Discussion topic: what is fantasy?

[=Tamar]

It's true that genre naming has reached ridiculous proportions. I've read a book called "I wish I'd been there", where historians dramatise events that changed America. (The second volume refers to non-American events, as well). That genre is history - would you call it "dramatic history" (as opposed to a straight narrative?)

In the 1980s and 1990s on TV I think that sort of thing was called 'info-tainment', but in fact it had the effect of deliberate lying. A man I knew believed every word and image, while I had read a critic who warned that the people dramatizing it had changed some significant facts. There's a fine line to tread when dramatizing something, because of the expectation that it must be dramatic. Maybe if they called it "acting it out" they'd be less tempted to fiddle the real events into a myth, but I doubt it.

The best such work can help bring history to life, but so can a good documentary, one that doesn't alter history for the sake of adding a few "dramatic moments'. Two examples: an emotional blow-up that didn't happen, added to the film of Apollo Thirteen. Some extreme and impossible heroism that didn't happen and that wipes out the genuine social change, in a TV-movie of how a corrupt town was marginally improved when the gang controlling it went too far in the opinion of the townspeople, who, while the sheriff who had tried to clean the place up was lying critically injured in a hospital bed, went out themselves and took down the gangsters; in the TV-movie version, the sheriff got up and did it himself, which made it all one person's work and not the real social change in the attitude of the town.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Ah. I think I may have misrepresented the book badly ... by "historians dramatising events", I certainly didn't mean lying! The events depicted in the book are real enough and well-known (e.g. the raid on Harper's Ferry, The Salem witch trials, the voting rights march on Selma, the beginnings of the Vietnam War and so on). Any historian who tried to misrepresent events such as these would quickly become a laughingstock.

What I mean by "dramatising" is resisting the urge to represent an event in a cut-and-dried fashion - names, dates, and places - and instead relate why the event happened, what led up to it, what actually happened, and why it matters. A little bit of drama comes into it, of course - the 'human interest' factor - but on the whole, the essays are about as factual as any 'dry' history book. There's certainly no mention of (say) Abraham Lincoln rising from his deathbed and doing a jig. *LOL*

Some of the essays concentrate beautifully on the personal: the debut of the "Swedish Nightingale," Jenny Lind, on Sept 11, 1850; the illness of FDR in 1944-45; the psychological distress of Meriwether Lewis in his explorations in the 1800s. By doing so, they bring history to life. That's what I mean by "dramatic history", as opposed to a dry narrative (such as what you might find in wikipedia or any of that ilk).

 

[=Tamar]

I'm happy to hear that the book wasn't promulgating lies. Documentary historians often dramatize events with dialogue as reported (for instance, the Adams family kept the letters from 18th century that told of events during the American revolution) and sometimes making up plausible dialogue. They can be dull or interesting depending on the writers.
The genre of Historical Novels includes straight dramatization of known history (Dramatized History) but also expands to include probable versions of events, which can alter perceptions by attributing emotional reactions and hidden motives that were never recorded, but are only "likely". A complication is that it also includes entirely invented stories, and at that point it teeters on the edge of Alternate History.

But then, official history is often wrong, too. Just ask anyone who lived through the 1970s in America how accurate the books about it are.

 

[raisindot]

As always, getting late into a topic, but I think the bigger issue here is the seeming necessity to organize fiction in genres like fantasy, SF, "realistic fiction," "mysteries" or anything else.

In local libraries, this arbitrary classification drives me crazy. For example, for the past year or so I've been plowing through various mystery/crime/thriller novels. Since I don't know squat about who the good writers are I start by researching the genres online to create a list of authors or books.

But more often than not, when I go to our local libraries, most of which have separate areas for mysteries, fantasy/SF and "regular" fiction, I won't find a particular book I'm looking for in the mystery section--it'll be in the "regular" fiction section even though the story is clearly in the mystery genre.

I even find that sometimes books in a series are scattered between the mystery and regular fiction shelves. For example, I've been going through Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series. At two local libraries, the series is almost even split--half are only in the "regular" fiction section, and half are in the "mystery" section.

WTF? Drives me absolutely batty! All fiction books should be together. If you need to classify them for genre-browsers, just put a bloody label on the spine that identifies its genre.

Okay, soapbox off.

 

[RathDarkblade]

I don't know. If all fiction books were together, how would you find the one you want? :-|

The best way to find a library book is to look it up in the catalogue, note the number (e.g. 900 for general history, 355 for military history, 794 for games etc.) and find the book that way.

But fiction is generally shelved under F (unless your library does F for Folios). I guess that for the librarians and library goers, it's easy to label the books as M for mystery, SF/F for sci-fi/fantasy, etc. - and then find them in the same way.

Having said that - yes, classification is not always the same across all libraries, and you won't always find a book where you expect it to be. You also have to take into account that library patrons sometimes (all right, often) take books away, read htem, and don't put them back where they should be - and also that, sometimes, even librarians don't shelve books properly.

