In my very last semester of college I took a class called Magical Realism/Virtual Reality. On the very first day of that class I asked a question which was possibly embarrassing, which was, "what about them?" We can learn about their histories and so on, but what's the relationship? The professor laughed and told me that I would figure it out. By the end of that class she still hadn't told me.
It was weird taking a class predicated on some one else's theory, but they won't tell you what the theory is. It's like reading an essay with no hypothesis.
Anyway I eventually figured out that there was some sort of relationship in the way people sublimate their existential discontent through "unrealistic" fiction, first world industrial countries through extremely high-tech Jeff Noon Waichowsky Brothers Philip Dick debacles, poor undeveloped countries through myth-weaving, old gods, sentient nature, and the extraordinary commonplace. It's as if you use what's in front of you. If you have nature you use nature. If you have technology you use technology.
And I as a person, though being born in a first world nation whose one measure of global worth is our ravenous consumption of techo-gadgetry, was still also born in the middle of the woods where vinyl records long outstayed their welcome and household computers were unheard of and religion was everything.
And my fiance, being the High King of all gadget-nerds (you dare challenge him?), goes on and on about this stuff. Sometimes I feel like I'm missing the point, missing something very important. Why do other people care so much? Why do people camp in front of the Apple store whenever they have some new model of the iPod? Why is it that my friends can go on about this or that doohickey, when I don't so much as give a gosh damn?
But my fiance, who also knows me about as well as a person could, tells me that it's probably because I never made that bond when I was young. Like the poor undeveloped countries without computers, I found my first intellectual roots in nature. My first atoms of self-awareness were formed on the backdrop of bark and grass and dirt.
I was in to science fiction for a few years as a kid. I even wrote a really terrible science fiction book. But I left it for fantasy, at least, as soon as I realized fantasy existed because my parents went to great lengths to keep life boring. But I think my fantasy is still a little more metallic than most.
But so going off of this neat little dichotomy, that science fiction is 1st world and magical realism is 3rd world because people improvise off the tools they have access to:
Then what does that say about Britain? They are the original industrialized country, still as first world as their lily white skin and as developed as their CO2 emissions.
I think I can safely suggest that the UK totally owns the fantasy genre. Not magical realism, but fantasy, which is different yet similar in its rustic qualities. It's nature based, it draws on old religions and myth. Why does Britain get to tread this line? Do they have some cloistered cultural memory? What forces are those that produced Tolkien and Lewis, Barrie or Carroll? And today, still, Rowling and Gaiman and Alan Moore?
And what fascinates me now is steampunk, Wells and Verne. Because that genre literally describes that rather bipolar amalgamation of high and low tech. Maybe only the UK could have done steampunk right.
But why the fantasy at all? Was it the pagans? Was it the Crusades?
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3 comments:
Perhaps it's a cultural tie to the land. That sounds phony, but when I tip-toed through the forest of Germany, it was completely obvious how it was the land of the Brothers Grimm.
Btw, you may find this funny considering your current book: http://xkcd.com/571/
Read the roll-over text
I'm going to agree with B here. Mythology, as I see it, is often a cultural understanding of how the world around a certain people works, as well as what they saw in their day to day lives. Speculative fiction, in a way, is kind of a modern rendition and extension of the mythologies of the past. Because so much is understood now, whether it be through the processes of technological advancement or through religious singularity, speculative fiction can be a means of which writers (and, to a certain extent, readers) interpret reality. With the British, the essential problem was their culture has never been comfortable with either technology or religion.
On the religious front, for starters, they were among the last complete converts of Christianity in Europe, excluding the Slavic lands. Writing systems were fully in place by the conversion, so old religious mythology, based in nature, maintained some existence. Furthermore, we have the Church of England (or rather, the Anglican Church and its national offshoots), which nobody can really tell whether it's Catholic (externally) or Protestant (internally). Finally, there is some argument that much of the South Asian community is having a ridiculous time with integration, especially when it comes to matters of religion.
With technology, first we have the Luddite movement, started by angered and paranoid British artisans. Then there is the matter of imperialism from the 19th Century, which, with the exception of telegraphy, reduced the necessity of technological advancement beyond what was already available. This, in turn, prevented ideas such as Babbage's engines from coming to fruition for the most part. Such a line of thought probably inspired Verne and Wells's scientific romances back in those days. Finally, there's the fact that in the past century, British technological development, at least on a world scale, has fallen behind to a significant degree, with the possible exception of aviation.
I mean, it's wild guessing, but the British, while being an advanced industrial nation, hasn't really been able to sit on that position comfortably. It's kind of allowed them to become experts at speculative fiction.
As per why people wait in line days before the newest iPod and the like, I used to think it was just sheer focus, but now, sometimes I think Gaiman was onto something in "American Gods" (which I finally got around to reading recently). Sometimes, worship or sacrifice doesn't have to mean bowing your head down, reciting chants, or killing animals or virgins as an offering.
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