“What kind of books do you write?”
It comes even before “What is the title of your book?” In
a way, that’s perfectly all right, there’s only so much you can deduce from a
title. I mean, Incompetent Gods could
be about anything, fiction or non-fiction: a tsunami in India, the tribulations
of an animist priest in Africa, the banking fiasco in Iceland… Name it, I’m
sure there’s a way to blame the gods for it.
I answer, and there it is: the blank stare, the Huh?, the what the *&?%$#@ is Satirical Fantasy? I guess I could be
condescending and say that it’s Fantasy mixed with Satire, but most of the time,
the person I’m talking to is smart enough to have gotten that. No, I think they just don’t quite understand how the two
genres can blend together. So I give the Terry Pratchett/Douglas Adams
reference, but sadly, in the United States and Canada, they are not the literary
idols they should be.
If I have more time, I try to explain: “It takes place
in a world that is different than ours, and in poking fun at its society’s
quirks, actually points out the absurdities of our own.” I personally feel it’s
a pretty good explanation, but it doesn’t seem to help, the blank stare is
still there (despite the ardent nodding accompanying the fixed smile).
And I have to ask myself: why is that? In a way, this mix
is almost as old as the written word. If we remember the Ancient Greeks more
for their tragedies, they wrote just as many comedies, and the most constant
thing you can say about their plays is that the fantastic was always involved
somehow. Even at the birth of European literature we find examples of it: Aesop’s
Fables led to the stories of Reynard (a multilingual corpus of fables
that pits a malicious talking fox against medieval society). Later Rabelais shook
the world with his giants Gargantua and
Pantagruel. In modern times, the
genre crossed the channel and gave us Gulliver’s
Travels and Animal Farm.
These books are all well known, great classics of
literature even, so what is it about Satirical Fantasy that bothers people to
the point of having difficulty acknowledging its existence?
First, let me specify that none of the aforementioned novels
was ever classified as such. Usually, they were stuffed in an uncomfortable
category, like Gulliver’s Travels –
and its almost savage satire of British contemporary society – finding itself
in children’s literature… And yet, they all make use of the
fantastic (gods, monsters, sorcerers, talking beasts, magic, giants,
Lilliputians, fairies, and so on), they all make you laugh, and, most
importantly, they can all make you think (if you feel so inclined).
Of course, it doesn’t help that the term Satirical
Fantasy is not official. Most Satirical Fantasy novels are classified in
opposition to heroic High Fantasy (which is inherently hostile to laughter),
and so dubbed Low Fantasy – a derogatory term if I ever heard one – or Humorous
Fantasy. This last actually works quite well as a classification (maybe I
should use it – make my life simpler), but feels a little too large and vague.
Satire is not quite comedy. While it is often confused
with parody or pastiche, it is fundamentally different: if they are meant as
funny imitations of a (usually) more serious work, satire aims to be an ironic
parody of society itself. It exposes the difference between man as he is and man as he should be, and can be tragic in its humor. This brings us
back to our main issue: if satire is meant to laugh at our society, our
institutions, how can it be layered onto Fantasy?
The problem stems from the many misconceptions that
plague Fantasy and Science Fiction. Both genres are usually considered with
disdain as paraliterature, or mere fluff, and while sometimes this reputation
is fully deserved (there is plenty of mind-bogglingly bad fantasy out there),
many authors have managed to rise above it to give us thought provoking,
beautifully written prose.
However, the most important thing people forget about
Science Fiction and Fantasy is that the worlds they present are meant to be
transcendent images of our own. They can help apprehend reality, pierce through
its illusions. Like Tolkien posited, Fantasy is in fact about simple,
fundamental things, but these banalities are valorized by their environment. Another
advantage is that if the inhabitants of these other dimensions have the same
moral and spiritual concerns as we do, these can be more clearly defined,
making the necessity for a solution more vital. In building a world, writers of
fantasy study questions that have preoccupied political philosophers since the dawn
of organized society.
Think of the incredibly complex universe of the Dune
series (to my taste, the best mix of Fantasy and Science Fiction ever written).
Jumping across large spans of time, Frank Herbert explores one salvation after
the other (creating systems that are often eerily familiar), then debunks each
one, extrapolating its end or eventual limit. He shows us that maybe there is
no single or simple solution; that we are doomed to always be searching for
what will inevitably become a temporary fix-up.
When you think about Fantasy that way, then adding Satire
to it doesn’t seem as far-fetched. What’s more, irony, far from invalidating
Fantasy, adds dimension to the often over-simplistic ethical commentary of the
genre, bringing it closer to real human preoccupations. And in return, Fantasy, with its intense
moral aspects, allows the critic to address issues at a more profound level.
Satire coupled with Fantasy brings us to the realization
that no matter what world a sapient being inhabits, life remains a constant
source of frustration, tragic ridicule, and comic absurdity. Through that Other’s
eyes, you can turn preconceptions around: the impossible becomes logical, logic
reveals its absurdity, and the absurd suddenly seems familiar.
Turn evil into ridicule, and it disappears; evil has its
pride. Laughter destroys fear and veneration, but it needs, and creates,
familiarity. To make you laugh, the writer of Satiric Fantasy must anchor the
imaginary in reality. And herein, perhaps, lies the problem: is Satirical
Fantasy too real? Realer even than reality? Does it touch a nerve?
Fantasy is free-form, and in that mirror image of
infinite possibilities, the reflection Satire shows us can be difficult to
accept.
Brave enough to peek? Here are a few suggestions:
Terry
Pratchett – All the novels of Discworld
Tom
Holt – Pretty much everything
Douglas
Adams – the Dirk Gently books
(The Hitchhiker series is wonderful too, but
more Sci-fi than Fantasy)
And,
of course, Yours Truly – The Gods Inc.
series.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mikhaïl Bakhtine, Esthétique et théorie du roman.
John M. Bullit, Jonathan Swift and the Anatomy of Satire.
Andrew Butler, Theories of Humor, in Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Litterature. 2nd
Edition.
Jean R. Sheidegger,
Le Roman de Renart ou le texte de la derision.
Ann Swinfen, In Defense of Fantasy. A study of the genre
in English and American litterature since 1945.
J.R.R. Tolkien, Tree and Leaf. Including the poem Mythopoeia.
