D&D 4E 4e Design and JRR Tolkien

[I'm A Banana]

It sounds like your definition is based solely by what shelf a book sits on at Barnes & Noble's.

When discussing how easy it is to find "fantasy" books in a bookstore, I think that's entirely an appropriate distinction.

'Cuz I'm not going into the Automotive Literature section to look for anything with dragons (except maybe how to paint them on my car).

 

[PeterWeller]

When discussing how easy it is to find "fantasy" books in a bookstore, I think that's entirely an appropriate distinction.
.

When discussing the difficulty of finding them, yes. When discussing whether or not they are on the shelves, no. You're auto section analogy doesn't work because you wouldn't go looking for fiction in a non-fiction section.

 

[Hussar]

I think you're the one who's incorrect here. A vampire and a man raised by apes are both totally fantasy. Supernatural horror is fantasy as is fantastical adventure, even if lacking in overtly fantastic tropes.

It sounds like your definition is based solely by what shelf a book sits on at Barnes & Noble's. However, it's much more complicated and nebulous than that. The fantasy section only contains what is marketed as fantasy, just as the western section only contains what is marketed as westerns. Titles that are highly fantastic may find themselves in the fiction/lit. section because of marketing. That's why publishers refer to fantasy, science fiction, westerns, etc. as categories and not genres. They realize that their marketing conventions do not define genres. Two books that lavishly illustrate this are The Tin Drum and The House of Spirits. Both are fantasies to their very core, employing numerous fantasy tropes in the telling of their stories, but you'd never find them in the fantasy section because of the high/low culture divide and how it affects the marketing of certain books.

Your entitled to your rigid interpretation of what is and what isn't fantasy, but to pretend that it isn't incredibly nebulous, open to debate, and largely a matter of personal opinion is inconsiderate and incorrect. Hard science fiction fans are going to argue to you that Dune and the Star Wars films are fantasy, not science fiction, and they're going to bring up a lot of good points in support of their claim because viewed from certain angles, those stories are much more fantasy than science fiction.

You are entitled to your opinion of course. However, genre is not a nebulous concept. Sure, there are fuzzy areas at the edges - that's how new genres get created. But, sorry, Bram Stoker's Dracula is NOT fantasy. Nor is Tarzan.

Fantasy is defined by a lot of things, but, what you're calling fantasy isn't one of them.

Wiki's got a pretty decent history of the fantasy genre

 

[PeterWeller]

You are entitled to your opinion of course. However, genre is not a nebulous concept. Sure, there are fuzzy areas at the edges - that's how new genres get created. But, sorry, Bram Stoker's Dracula is NOT fantasy. Nor is Tarzan.

Fantasy is defined by a lot of things, but, what you're calling fantasy isn't one of them.

You can't just say, "no they're not," and not give a reason. You're of course entitled to your opinion, but your fooling yourself if you think genres are that concrete.

 

[Hussar]

You can't just say, "no they're not," and not give a reason. You're of course entitled to your opinion, but your fooling yourself if you think genres are that concrete.

Never said that they were. But, you're the one trying to place Bram Stoker's Dracula in Fantasy.

 

[PeterWeller]

Never said that they were. But, you're the one trying to place Bram Stoker's Dracula in Fantasy.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is at its heart, a monster hunt. The monster hunt is one of the oldest tropes in fantasy, remember Beowulf. Dracula is also a supernatural monster, a monster out of fantasy, if you will. Dracula has a fantastic origin, fantastic powers, and a fantastic weakness that must be discovered for him to be defeated.

There, I just placed Bram Stoker's Dracula firmly in the fantasy genre. Are you going to now tell me that because the book is "scary" that it doesn't belong in that genre? It's core basis lies in fantasy tropes. Please explain why it isn't fantasy. Don't just type, "no it's not."

But before you do that, realize that genre is not exclusive. Bram Stoker's Dracula is also a horror novel, one of the first. Genre is more a product of how you read the story and what you look for when you read it than some concrete division of art. Look at it another way. Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men is both a western and a crime novel. You can read it as each, and see how it develops the tropes of each. Or how about an example from the world of pop music: Run DMC's cover of "Walk This Way" is both a hip-hop song and a rock song. It can be listened as either, and it is appreciated by fans of either genre.

