Fantastique from the Beginning
Readers, critics in particular, often classify fantasy literature into many different types. In Wikipedia Fantastique is just one of over two dozen categories and subgenres. The distinctions sometimes seem arbitrary and overlap with obvious and more developed categorizations such as science fiction/speculative fiction, and horror.
Despite their importance for sellers and bookstores, these distinctions seldom matter to authors who write in the fantasy genre. After all, would William Shakespeare, care whether The Tempest fell into the romantic fantasy or paranormal fantasy camps? Or whether Prospero’s application of the supernatural seemed internally consistent or not? The important thing was that Prospero’s supernatural talents captured the audience’s attention then and captivate our amazement four centuries later.
So, how does the above correlate with the subject of this article’s title? Until I identified the five titles that influenced my decision to become an author, their subject matter never seemed coherent nor affected my arc as a professional writer. But before exploring how this exercise impacted my writing career, however, let’s examine what is meant by the term, Fantastique.
Definition of Fantastique
Fantastique is a French literary term that falls under the larger category of Fantasy fiction. LIke other forms of fantasy, fantastique stories contain supernatural elements in their narratives. Unlike other subgenres such as fable, high/low, or sword and sorcery, however, fantastique tales insert the supernatural into an otherwise realistic narrative framework. And unlike dark fantasy or magic realism stories, fantastique stories portray an element of doubt about the existence of the supernatural.
According to the Bulgarian critic, Tzvetan Todorov, this element of uncertainty distinguishes it from the marvelous contained withn the English conception of Fantasy fiction. This narrative tension between the supernatural and the natural, the possible and the impossible, the logical and the illogical separates such stories from what Todorov characterizes as marvelous or conventional fantasy in which magical or supernatural elements and events occur in a normal or familiar way.
The injection of the supernatural into an otherwise realitic portrayal of events places fantastique stories between the uncanny and the marvelous. Uncanny stories push reality to its limits as in Edgar Alan Poe‘s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” On the other hand, the characters in marvelous stories regard supernatural elements as being quite normal. J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter series is a prime example.
Fantastique’s Literary Heritage
Defined this way, fantastique literature contains many significant works in its canon. Identifying a few of the better-known titles includes:
- Many of Edgar Allan Poe short works
- Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (Todorov regards this as epitomizing pure Fantastique)
- Nikolai Gogol‘s “The Nose”
- R.L. Stevenson‘s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
- Bram Stoker‘s Dracula
- Oscar Wilde‘s The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Franz Kafka‘s The Metamorphosis
- Nathaniel Hawthorne‘s The House of the Seven Gables and “The Birth-Mark“
- H.G. Wells‘s The Island of Doctor Moreau
Other eminent contributors to the genre include H.P. Lovecraft, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Matheson, Steven King, and Clive Barker.
Why the Fantastique Designation Matters
On the Macro Level:
It matters because so many talented writers’ works can be identified as belonging within this particular subgenre. Their inclusion goes beyond literary pigeon-holing or reevaluation of individual author’s neglected works, however. Many of the works listed above achieved distinction before Tudorov consigned them into this particular genre. Rather, their inclusion reflects the authors’ appreciation and apprehension regarding the amazing, the phenomenal, and the absurd.
Authors ranging in temperament from Sartre to Lovecraft acknowledge the power of the supernatural yet remain hesitant regarding its actuality. As playwright John Van Druten laments in his play Bell, Book, and Candle, “There’s always a rational explanation for everything if you look for it.”
On the Micro (Personal) Level:
It matters because placing my recent series Escape the New Immortals within Todorov’s classification explains my career arc as an author. My first published novel, Penal Fires, was an initial stab at the psychological thriller, little more. My second, Metadata Murders, was also a thriller, but this time along technological lines. The main plot device–the Internet–revealed the promises and pitfalls of that recent invention. The crux of its storyline involved the preposterous, almost supernatural, potential for identify theft and murder via the dark Web.
Consequently, creating a narrative involving a conflict between a psychologist-turned- shaman and a band of psychic vampires from the collective unconscious doesn’t seem such a surprise, In retrospect, it seems a rational if excessive thematic development in my growth as a writer.
A Fantastique Summation
In Escape the New Immortals
My personal commitment to the Fantastiqu concept appears most strongly in the first two novels of my Escape the New Immortals series. In an otherwise ordinary and rational world, each of the protagonists encounters a supernatural entity in unconscious reality from which they must escape. Each of them, Victor, Miriam, and Todd at times doubt the veracity of that experience. Their individual story arcs reflect the internal conflict of coming terms and ultimatelly vanquishing those supernatural beings whose existence defies rational explanation. In short, their acceptance of supernatural reality ultimately enables them to vanquish their foes in the rational world.
From Five Books Transformed My Life
It is said the strongest believers in heaven and a deity are those who fought hardest against it. Saul of Tarsus before he became St. Paul comes to mind. Two examples from more recent literature appear as the top two in my most recent blog post, Marcel (Remembrance of Things Past) and Lawrence Darrell (The Razor’s Edge) seek something not of this world. For Marcel it is what’s often mislabeled as deja vu–the recreated sensory experience. His tasting of the madeleine cookie he remembered as a child provides the reader with a supernatural depiction of primitive time travel.
For Lawrence Darrell, the fantastique aids him in finding the meaning to man’s existence. He never finds the answers he seeks, but he always continues the search. His healing trick for his stressed-out friend involves no more than his trying to hold onto a coin. His inability to do so demonstrates that the supernatural power for healing our tormented souls lies not in the power of others but within ourselves.
Little from these examples is rational; none of it seems real or true. Yet these occurrences continue pervade ordinary reality every day, doubtful as that may seem. That is why they and my novels fall under the label of the fantastique.
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