Who is Sylvia, what is she?

[desperance]

It's time for definitions again - or rather for an absence of definitions, for a shrug and one of those indefensible assertions, "it is what I say it is".

This story I have been writing, the Alexandria story: there has never been any doubt in my mind that it is fantasy. Sometimes I say it's about Vikings in Alexandria, but that doesn't matter; it's still not historical fiction. They're not Vikings, and it isn't even Alexandria. It's a city with a dozen names, all of which sound a bit like Alexandria, and it has a face to match each name; I hope for a dozen stories in the end. It might perhaps occupy an Alexandrian space on the map, except that there are no maps. It is a city of my imagination, a city of exile, the last place on earth; undoubtedly, it is a fantasy and so are all the stories that I have to tell about it.

And yet, and yet - it struck me suddenly, today. No magic.

There is nothing about this story to say that it is fantasy, except that I made it all up. It's about recognisably human people doing recognisably human things. There isn't even the rumour of something strange off in the shadows somewhere: there is no suggestion that this is in any way not a story of this world, except that you won't find its setting in Wikipedia. Yet.

And yet, in my head: utterly and irredeemably fantasy.

I find this odd.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

If you were Jan Morris, of course, it would be Literature...

And I'm sure I've seen alternate histories referred to as SF.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I did have Hav in mind as I wrote the post; it's the only direct example I could think of, of somewhere entirely fictional and yet entirely mundane.

But one of the points about Hav is that it is clearly meant to exist on this world, or would do if this world were only broad enough to include it. My story? Not so. Everything is parallel, but you can't make the match; their world is the only world they know, and it ain't this. Just, it's a distinction without a difference...

[fjm.livejournal.com]

See "immersive fantasy" in _Rhetorics of Fantasy_, brought to you by, er, me.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Frightened as I am by the Higher Criticism (which capitals are not meant to be ironic, only expressive), I am actually looking forward to this.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Na, no Higher Criticism. It's an exercise in seventeenth century Reason. I think the most complex word in the entire book is "polysemic".

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Is this concern about definition in your own creative continuum or out there in the crackerjack world of marketing? It's a story you've made up, which makes it fiction. All fiction is fantasy, even if it is not marketed as Fantasy, because it didn't happen and the telling is not, therefore, reportage - except from the battleground of your own imagination* (although most reportage is fiction, but that's an argument for another time)

What I'm trying to say is that what you describe seems perfectly normal to me, and when do we get to read it?

*Author as war correspondent? You'd be better paid.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

What I'm trying to say is that what you describe seems perfectly normal to me, and when do we get to read it?

Ah, well, that of course is problematic, and depends largely on the 'suasibility of editors. Which will in part depend on the eventual length of the piece, which I spent much of last week happily telling myself would be a short story, but which looks more and more like a novella now.

But - thinking suddenly, as I am, about its utter lack of fantasy tropes, except for an overall generic sensibility, perhaps - I am reminded of what my US agent (or possibly editor, or possibly even both independently) said about Guy Gavriel Kay, who is my utter touchstone for this kind of work and comes closer than anyone I know to writing fantasy-with-no-magic: which was that if he'd only write more overt magic he'd sell a lot better.

So.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

But he doesn't *need* more magic!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

'Zackly so. But generic fantasy readers apparently want more magic. At least, that is reckoned to be why he hasn't sold better over the years. My suspicion is that the big chuck-everything-in Fionavar trilogy that he started with (with added Tolkien! and Garner! and Arthur! and and and...) is still his best seller. Which is a crying shame, considering the quality of what's come after. [There's probably nothing wrong with Fionavar: just, I was enjoying about the first book-and-a-half very much, and then in came bloody Arthur. I am anti-Arthur. It turns out to be the only Kay I haven't revisited, so my perceptions may be warped, but I do remember it as something of a potpourri...]

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I, otoh, love Arthur, and never got through Tolkien, so I had none of the problems with Fionavar many people do. But my favorite is Tigana. *heartstabby goodness*

I'd think GGK could almost be sold as mainstream fiction. Just, y'know, by denying it's fantasy. Like Atwood does...

