition, I want to play with that edge within my characters. Maybe not about the supernatural, but about the way they view the world and other people. There’s always the horror of discovering that someone is not what they seem to be.
The uncanny and the marvelous
The third chapter talks about the neighboring genres of the Fantastic, the uncanny on one side, and the marvelous on the other. In the uncanny, fantastic events are explained by normal phenomena. In the marvelous, fantastic events are explained by the supernatural. There are shades in between this. While Todorov places Science-Fiction in the marvelous, I’d place some of the more near-now Sci-Fi into the uncanny genre. Most Fantasy is smack-dab into marvelous.
What’s interesting in thinking about these categories for my story is that my two main characters have very different mental reactions to the presence of Hunters - Silvia is horrified and wants there to be a logical, natural reason for the existence of these creatures, even if the reason is that she hallucinated it all. Essen, on the other hand, knows what they are, and understands that their origin is supernatural... which is perfectly normal to him. He’s just puzzled as to their behavior. So, one character reacts as if in the fantastic, and the other reacts as if in the marvelous.
The whole story of the thesis novel itself takes place in Todorov’s Marvelous genre category, though. The unusual elements of the story, are normal within the story itself, or at least are known to be possible in that world. We, the reader, know that they are not possible in ours, so there’s no hesitation on our part.
Poetry and allegory
The fourth chapter touches on uses of poetry and allegory in literature. In relation to the fantastic, Todorov makes a point to explain that allegory effaces the hesitation of the Fantastic, as the literal meaning of an event is replaced with a figurative one. There can be no specific indications of allegory in Fantastic literature, though the lack of specific allegory does not preclude reader interpretation of elements as being allegorical.
Strangely, I think he counteracts himself when he later discusses themes of the fantastic, which get to be very allegorical at some level. I suppose it’s the overall theme that is allegorical rather than the supernatural element that causes the story to exist.
This whole chapter seemed a bit out of place, as if he really wanted to go off and write a book about poetry and allegory. Which he did later in his life.
Discourse of the fantastic
The next chapter talks about the structure of the fantastic, that is the syntax(going back to those three aspects in the first chapter).
There are three features that show how structural unity in the Fantastic is achieved:
1 - the utterance - there are cases where the supernatural appears because we (and the main character) take a figurative sense as literal. Exaggeration of the literal sense of a figurative expression leads to the supernatural. “I wish she were alive.”
2 - the act of uttering - what information is given in the author’s name escapes the test of truth. While what is said in dialogue can be true or false... that is, the character can lie, what is described in narrative is seen as the truth by the reader. It is the representative character, the “everyman” of the work that the reader identifies with fully who awakens the doubt in the reader, and thus gains that hesitation. The fantastic confronts the reader with the decision to believe or not.
Todorov does mention that a non-representative character, that is, someone not everyman, can make the supernatural event normal. This falls into the marvelous, which has the reader believing the story without actually believing the story. That is, through the character, the reader is able to suspend disbelief for the duration of the story. I think modern fantasy has a bit of this, but also uses a partially representative character, maybe not everyman, but someone with whom the reader can identify, to ease the reader into a fantasy world. Certainly, a novel fails when the reader cannot identify with the main character in any way!
3 - the syntactical aspect - That is, the structure. The Fantastic is a strict action of events, a rising line that leads to a culminating point where the hesitation is resolved. The fantastic must be read as it progresses. If you know the end of a fantastical narrative before you begin, the point of reading the narrative is ruined. It’s like someone spoiling the end of a movie. The tension that the hesitation provides is no longer present.
It also means that the second reading of a fantastical narrative is very different from the first. Identification with the main character is no longer possible and the reading becomes more of a meta-reading where we note the methods of the story, rather than falling into it.
I note that this is not true of the marvelous, or what I would call modern fantasy. Since we’re made to suspend our disbelief from the beginning, so falling back into a world is easy. In some cases, there are meta-discoveries, little plot points that weren’t noticed in the first read can be found again in a re-read, but you can still fall under the book’ spell.
