"From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" and the Style of Fantasy

[Coír Draoi Ceítien]

Having recently heard that Raven has been reading the Earthsea series, I thought I might share this.

Mrs. Le Guin has some interesting opinions on fantasy. She's pretty particular about style, as her essay "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie" makes clear, and I'm not sure that I disagree. When it comes to writing anything, style is important - there are occasions when the rules can be bent, but there's a general adaptation that has to take place, a certain "flow" that has to be pulled off just right, for the story to work. It's not just the content, the meat's in the very telling of the tale! Fantasy, in particular, requires a specific diction and structure relative to the setting of the story for it to be believable; anything less betrays the immersion expected of the reader.

To spare you any more rambling, here's the essay in full. Feel free to discuss whether Mrs. Le Guin's opinions are worth their weight today or if style is no longer a factor.....or whatever. Just enjoy the essay, if nothing else.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzA5KaXxLuv6YjI2M2M1ZTMtOTYwZS00MjNiLTgzNWUtMGUyYWZmOTJkOTUy/view?ddrp=1&authkey=CIfm6_MP&hl=en#

[Raven]

Thank you, Coir, for introducing me to this essay. As both a writer and reader of fantasy literature -- both for some time now -- I found it very interesting.

Having read it, I believe I followed the gist of her meaning, but at the same time, I found it somewhat abstract. "Style" is one of the more difficult concepts of writing to nail down. In the end, it almost felt like she was saying that fantasy should be well-written and not badly written. True enough.
Now, it would be immensely interesting to see what she thinks of the style of works such as Harry Potter, which is a very different type of book than the ones she seems to be discussing as good examples. I think the landscape has changed a bit since the writing of this essay.

She also seems to have an interesting relationship to the comic elements of fantasy. To her, elf-land seems a very serious place. I think, though, that there is a rich tradition -- especially accounting for the oral traditional tales from which much of our current fantasy tradition derives -- of the ridiculous in elf-land, almost at times the burlesque. The fool is a classic character in fairy tale. I get that she had trouble with the switching back and forth of stylistic voice, but she seemed to want authors to stick with the serious, indicating that perhaps they didn't believe enough in the potential value of seriousness. But this, in itself, is a narrowing of fantasy away from its oral traditional roots to a degree. Fairyland or elfland is often both deathly serious and remarkably ridiculous, and this tension is in a way characteristically fell and fey. I suppose a true master could accomplish this tension without having to switch voice. She does mention a satire in a complimentary way, but overall, she seems to be very serious.

I admit I have tendency towards the serious myself. I don't typically feel an attraction to comic fantasies. I do like humor -- whimsy may be a better term -- when it does not break the integrity of the world. I don't want to feel that the author is not taking the world seriously or treating it with continuity. The whimsy should come from the fact that we are in elfland, not from being jolted out of it for a quick joke and plunged back in. That is more my taste, and in this sense, may correlate with Le Guin's concept of consistency of style.

I get what she says about avoiding journalistic writing. But in a sense, I'm still unclear as to what she wants from style besides to write well, perhaps be consistent, and avoid the pitfalls of amateur/fake anachronism and poorly constructed tone.

I admit to fighting an illness at the moment and having a rather muddled head for thinking right now. I may have followed it better at another time.

I am probably going to pay more attention to the style of her work. I am currently in the third book of the Earthsea world.

[Coír Draoi Ceítien]

It is a rather old essay (from the 70s, I believe), so things certainly have changed in ways. What I took out of it the most was her ideas on the construction of style - that is, the part where it's written in such a way that you can't simply substitute a couple words and get a whole new meaning or setting. Language is important.

Regarding her ideas on humor, I would agree so far as to say that, like fantasy, well-written humor has a style. I haven't read many comic fantasies, but I think it could be pulled off with tight execution. Again, the style is key - sloppy writing makes for poor examples.

Although I don't know much about some of the authors she criticizes, they're famous and influential enough that they'll eventually get entries on my Masters of Fantasy series. Expect Leiber, Zelazny and Vance in the near future. Even Katherine Kurtz may get a spotlight.

(This isn't a very thought-out response. I think I had something more substantial, but it simply faded away. Maybe next time, I'll have something better to say.)

[Raven]

When it comes to the idea that you have to use a certain diction to make it fantasy, I'm not sold.
Here is a line from something I was writing tonight:

"But I have a feeling I can't. Besides, I don't want to. Not and leave Raven's family to the mercy of Subub."

Or like this:

"Yet I do not think I am able, nor do I wish it. I refuse to leave Raven's family to the mercy of Subub."

The first could be changed, as Le Guin speaks of, to be talking about something decidedly not fantastical. It is much more colloquial. The latter, perhaps not the best example of fantastical style, is more consistent with a kind of mythic high fantasy world. But the piece of fantasy I'm writing is "portal fantasy," where there is movement between worlds, and the character would not speak in that high diction -- at least not at this moment. I like "low fantasy," which I describe as being fantasy that can take place with characters from our own world. Urban fantasy is a whole other genre. Portal fantasy takes characters from our world into another world.
Each work has to set its own tone and style, and consistency within a work and to the world of that work, I think, is what is important. If you're writing a work like what Le Guin seems to be talking about or wanting -- a work of high fantasy set in "Elfland" (where a character is not transported there with all the colloquial speech of a modern character) then her concepts should apply more than to some other types of fantasy writing.

I guess it depends on what you're trying to achieve.

[Coír Draoi Ceítien]

There's the kick, I believe. High fantasy, or anything in a self-contained world with a deliberate quasi-medieval setting, could be - if not need to be - written in a deliberately eloquent "high" style, and even then, there are exceptions (I think Game of Thrones [the TV series] plays with it, in ways). Low/portal fantasy, or course, wouldn't need to be held to such lofty ideals because the aim is different, though I would suggest that the "other world" not sound too contemporary, or it might not feel like a different world. I think Guy Gavriel Kay's "The Fionavar Tapestry" pulls this off well.

I like your examples. While the second is more eloquent (and I like it a bit better), both are a fine way to go. I don't see anything wrong with it, though I'm not a professional writer. Your style is your own.

[Raven]

I'll probably pay more attention -- or at least I'd hope -- after this conversation. It is true -- style can really set the mood in a story. As you suggest, even in low or portal fantasy, one might expect an elf to speak with eloquence, though in urban fantasy that might be totally different.