[sora-blue.livejournal.com]

Atwood gave in and admitted to being a speculative author. :)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

But my favorite is Tigana. *heartstabby goodness*

Mine too. Utterly. That phrase of his, "the blade in the heart"? I use it all the time...

I'd think GGK could almost be sold as mainstream fiction. Just, y'know, by denying it's fantasy. Like Atwood does...

Yes, but then he'd have to deny us too, and I'm not having that. Besides, he has genre in his heart. Right next to the blade...

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

It's an historical novel set in an imaginary world?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It is. Exactly so. Just as my "Bridge of Dreams"/"River of the World" sequence is an alternate history, a city's creation-myth - as told in Outremer, which is of course another of my imaginary worlds. It's an alternate to a history that doesn't actually exist. Yay.

[sora-blue.livejournal.com]

Is it Adventure Fantasy?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

If that's a category, I guess. Sorta. Except that it's not that adventurous, beyond the fact of Vikings in Alexandria. They go there to fetch a boy home, and - well. Other stuff. Revelations. I don't do adventure much. Not in the Indiana Jones/all-action kinda sense, at any rate. You could call this culture-clash fantasy. (I have no idea whether there ever were Vikings in Alexandria. I know they got to Istanbul, but that's another matter...)

[sora-blue.livejournal.com]

Well, a good story is a good story. :)

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Everyone got to Alexandria. Didn't they?

(If they didn't, they probably should have. :) )

[desperance.livejournal.com]

'Zackly how I feel about it.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Alexandria, I should really get my hands on some of Cavafy's poetry someday soon...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Whoo, yeah. There's a lot available online, but I think they work better off the page, in a collection - maybe because that way you're getting consistency of translation, which more easily gives you access to his mind-set? I like the Keeley/Sherrard translation, me, but others are also well-spoken of. Whatever, it's a very specific slightly melancholic view of the world, much about looking back and the losses of time - like Proust, only in a dozen lines instead of a dozen volumes. And utterly imbued with a sense of place, as though his whole city is looking over his shoulder and nodding sadly...

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I don't read a lot of poetry, but I prefer it from the page. Poetry's a very tactile? (that's not the right word, but something similar) reading experience for me.

I've only had passing exposure to Cavafy, but enough to know I'd like more. There's a couple of lines from the start of "Ithaca" -

When you set out on your way to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge

It just gets me. Right in the heart. :)

[glass-mountain.livejournal.com]

I was introduced to Cavafy via a Geoffrey Grigson anthology...we now have his collected works in the bathroom :)
I also associate him a bit with Naomi Mitchison, who seems to have written a lot about the Hellenistic period.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, my Cavafy? Also in the bathroom.

Also weirdly - for someone who has read almost everything, and most particularly everything Graeco/Brit - I have never read Naomi Mitchison. Did you know she was one of Tolkien's proofreaders for Lord of the Rings?

[glass-mountain.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that! I came across her through 'Corn King and Spring Queen' - I don't know when it originally came out but it was re-published by Virago. It is pure fantasy - I don't know how it was originally marketed...

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Send in the barbarians

Well, maybe they're here.

Imagine Glynis Johns singing it.

[glass-mountain.livejournal.com]

Well (she said, falling out of the woodwork) I have just been reading Guy Gavriel Kay for the first time and I was struck by the almost complete absence of magic in 'The Lions of Al Rassan'. It cheered me up because I too have an idea (and no more) that involves a historical story but no obvious magic. When I tried to work it up for Tim the Holman, I grafted magic on, and it didn't work.
With all these trans-genre books around, why should fantasy be required to be overtly magical? (she enquired rhetorically).

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Rhetorical or not, it is the absolutely right question; and yes, GGK is the exemplar of how to do fantasy without magic. Unfortunately, the Powers That Be think that his comparatively disappointing sales are the exemplar of why people shouldn't do it...

[triciasullivan.livejournal.com]

Whaatever it's called, it sounds rich with possibility. Having magic could well dull down the other, more original frictions...