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I think, therefore
I am a butterfly —
First of all, though, we must distinguish between our sense of reality and reality itself; for our sense of reality is by necessity a simplification of the complex world about us. For instance, if you had been able to meet the archaeologists and classical experts of a century ago, the majority of them would have told you that Troy was not real; it was only an imaginary city created by Homer and Vergil. Yet it's well for later generations that a seven-year-old boy did not speak to these reputable authorities but instead concentrated on one picture in a book he had received for Christmas. The picture, showing the burning of Troy, was so vivid that the boy was convinced that Troy must really exist. Much later, unfazed by his own fairy-talelike success in the California gold fields and in the financial capitals of Europe, the boy, now a prosperous businessman, was able to make his childhood dreams come true by uncovering not only Troy but Mycenae. Admittedly, very few fantasies become the literal truth. None of us are likely to see Narnia. Rather, the story of Heinrich Schliemann suggests that our sense of reality is actually a social consensus about our world: We agree not only upon what things to see but on what things not to see. Because the experts agreed among themselves that Troy could not be real, they did not bother to look for its ruins. But Schliemann did not have this intellectual myopia telling him to ignore the large mound in Turkey that he saw. I don't mean to suggest that having a sense of reality is bad. The error lies in treating our sense of reality as absolute rather than relative. Or in assuming that our imagination is inferior to our sense of reality in dealing with our external world. Yet some critics assume that fantasies are inferior to realistic stories because fantasy deals with the suspension of some natural law or with the rewriting of history, while realistic stories try to mirror accurately the experience of everyday life. In fact, we expect more of realistic stories than we do of reality itself. The common saying, "Truth is stranger than fiction," contains this expectation in capsule form. I remember that when I began writing, I read any number of books and articles on how to write stories, and they continually warned against writing about any improbable or coincidental event. I especially remember one example they gave in which a girl drowned among friends in her own kitchen. It seemed she made a bet that she could drink two quarts of water in a minute or less, and she did; but her body could not absorb all the liquid, and she drowned. The article warned that though this really happened, it was too improbable to make a successful story. I doubt very much if you could find a publisher to accept a story about a brother and a sister who had not seen their sea captain father since their parents' divorce about twenty years before — and rediscovered him when the papers carried the story of his rescue by Marines after the capture of the Mayaguez. Though this also happened in real life, it could not happen within the limitations of realistic fiction. Statistical probability eliminates a certain realm — a very small realm, to be sure, yet one in which miracles can sometimes occur. We must keep in mind Lloyd Alexander's warning that "[t]he most uncompromisingly . . . naturalistic novel is still a manipulation of reality." Frequently, when we refer to the realism in a story, we are actually referring only to one or two aspects of the story. In Huckleberry Finn the characters speak and generally act like everyday people rather than like the sentimental, saccharine characters of other novels popular in Mark Twain's day. Yet how many boys, even on the Mississippi frontier, were likely to find six bodies within the space of a few days as well as to hear the tales of approximately another dozen violent deaths? In terms of general plot. Huckleberry Finn is really more like a series of violent fantasies. But Twain had to be true not only to his sense of a physical reality but to his awareness of an emotional reality as well. For we not only sense the world, we also have feelings; and in his emotions Twain dwelt in a brutal, frequently cruel universe against which his sense of humor and cynicism were his only defense. In general, both realism and fantasy must reflect the author's emotional reality no matter how much the fantasy may differ from the realistic story in portraying a physical reality. For instance, a little girl misses her father and goes looking for him. In a realistic novel, she might try his favorite bar or, among other places, the house of one of his friends, a psychology professor; she finally finds him at his NASA research laboratory so engrossed in an experiment that he has forgotten to come home for dinner. The girl reveals to him how worried she and her mother have been, and he realizes how callous and ambitious he's been and returns home with her for a happy reunion. But if we change certain things — for instance, the planet Uriel for the bar, the Cave of the Happy Medium for the professor's house — and if we split the proud, ambitious father into Dr. Murry and his son Charles Wallace, the story then becomes Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (Farrar), a fantasy which stresses the role of human love in a cosmic war of good against evil. Perhaps in the hands of a good writer, the realistic plot I've just described might be readable, but it is hard to think of a better way to present the emotional truths Meg discovers than in a fantasy. Fantasy can often deal with emotional reality more fully and more excitingly than can a realistic story. For the moment I'd like to broaden the definition of fantasy to include science fiction. New prize-winning writers of science fiction, like Ursula Le Guin, Samuel Delany, and Joanna Russ, create stories that should be classified accurately as science fantasy. Authors of traditional science fiction, like Poul Anderson and Robert Heinlein, are equally adept at writing fantasy, manipulating the principles of magic as easily as the laws of physics. If we look at the most hardcore science fiction — specifically those stories that are deprecatingly referred to as space operas — we would find a series of transformations: the magical steed into a rocket ship, the knight's armor into a white lab coat, the enchanted sword into a slide rule. In Lester Del Rey's "Helen O'Loy," a favorite story among male science fiction writers, the beautiful, semi-divine Helen of Troy metamorphoses into a beautiful, immortal android. Similarly, in the Japanese monster movies, the old demon stories — so much a part of the Asian emotional reality — are presented in newer settings. Ruthless industrialization and intemperate scientific curiosity awaken old earth powers that can be conquered only by another primeval power. One of these sometimes kindly powers is Gamera, a gigantic fanged turtle about the size of a football