Still, it could be worse. I once browsed the general history section for a book to read and came across the companion book to a TV series called "The Story of God with Morgan Freeman". And it was shelved under "History", even though they already had a section for "Religion/Spirituality".

Very annoying, that was. Much frustrated, I became! Like Yoda, I speak. Why? I dunno.

 

[Quatermass]

As always, getting late into a topic, but I think the bigger issue here is the seeming necessity to organize fiction in genres like fantasy, SF, "realistic fiction," "mysteries" or anything else.

In local libraries, this arbitrary classification drives me crazy. For example, for the past year or so I've been plowing through various mystery/crime/thriller novels. Since I don't know squat about who the good writers are I start by researching the genres online to create a list of authors or books.

But more often than not, when I go to our local libraries, most of which have separate areas for mysteries, fantasy/SF and "regular" fiction, I won't find a particular book I'm looking for in the mystery section--it'll be in the "regular" fiction section even though the story is clearly in the mystery genre.

I even find that sometimes books in a series are scattered between the mystery and regular fiction shelves. For example, I've been going through Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series. At two local libraries, the series is almost even split--half are only in the "regular" fiction section, and half are in the "mystery" section.

WTF? Drives me absolutely batty! All fiction books should be together. If you need to classify them for genre-browsers, just put a bloody label on the spine that identifies its genre.

Okay, soapbox off.

Wow, your local library must suck, big time. No, really, I'm actually shocked at how bad it is. You shouldn't need to put up with that.

My local library is considerably more organised. There are three different fiction sections according to age group (junior, young adult, and adult), plus graphic novel sections for those three. Non-fiction is split not along age lines, but reference and biographies are kept separate from the rest of the non-fiction section, with everything else arranged according to the Dewey Code. And many genre books actually do have a sticker on the spine denoting its genre, usually for mystery, science fiction or fantasy books. That's the sort of system your library should have...well, save for the separate biographies, that's a pain in the rear, IMO. Plus, electronic catalogues help search for the book you want...and if it's not at the branch you frequent but at another, you can put it on hold, and they'll send it to your branch. Actually, it used to be that, out of the 20 items you can borrow out, only 10 of them could be AV items (CDs, DVDs, etc), but recently, you can borrow as many AV items as you have space on your account for.

 

[=Tamar]

The library of my childhood (now ruined by a bad librarian) had fiction together, arranged by author, with stickers on the book spine that gave the category. They had quite a decent SF collection. It wasn't a problem to be reading happily along the shelf of action-adventure and suddenly find a ghost story or a lost-race novel; it was all reading material. The Heinlein juveniles were in the teen half of the Children's room, while the Nancy Drew mysteries were in the Adult room. No, I don't understand that either.
The attempt to arrange the library by genres just seems weird. Most of the books I like are cross-genre anyway, so I'd have to search several areas.
Now that most libraries use a computer system instead of the old card catalogue, it should be easy to pull up all the books in a desired genre and print out the page, and make an organized search for the books without having to search the entire building. Of course, if you want to make unexpected discoveries with a random search, it doesn't matter how the shelves are organized.

 

[raisindot]

Now that most libraries use a computer system instead of the old card catalogue, it should be easy to pull up all the books in a desired genre and print out the page, and make an organized search for the books without having to search the entire building. Of course, if you want to make unexpected discoveries with a random search, it doesn't matter how the shelves are organized.

The only thing I use my library's online system for (and since it's one of many within a network of many surrounding towns, it's not even much of a local search) is to find out if my library has a book I've learned elsewhere in stock or whether I need to "order it" to be delivered to my local library (which I end up doing most of the time, since my local library's collection pretty much sucks).

I don't need the library system to generate a less of genre books. I research the ones I want on book review and booklist sites. All I want to do is go to the fiction section and find the book listed by author. I don't want to have the library catalog to tell me if it's in the mystery or mainstream fiction section. This isn't the 1980s anymore. We don't need literary segregation.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Here's something you might be interested in, raisin: here in my home state (Victoria, Australia), we have something called Library Link Victoria. What it means is that if you're a member of any library in Victoria, you can log into it with your library member number and password, and look up whether any library in the state has the book you're looking for. Then you can place a reservation on it, and a courier will bring it to your library. Then the library informs you that your book is in, and you can go and borrow it.

I don't know if Massachusetts has a similar system in place, but it might be worth asking about at your local library. You never know! Maybe another library in MA has the books you're looking for.

Just as an aside - hmm, I wouldn't mention the 1980s and the word "segregation", together, around any black people. Might be misconstrued as political.

 

[raisindot]

Rath, my local. library is connected to a network of library in my particular region where you can look up a book and see which libraries have it. If it's not in my local branch I can request that it be delivered to my local library for pickup. It's a great system.

I think there may be a similar statewide system, but I've never hard to use it. And I think I'd feel just a little bit guilty about asking some little library 100 miles away to deliver the latest Janet Evanovich to my local lib. Now, of course, if it was a DW book I couldn't find locally that would be a completely different story (arf!).