Another point that Todorov makes is that one feature of a work influences the other features of the work. That is, the utterance effects the act of uttering, and the type of event affects the flow of the story.
Though, I think that may be true for all fiction. Plot and pacing.
The next chapter four chapters focus on the third aspect of a literary work, the semantics, the themes.
Themes of the fantastic; introduction
The sixth chapter introduces the themes of the fantastic by explaining how themes have been arranged in the past and why that categorization of elements does not work.
An important point Todorov touches on: The Fantastic is a special perception of supernatural or uncanny events. These events are a necessary condition for the fantastic and help produce an effect on the reader of fear, horror, or curiosity. The event also serves the story by maintaining suspense.
I think this is an important point about genre fiction in general, though the effect on the reader isn’t always fear or horror. Often it is curiosity, sometimes wonder, sometimes hope. The point is that the book should have an effect on the reader, and that effect should push the reader forward though the events of the story. The events of the story should continue the effect until the end.
Todorov then goes on to explain how to analyze themes:
-must not refuse to leave the field of the concrete
-must not use non-lit categories to describe literary themes
-shouldn’t classify into groups of objects as that implies that the use of an object vampire for instance, means that every instance of vampires in fantastic is the same. It’s not. The meaning of one element or object in a story cannot be explained without reference to the other elements of the story.
Todorov then postulates to group themes in a distributional fashion by studying the compatible and incompatible. He comes up with two themes, Themes of the Self, and Themes of the Other. (Though, I would have flopped definitions, if I were Todorov)
Themes of self
Themes of the self are a kind of metamorphosis, a transition from mind to matter. The limits between reality and imagination collapse.
What is literal can also become physical due to that effacement of limits between the subject (that is the character) and an object: people hear music without an external instrument, they become the music. People become other people, or objects, etc.
Time becomes a more fluid concept and space is transformed. There’s a collapse of reality. But it is within the self, as if viewing the world from a child’s mind or during a drug experience.
Themes of self concern the structure of the relation between man and the world. sexuality is not present. It’s based on the break in limits between the psychic and the physical. Physical pleasure becomes an obstacle to mental perfection and material pleasure is not as great as psychological ecstasy.
Themes of other
In contrast to themes of the self, themes of the other are all about sexuality, desire and the transformation of desire. Sexual desire in the fantastic often manifests itself as the devil or demons, while things related to God are sexless and connote life without desire.
Themes of the self are man in relation to his desire or unconsciousness
There’s a transformation of desire from “normal” behavior to social forms of excess of desire: incest, homosexuality, polyamory, sadism, necrophilia, etc.
Desire leads to cruelty, which leads to death. (In a kind of classic horror way.)
An interesting effect is that either excess of desire is condemned and morality is praised, or the opposite, excess desire is praised and morality is condemned.
(As a side not, I found this chapter fascinating from the aspect that now sexuality is seen as a characterization of the self. It’s not our physical sex that maters, but how we self-perceive our gender and sexual preference. Another interesting aspect was that women are often seen as the devil tempting men... a rather chauvinistic idea now. The wanton whore vs. the virginal bride. It’s also interesting that so many paranormal romances turn this over... the sexy vamp or devil seducing women... only it’s ok! Not horrific as in the Fantastic.)
Themes of the fantastic, conclusion
Todorov makes a point to state that we should not try to interpret the theme, but merely establish that it is present. Structure and meaning are the realm of poetics and interpretation while genre represents a structure, a configuration of literary properties. The inclusion of a work in a genre tells nothing of the meaning of the work.
There’s an incompatibility between themes of the self and themes of the other. Sexuality is not present in the themes of the self, as the desire of the drug user, mystic, or infant is pan-erotic the object of desire is the whole world.
Todorov then gets into Freud a bit: Neurosis is the result of a conflict between the ego and id while psychosis is the result of a conflict between the ego and the world.
Themes of the self are more psychotic, while themes of the other are more neurotic.
For example: Woman loves her brother-in-law.