Now, I think I've provided a pretty decent explanation of why Bram Stoker's Dracula is fantasy. Please tell me why you think it isn't.

 

[Hussar]

Bram Stoker's Dracula is at its heart, a monster hunt. The monster hunt is one of the oldest tropes in fantasy, remember Beowulf. Dracula is also a supernatural monster, a monster out of fantasy, if you will. Dracula has a fantastic origin, fantastic powers, and a fantastic weakness that must be discovered for him to be defeated.

There, I just placed Bram Stoker's Dracula firmly in the fantasy genre. Are you going to now tell me that because the book is "scary" that it doesn't belong in that genre? It's core basis lies in fantasy tropes. Please explain why it isn't fantasy. Don't just type, "no it's not."

But before you do that, realize that genre is not exclusive. Bram Stoker's Dracula is also a horror novel, one of the first. Genre is more a product of how you read the story and what you look for when you read it than some concrete division of art. Look at it another way. Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men is both a western and a crime novel. You can read it as each, and see how it develops the tropes of each. Or how about an example from the world of pop music: Run DMC's cover of "Walk This Way" is both a hip-hop song and a rock song. It can be listened as either, and it is appreciated by fans of either genre.

Now, I think I've provided a pretty decent explanation of why Bram Stoker's Dracula is fantasy. Please tell me why you think it isn't.

Beowulf isn't fantasy either. It's what fantasy was before fantasy was a genre. Fantasy as a genre has only existed for a couple of hundred years. The simple existence of monsters or magic doesn't make something fantasy or else all of myth and legend is now included in the fantasy genre.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is pretty much solidly 19th Century Romance. It's also the beginning of Horror, but, again, Horror as a genre is a fairly new one as well. Simply being a scary story doesn't make something horror, or Grimm's Fairy Tales would be Horror. Then again Grimm are not Fantasy either. They're fairy tales.

The problem is, you're trying to take a modern genre and apply it backwards.

Simply having a monster doesn't make something fantasy or horror. If it did, Hound of the Baskervilles would be fantasy and horror. There's more to a genre than a couple of tropes.

....

Y'know what, I'm done with this. Genre discussions are pointless. I cannot say anything that will convince you and you're not going to convince me. Yes, genre is not fixed. Of course that's true. But, you cannot simply place things in any genre you like. Dracula is NOT a fantasy novel. There's a lot of smarter people than me who can explain it better than I can. While genre is fluid, it's not formless. Yes, things can appear in two genres. That's fine. But, for the sakes of this discussion, it's also entirely beside the point.

RC is claiming that there is this huge body of fantasy literature to draw from prior to the late 70's. To back his claim, he's including all sorts of works that aren't usually included in the fantasy genre. Dracula, Tarzan, Harry Hausenens (sp), whatever. That's what I'm arguing against.

Yes, there was fantasy prior to 1980. Of course there was. But, at that time, fantasy was a tiny sub-genre of science fiction, not this robust, well read genre that RC is claiming it to be. Post 1980, you can make that claim. Fantasy lit post 1980 is HUGE. There's been more fantasy novels printed since 2000 than prior to 1970. That's the only point I've been trying to make.

 

[PeterWeller]

I'm not so exasperated anymore, so I can put this politely.

Hussar, your problem is that you are confusing what a literary category is with a literary genre. Genre is just a collection of common tropes that can be used to say this [book] is like that [book] because of these tropes. Thus anything that contains fantasy tropes falls into the fantasy genre (along with any other genre it contains tropes from). Category, on the other hand, while still being based on common tropes requires two things. One, those tropes must be openly evident and must be major developing forces of the narrative, and two, a publisher must decide to market a book under that category.

Genres are timeless and while they might not be defined until a certain point in time, they have, for all intents and purposes, existed as long as those tropes have existed, whether or not they have been recognized as distinct genre of fiction. Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts are both fantasy, but by your definitions, their source material isn't. How does this make any sense? Is it because of some arbitrary cut off point? Does the fact that the Greek's only recognized two genres (tragedy and comedy; and they didn't even consider a divide between fiction and non-fiction for that matter) mean that anything they created only falls into these two genres? Does that mean that the Odyssey isn't an epic?