 

[Quatermass]

Rath, my local. library is connected to a network of library in my particular region where you can look up a book and see which libraries have it. If it's not in my local branch I can request that it be delivered to my local library for pickup. It's a great system.

I think there may be a similar statewide system, but I've never hard to use it. And I think I'd feel just a little bit guilty about asking some little library 100 miles away to deliver the latest Janet Evanovich to my local lib. Now, of course, if it was a DW book I couldn't find locally that would be a completely different story (arf!).

Well, you have that system at least. We call that putting them on hold, and as long as the book is at a branch of the local council's libraries, then you can have it transferred. I think there's some allowance for interlibrary loans, but I'm unfamiliar with how it works...

 

[RathDarkblade]

Inter-library loans are very much like "reserving" an item, or as Quartermass calls it, "putting it on hold". (And yes, I've heard of both those terms).

The main differences are that inter-library loans can take a longer time to get to your library (no surprise there, as it's coming from a greater distance away!) and that you can borrow it for a shorter time (3 weeks is usual for my library, which is still plenty of time to read one book).

 

[raisindot]

I currently have about 10 "inter-library borrowed" books sitting on my bookstand, with three more on hold waiting for me to pick up. Maybe it's hoarding a bit (since I almost always have to renew the ones I haven't started yet), but since they're all a few years old I rarely get a "can't renew someone's reserved this" flag so I don't feel too guilty about it.

 

[Quatermass]

I currently have about 10 "inter-library borrowed" books sitting on my bookstand, with three more on hold waiting for me to pick up. Maybe it's hoarding a bit (since I almost always have to renew the ones I haven't started yet), but since they're all a few years old I rarely get a "can't renew someone's reserved this" flag so I don't feel too guilty about it.

Fair enough. I do something similar.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

I've just read this on the Locus online site it is Jasper Fforde's take on genre book labels his own and other authors. He has an alternative view on Terry's Discworld books as fantasy. Link below:
https://locusmag.com/2019/02/jasper...-speculative-fiction-and-the-cradle-of-ideas/

 

[Saturday]

Here they put aside science fiction, fantasy, and murder books from the rest of the fiction. Sometimes, they even set continents aside (like, a part for asia and one for middle east and one for south america, you get the idea). I don't see the point. With computers, you can find a book on the computer, and then pinpoint it in the library. Besides, i'm not sure where some authors should be in such a system. If i go to a library (or a bookshop), i want to browse. And if i want a specific book, i'll look for it, or ask someone for it
AS for what is fantasy, i have no idea. Does it need mythical creatures ? Magic ? To be set in a different place ?

 

[RathDarkblade]

Not necessarily. Mythical creatures, magic, and exotic settings are found in the mythologies of all countries. Consider (for example) Greco-Roman mythology: the Greek/Roman gods battle (or give birth to) mythological creatures, and all supernatural creatures (gods or otherwise) are capable of magic, or at least things that mortals can't do. Lastly, there are plenty of exotic locations - or more prosaically, places where the Greeks and Romans hadn't been to yet.

I've read into Norse, Egyptian, Aztec and Irish mythologies, and they are similar to Greco-Roman, in that they both involve all three elements. Scottish mythology is probably similar, too - I'm not saying that Scottish mythology has Thor or Zeus or Osiris (of course not!), but it probably has similar gods, at least - a deity of thunder, a deity of war, a deity of agriculture and so on. Dug, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

As for what fantasy is ... it's hard to define. What makes a book into a "fantasy" book? What makes a "fantasy" film?

 

[Saturday]

My point exactly
Besides, the limits are blurred. Is Neverwhere fantasy ? Something else ? ( and it's just an example)
I think it might have something to do with localisation though. Books happening on Earth, in an imaginary place be that could exist next door, are not generally considered fantasy (unless they involve travelling to another place). They have to be set in an entirely different world (but still recognisable, like Umberto Eco said, a forest is still a large amount of trees together, and bushes and such, and a castle is either medieval or a Friedrich II fantasy)
I think the ones on the edge are my favourites

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

My point exactly
Besides, the limits are blurred. Is Neverwhere fantasy ? Something else ? ( and it's just an example)
I think it might have something to do with localisation though. Books happening on Earth, in an imaginary place be that could exist next door, are not generally considered fantasy (unless they involve travelling to another place). They have to be set in an entirely different world (but still recognisable, like Umberto Eco said, a forest is still a large amount of trees together, and bushes and such, and a castle is either medieval or a Friedrich II fantasy)
I think the ones on the edge are my favourites

Does that mean the Edge Chronicles by Stewart&Riddle ?

 

[Dotsie]

Agree with Saturday, I prefer urban fantasy, or those ‘on the edge’. Apart from Terry of course, although the magic and dragons got toned down considerably in the later books, which are all the better for it.