Neurosis: When her sister dies, she is horrified because he is now free to marry.
Psychosis: The woman refuses to believe that her sister is dead.
To desire that someone is not dead is different than perceiving it as reality.
However, after this jump into Freud, Todorov is quick to say that psychoanalysis of literature is not useful in the study of themes, as you can’t prove that books with the same themes come from authors with the same issues.
Todorov makes a side point that Marcel Mauss contrasts religion vs. magic in a similar way to self and other (in the realm of sociology and what we would call cultural anthropology today). It has some bearing, I think, on fantasy:
While religion tends toward metaphysics and is absorbed in the creation of ideal images, magic, through a thousand fissures, emerges from the mystical life from which it draws its forces to mingle with the profane life and to serve it. It tends to the concrete even as religion tends to the abstract
This caught me as apropos to my novel since the magical elements tend to be made manifest by actions. And there’s always blood involved... forces mingling with the profane and serving it. Or perhaps the profane serving the forces of magic. It’s something to ponder.
Literature and the fantastic
Todorov posits that the themes of the fantastic are in all literature, but the self/other division manifests clearly in the fantastic.
Why, then, does the fantastic exist? There’s a literary function to the fantastic and a social function as well.
The social function is that the supernatural is used as a way to describe things authors would not have dared mention in realistic terms. Themes of the other are forbidden themes, and a way around censors, either within the writer or externally. Sexual desire is more palatable if it is seen as the result of something diabolical or supernatural.
Todorov then says that psychoanalysis has replaced the literature of the fantastic as there is no reason to resort to these tactics to talk about sexual desires.
I wrote: O RLY! next to that in my notes. I beg to differ. Obviously, he’s never read one of the teen stables of my peers in jr. high and high school: VC Andrews. But that brings up an interesting point: Todorov considers the fantastic to be a dead genre. Is that true? I don’t read enough horror to be able to say. But I digress...
The literary function of the fantastic has three parts:
Pragmatic function, which is tension
Semantic function, in that it constitutes its own manifestation
Syntactical function, in that it becomes part of the narrative, that is... the plot.
The literary function of the fantastic is to tell a story. But isn’t that the function of every genre?
In fact, I think this next section deals with all genre writing:
All narrative is a moment between two equilibriums which are similar but not identical. So you have at the beginning, a stable situation, then something comes along (in the case of the fantastic, a supernatural event) to disrupt that equilibrium, and the story sets out to resolve that back to a state of equilibrium, wherein things are stable again, but the main character has been fundamentally changed by the events.
In terms of the fantastic, its the transgression of law or an established rule that leads to a break in the status quo. The main character does something he’s not supposed to do.
Todorov states that the marvelous has always existed in literature, but the fantastic had a short life span, and is the result of the bad conscious of the 19th century.
Now-a-days (or rather, in the 20th c when this was written) we don’t believe in an immutable, external reality. Therefore the narrative of the supernatural has changed.
Todorov goes on to explain Kafka’s Metamorphosis. While there is a supernatural event, it is not due to anything the character does, it simply is... and more to the point, there is not surprise at the event, not hesitation. Yes, he really is a giant bug.
While the Fantastic moves from natural to supernatural, books like Kafka move from the supernatural to a natural adaptation of the event. Kafka’s book is not in the marvelous, as it takes place in this world, rather than another where the laws are different and the supernatural is not disturbing. The Metamorphosis is disturbing. Its more of a joining of the uncanny and marvelous as the supernatural is a given (as in the marvelous) but it does not seem impossible in the world (as in the uncanny). The events in Kafka’s tale are as real as any other event. The reader’s hesitation has no effect on the characters.
It’s certainly interesting to now take a look at the modern genres in light of Todorov's analysis of the Fantastic. I think there are a lot of questions, but I’ll ponder two: 1) is the fantastic really dead? 2) What is the role of the forms of supernatural literature today, specifically, what is the role of fantasy in it’s different forms?
That genre is literature, I’ve never been in doubt. This book simply gave me more ways to express how it is literature.