I take it you don't have a strong literary background. I'm not trying to be patronizing here; I'm just putting forth an inference I've gathered from your thinking. The reason why I bring this up is because if so, it's totally understandable that you would confuse genre with category. Most people that are even aware of the two terms assume they are synonyms, and often use the word genre when they mean category (not using the word, category, at all). This, however, is simply not the case. Genre, again, is just a collection of shared tropes that you can use to say "this is like that because of these." Category, what you're talking about, are the more rigid and codified marketing divisions based in and around genres. Genre is a timeless concept, arising from the first instance of a common trope. Category is a modern invention based in the commodification of art.

Now, one last thing. Category is still not a rigid and unchangeable definition. Cold Mountain (the great novel, not the decent film) was originally categorized as a romance. It's miles deep in the romance genre, and that informed its publisher that it should be categorized and marketed as such. However, it became immensely popular amongst the historical fiction audience (another genre it's miles deep in, but not nearly as popular a category as romance) as well as the general readership, prompting its re-categorization as a general fiction novel. Notice, however, that its category was a decision based not only on what genre(s) it fit into but also what audience it could be marketed to. That's the real important difference: genre doesn't care about audience, category does.

Now, to go back to your original point: you're correct in saying that it was difficult to find fantasy novels prior to 1980, but only in the sense that it was difficult to find the fantasy category (which did exist prior to having its own shelves as a sub category of science fiction, a position it occupied since the pulp days), not the fantasy genre.

I hope I've managed to explain the difference between the two, and also explain our apparent difference of opinion (which, as I gather, was always more a difference of terminology), and I want to apologize if at any point I came across as a jerk in this exchange.


Oh, and one last thing. There is no monster in Hound of the Baskervilles. The hound is a hoax arrived at by some liberal use of phosphorous. In fact, HotB is a criticism and commentary on the very genres you mentioned. Doyle greatly disapproved of fantasy and horror, considering them trite (kind of like Cervantes when he wrote Don Quixote).

 

[Raven Crowking]

When discussing how easy it is to find "fantasy" books in a bookstore, I think that's entirely an appropriate distinction.

Excepting, of course, that books like Tarzan do sit in the fantasy section (when they are available at all). It is definitely true that, if you are looking for Kingdoms of Elfin you will probably need to look in the lit section though.

EDIT: BTW, the most excellent Encyclopedia of Fantasy includes Dracula, Tarzan, and Nosferatu as fantasy. Frankly, I trust the authors/editors of that work as being in the line of "experts" as to what is/is not fantasy....or, at least, more so than those who have not made thier living considering such questions.

YMMV.


RC

 

[Hussar]

Oh, and one last thing. There is no monster in Hound of the Baskervilles. The hound is a hoax arrived at by some liberal use of phosphorous. In fact, HotB is a criticism and commentary on the very genres you mentioned. Doyle greatly disapproved of fantasy and horror, considering them trite (kind of like Cervantes when he wrote Don Quixote).

Yet, we have people here sticking The Lost World into Fantasy. After all, if Tarzan is Fantasy, why not The Lost World?

And, as to the appeal to authority goes, well, I'll put my degree up for grabs. I'm not confusing anything here.

Sorry, I don't buy into this Platonic Ideal of genre where the genres exist if only we were perfect enough to comprehend them. Genre, like category, is simply a construct to allow us to group similar stories together. Genre, unlike category, as you so rightly point out, doesn't care about economics. However, Modern Fantasy (which is the genre we're discussing) didn't exist until about 200 years ago. You don't get to suddenly retcon older works into the new genre. Yes, they are antecedents of the genre, but, they are not part of the genre itself.

Yes, the Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts is not in the same genre as the movie based on the same. They are different. They are written differently, they approach the material differently and they contain different elements. Never mind the fact that one is a movie and the other an oral tradition myth.

Heh, as a side note, I find it terribly ironic that someone would take me to task for not knowing about literary criticism and then quote authorial intent as part of their proof.

RC - Yes, Tarzan does sit in the Fantasy section NOW. However, 30 years ago, you would be very, very hard pressed to find a fantasy section outside of the largest and most well stocked of bookstores.