field. Once he retracts his legs, he can use the holes in his shell for jet streams which whirl him through the air. Although originally portrayed as a villainous creature, he was shown in subsequent films as a special friend to children. In one film an expedition of scientists traveled to a distant island to seek a spectacular exhibit for Japan's Expo '70, the first world's fair held anywhere in Asia. On that island, they inadvertently woke up an ancient monster, which subsequently terrorized Japan. It was Gamera who had to conquer it. An even more famous monster is Godzilla, a gigantic creature something like a fire-breathing tyrannosaurus rex with spikes growing on his back. In his initial film appearance, he was simply a destructive force sweeping up and down the coasts of Japan like a typhoon. But in later movies, he was as likely to save Japan as to destroy it. He even protected human society from its own stupidities. For example, when all the ooze in Tokyo Bay formed itself into the Smog Monster, it was only Godzilla who was able to demolish it. As destructive as Camera and Godzilla may be, they are preferable to the dangers of an overly technological future; and like the demons of Japanese art, the oni, they are capable of being converted into friends — however reluctant adult human beings may be to accept the monsters. And these fantasy movies speak as eloquently of the anxieties of a westernized, postwar Japan as any cinéma vérité film. The appeal of these monster films is not confined to Japan, for they are growing increasingly popular with American children, who snap up the nationally distributed magazines that often cover the activities of Godzilla, Camera, and other monsters. In a national poll conducted among the readers of the Monster Times, Godzilla — or the "Big G" as he is also called — was proclaimed the most popular film monster of all time, beating out such western luminaries as King Kong and the cinematic Frankenstein. In fact, Godzilla is currently the star of his own comic book. Perhaps American children also suffer from some degree of alienation in a time which has been characterized by the fragmentation of society and the breakdown of the family unit. At the very least, American children might wish for some powerful protector in an age without saints and heroes of mythic stature. In comparison to "realistic" Disney films, the Japanese monster films are at least trying to prepare children for the actual problems of the modern age. Disney films, on the other hand, are a nostalgic retreat to the past — to the good old days that never really existed; and if they are set in modern times, they simply rehash the pleasant but well-worn plots of family situation comedy. Children's stories can also act as learning devices by which a society tries to show children ideal models of behavior. It is fairly obvious how realistic stories perform this function, but what about fantasy? In her essay "Fantasy and Self-Discovery" (The Horn Book, April 1970), Ravenna Helson describes the writing of a number of fantasies as a process of self-discovery for the various authors; but what she says of the authors would apply as well to the children who read the books. As they experience the adventures of the central character, the children also experience the development of a self as that society defines it. For instance, during his journey with the dwarfs in The Hobbit (Houghton), Bilbo Baggins develops from a tame stay-at-home into a self-reliant individual who finds a beauty, magic, and vitality in his world that he never would have seen if he had stayed at home in his safe little hole. Tolkien seems to suggest that a true individual is open to his world, but this concept of the self is primarily a western concept. The Hobbit contrasts sharply with the Chinese story Monkey (Peter Smith), which was originally a collection of oral tales and was later changed into various popular forms, such as novels, puppet plays, and operas. In the novel, the rebellious, mischievous, already highly independent Monkey must learn to curb his selfish instincts and place his talents at the service of society. Imprisoned beneath a mountain for nearly conquering heaven, he is allowed to redeem himself by escorting a holy if naive monk westward to fetch back a sacred Buddhist text. Because of his simplicity and inability to see evil in any person except Monkey, the monk often leads Monkey and his companions into trouble, from which only Monkey by his cleverness is able to rescue them. Though they both take part in novels of self-discovery, two more disparate heroes could not be imagined. On the one hand. Bilbo Baggins discovers a personal self that is distinctive when compared to that of other Hobbits. On the other hand. Monkey develops a social self that puts the social good before personal feelings — which, perhaps, also says something about the hierarchy of virtues within the two cultures. Some stories, however, describe this process of self-discovery simultaneously on both a realistic and a fantastic level. In Alan Garner's The Owl Service (Walck), three children do more than meet a mythic figure and find a magic ring that grants wishes. Instead, they find themselves living out a Welsh myth within the ordinary world of the story. While yet remaining children, they take on an extra dimension as inhabitants of a legendary world. We see them with double vision — on the one hand, as ordinary children and, on the other hand, as the tragic mythological lovers. Alan Garner shows how both ordinary and magical worlds can exist side by side without violating the integrity of each other — thus adding an unusual depth to our reading experience. Or again, one can capture this double vision by presenting two lines of narrative consciousness, both viewing the same event—one in magical, mythical time, the other in logical, historical time. Sylvia Engdahl has done this masterfully in her Enchantress from the Stars (Atheneum), as has Ursula Le Guin in two of her earlier science fiction novels, Rocannon's World (Harper) and Planet of Exile (Ace). Fantasy and reality both play vital parts in our lives, for we may grasp with the mind and heart what we may not always grasp with the hand. It would be a tragic mistake to insist upon a realistic viewpoint to the exclusion of fantasy. Like the poet, we too have rainbow wings of which we must be aware.
From the April 1978 issue of The Horn Book Magazine |
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hus
a modern poet once referred to a famous Taoist philosopher who dreamed
he was a butterfly dreaming he was a philosopher. Like Alice and
the Red King, the philosopher was never quite sure which of his
selves was the dream one. Rather than toying with some amusing problems
of logic, the butterfly philosopher and the sleeping Red King touched
upon a basic truth or the human condition: that fantasy, which has
the same unconscious source as dreams, is intimately bound up with
our sense of reality.
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