Monday, June 4, 2012

C. S. Lewis vs. J. R. R. Tolkien, or What Makes a Good Fantasy Novel

"How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being our own town?"

                                                                                         ~ G. K. Chesterton

I was reading "Orthodoxy" the other day, just randomly flipping through the pages, when the above quote suddenly caught my eye. And it started me thinking.

How can we find something fascinating in the dullest, most ordinary, everyday things? Is there some way to make the ordinary things not only appear extraordinary, but reveal them as just that?

This, I think, is the reason for fantasy novels, and those who write them. This question is why we have had the story-teller even from the earliest time of man's existence. Stories have a way of engaging our imagination and helping us to see things that our physical eyes can't. They help us to look deeper beyond the outer shell of commonness. And in doing so, they have to push us beyond our comfort zone.

The good fantasy novel creates a world that may not resemble ours exactly, but one that obeys and reflects the laws that bind our universe together. And that is what makes them so convincing, and the reason so many people are drawn to them.

But the creating of a good fantasy world is a difficult thing to do. The good fantasy world doesn't exactly take us out of our world, but shows us our own in a different light, and it does this by reminding us of the "Deep Magic."

Tolkien, in his series "the Lord of the Rings," achieves this feat. The world of Middle Earth is a far-cry from our own Earth, but what makes it so believable? I believe it is because it follows the same rules as our world. It is familiar, but at the same time intriguingly strange. Our predicament in entering Middle Earth is similar to that of the Hobbits the story is centered on. They are inhabitants of Middle Earth, but they have been comfortably sheltered in their land of the Shire. There has been a whole world beyond their borders, but it takes a wizard named Gandalf and a Ring of Power to push them into that world. The "Big-People", as the Hobbits call them, are perfectly at home in the land beyond the Shire. But to the little Shire-folk, what lies past their doorstep is both wonderful and frightening. And in the end, it is the Hobbits who save Middle Earth from the rise of Sauron.

C. S. Lewis, in the "Chronicles of Narnia", answers the same question, though to a lesser degree I think. And not just because LOTR is several levels above "Narnia." There is a fundamental difference between the two worlds. While Middle Earth is mysteriously beautiful, Narnia is comfortably familiar. Nothing in Narnia is strange, nothing surprises us. There is a passing mention of a "Deep Magic", but nothing touches that Magic except for a few instances: one is when the children reach the Woods Between the Worlds, where every one of the millions upon millions of pools of water contains its own world. Another is when Aslan returns from the dead. But after that it's business as usual. It reminds me of a mild fairytale. One with a very definite and decided moral. It holds no exciting, never-before-seen twist on an oft-repeated lesson. This is not simply because the intended audience is younger. It doesn't hold the same depth and mystery as Middle Earth. However, Narnia is still a good fantasy novel, because it creates a world that obeys the universal laws of right and wrong, with the true and the good always overcoming the evil.

That is what makes a good and true fantasy novel. The challenge issued by Mr. Chesterton is the one fantasy writers and story-tellers attempt to answer when they set out to spin their tales, whether or not they intend to do so. Mr. Tolkien is, in my opinion, the highest example of someone who has succeeded in answering the challenge.

~Grace

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