\u201cIntroduction: Reinhabiting Fantasy\u201d
\nBrian Attebery<\/p>\n
It is a truism that literary texts are not inert objects but living, changing systems. Both the life and the capacity to change depend on readers\u2014and a good thing too, or literary scholars would be out of work, since everything that could be said about a particular story would already have been said. Meaning is open-ended because it is a product of the reader\u2019s interaction with the text, and there is no limit to the reader\u2019s contributions.<\/p>\n
In this issue of Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts<\/em>, familiar fantasies are reread, reexamined, translated, and read through one another to produce new possibilities of significance. Each essay focuses on a different aspect of the reader-text interaction, and all enrich our understanding of the genre and of the social and cognitive power of narrative fantasy.<\/p>\n We lead off with Eric Reinders\u2019s fascinating look at the transformation of Tolkien\u2019s The Lords of the Rings<\/em> into a Mandarin Chinese text. Reinders demonstrates how each decision made by a translator\u2014what word to use for \u201celf,\u201d which names to transliterate and which to re-analyze\u2014contributes to the creation of a new story and imaginary world. Like all translations, the Chinese Lord of the Rings<\/em> is both a new creation and a commentary on the original, one that I believe offers a number of new insights into Tolkien\u2019s art.<\/p>\n Cassandra Bausman was the winner of the graduate student award at 2013 International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts for her paper on China Mi\u00e9ville\u2019s young adult fantasy Un Lun Dun<\/em>. Expanded and revised, her essay explores the way Mi\u00e9ville uses the form of the heroic quest fantasy while undercutting its assumptions and critiquing its conventions. Mi\u00e9ville lovingly demolishes such commonplaces as the foretold (usually male) savior, the garrulous wizardly guide, and the deterministic meanings of prophecies and spells. In their place, he offers wit, inventiveness, and a story in which the ultimate goal is replaced by more scenic detours.<\/p>\n Like Reinders, Lily Glasner takes up one of the core examples of twenti-eth-century fantasy: C. S. Lewis\u2019s Narnia series. Glasner\u2019s political reading of Narnia responds to questions raised by Maria Nikolajeva, Colin Manlove, and others regarding issues of power and control raised by the text itself and by its use as a scene of contact or contestation between adult and child readers. Glasner finds that the politics of Narnia reflect both its origins during World War II and its grounding in Lewis\u2019s understanding of Thomas Aquinas and medieval philosophy. Like Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy<\/em>, the saga of Narnia is both political and theological: its history and politics are inseparable from ideas of faith and redemption.<\/p>\n Jonathan Goodwin reads one of the exemplars of scientific romance, Olaf Stapledon, in terms of H. P. Lovecraft\u2019s very different branch of the fantastic: cosmic horror. Stapledon\u2019s novella The Flames<\/em> is not typical of his output, but the Lovecraftian elements that creep in imply something usually not acknowledged in his fiction. The same perceptiveness that gives his characters such joy in discovery and communication can lead instead to a vision of a cold, cruel universe. It can even lead those characters to abandon empathy, to become party to the horrors they sense. The interaction of these two writerly world views shows us a Stapledon who is more self-critical and more complex than his usual critical portrayal and invites a more nuanced reading of his earlier, more optimistic work as well.<\/p>\n Finally, Joy Sanchez-Taylor reads Junot Diaz\u2019s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao <\/em>as, among other things, a defense of fantasy as a response to history. Like its central character, the novel interprets the world\u2014and particularly the violent and qrotesque history of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic and its effects upon Dominican expatriates in the U.S. Sanchez-Taylor shows how fantasy, science fiction, and superhero comics give Yunior, in the novel, and Diaz, as its creator, \u201ca medium for commenting on Dominican history that moves away from languages of violence and exploitation and, instead, focuses on a common language and metaphor to express the experiences of Dominicans and Dominican Americans.\u201d Oscar Wao<\/em> is, in some senses, another translation of Tolkien, this time into the urban, hybridized cultures and technologized conceptual systems of twenty-first century America. And once again, the source text is re-invigorated by the translation, and our range of interactions with the fantastic is made broader and deeper.<\/p>\n Introduction: Reinhabiting Fantasy Reading Tolkien in Chinese Convention Un-done: Un Lun Dun\u2019s Unchosen Heroine and Narrative (Re)Vision \u201cBut what does it all mean?\u201d: Religious Reality as a Political Call in the Chronicles of Narnia Telepathy and Cosmic Horror in Olaf Stapledon\u2019s The Flames \u201cI was a Ghetto Nerd Supreme\u201d: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Latina\/o Futurity in Junot D\u00edaz\u2019s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao St. Lovecraft Gregory Basham and Eric Bronson\u2019s The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You\u2019ve Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, And Your Way Lars Schmeink and Astrid B\u00f6ger\u2019s Collision of Realities: Establishing Research on the Fantastic in Europe Lars Schmeink and Astrid B\u00f6ger\u2019s Collision of Realities: Establishing Research on the Fantastic in Europe Christopher E. Bell\u2019s Hermione Granger Saves the World: Essays on the Feminist Heroine of Hogwarts Paul Meehan\u2019s Horror Noir: Where Cinema\u2019s Dark Sisters Meet Roger Luckhurst\u2019s The Mummy\u2019s Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy Monica German\u00e0\u2019s Scottish Women\u2019s Gothic and Fantastic Writing: Fiction since 1978 Jack Zipes\u2019s The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre Jeffrey J. Kripal\u2019s Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal E. Wittkower\u2019s Philip K. Dick and Philosophy: Do Androids Have Kindred Spirits? Sherryl Vint\u2019s Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal Marc Steinberg\u2019s Anime\u2019s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan Andrew Smith\u2019s The Ghost Story 1840-1920: A Cultural History Enrique Gaspar\u2019s The Time Ship: A Chrononautical Journey David Seed\u2019s Future Wars: The Anticipations and the Fears Angela Ndalianis\u2019s The Horror Sensorium: Media and the Senses Thorsten Botz-Bornstein\u2019s Inception and Philosophy: Ideas to Die For Elizabeth Leane\u2019s Antarctica in Fiction: Imaginative Narratives of the Far South Verlyn Flieger\u2019s Green Suns and Fa\u00ebrie: Essays on Tolkien Editor\u2019s Introduction \u201cIntroduction: Reinhabiting Fantasy\u201d Brian Attebery It is a truism that literary texts are not inert objects but living, changing systems. Both the life and the capacity to change depend on readers\u2014and a good thing too, or literary scholars would be out of work, since everything that could be said about a particular story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-730","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/730\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-arts.org\/jfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Articles<\/h3>\n
\nBrian Attebery<\/p>\n
\nEric Reinders<\/p>\n
\nCassandra Bausman<\/p>\n
\nLily Glasner<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Jonathan Goodwin<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Joy Sanchez-Taylor<\/p>\nReview Essay<\/h3>\n
\nJeffrey Andrew Weinstock<\/p>\nReviews<\/h3>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Cassandra E. Bausman<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Bruce A. Beatie<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Gillian Polack<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Christopher L. Caldwell<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by J. Robert Craig<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Mark De Cicco<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Maura Heaphy<\/p>\n
\nRev. by Jeana Jorgensen<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Orion Ussner Kidder<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by S\u00e1ndor Klapcsik<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Sha LaBare<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Hongmei Li<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Rikk Mulligan<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Pedro Ponce<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Justin Raymond<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Joshua Richardson<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Stephen C. Swanson<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>Rev. by Corey J. Zwikstra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"