~~ on escaping the obvious
Dec. 9th, 2004 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaIt's odd... I want to say something in favor of reading as escapism and comfort-fic, but I don't know where to start. Plenty of people have written about the positive and healing aspects of fantasy, but that's not quite the same thing as escapism (at least, not 'fantasy' as Ursula LeGuin writes about it, for instance). I think JRR Tolkien's essay, `On Fairy Stories', talks about escape, though-- the concept of there being some things in the world that should be escaped, like the various spiritual/natural corruptions of modern culture-- so that escape through fiction could be a return to our roots, perhaps.
On the other hand, I've always wanted to see stories be written as realistic and vital as possible; I'm tempted to call what I'm looking for (emotionally) realistic fantasy (or realistic escape?). My concept of realism is really a question of basic plausibility-- that is, I'd like to suspend my disbelief, but I don't want to have to work very hard to do it. I want the story to enchant me and beguile me to the point that I think this jump of the imagination (fairies, 'true love', other worlds, wizards, boys who act all sensitive) is natural and I never knew it. It's like some hidden reality being revealed-- and within the confines of the story, you can believe and feel both transported and grounded at once.
I'm mostly relating this to my current craving for something other than angst. I'm kind of emotionally exhausted with H/D, at least, and if I were to read anything, I'd want it to reassure me, to put me at ease. However, I'm not quite willing to pretend everything is completely fine between them, and really Draco is a beautiful cultured prince with a perfect command of everything, including Harry-- because that's not escape to me so much as a lie, and yes, I think there's a difference. It doesn't make me feel better so much as... distracted. And I want to still remember the bad things-- and see good things in spite of them. That's what escapism means to me, and I think that's what JRR Tolkien was getting at as the purpose of fairy stories-- that sense of redemption, of transforming the ugly into the beautiful.
Pure fluff doesn't fulfill that function because its roots are so shallow, it seems like-- while it's bubbly and light and pleasant to read, it doesn't help when what you have, as the reader, is an emotional need to satisfy. Fluff is short-term in the extreme in its effects because it doesn't touch the deeper fears and needs within us-- thusly it doesn't truly have the power to comfort, it seems to me, as it fails to recognize the hurt.
It's the equivalent of someone you barely know sitting down next to you and going 'there there' while patting you on the shoulder-- while it's 'nice', I suppose, it hardly helps in any real way, does it?
In this way I feel that escapism and realism shouldn't have to be at opposite ends of the spectrum-- merely because I think there's a connection between them, within a particular kind of story. And now, in the H/D pairing at least-- post-OoTP-- there's a particular need for that sort of story. A story that tells us it's all right while not flinching at all vision of the problems and obstacles in the way of either Harry or Draco's happiness. A story that shows us the way out without lying to us about it being at all easy. The escape becomes quite literal, then-- it's an exodus from something horrible, something you remember quite well, and that's why you're escaping.
Some people would claim that all fiction is a lie, and fantasy romance even more blatantly than most-- and while there's some truth to that, I think it's not the whole truth.
So yeah. I think it's what we all want, even if we deny it-- something real that makes us feel good, and it just depends on what makes us feel good. Some people feel good just reading good writing-- or their pairing of choice in a situation they find realistic and thus easy to picture-- or reading something that's real to them because they have some particular connection to that scenario or character no matter what else is going on in the story. I think I feel best combining all these things-- but especially great when I feel like the story itself is talking about a transformation of some sort, from darkness to light, from despair to hope, from need to fulfillment.
Enough people would say that you can't have 'realism' without showing that such transformation is always temporary and impossible to trust-- that human beings are so fallible, and their emotions so transitory, that in the end you'd always have to close your eyes to the truth if you want to experience joy. Not just happiness, which can be a surface thing because it's just another mood, but joy, which is reached upon having attained one's desire. I don't know if I'm explaining it right. Suffice it to say that you can have sadness, pain and deep loss suffused with this sort of joy of being-- because you are both who and where you want to be. And that is the ultimate escape of this dreary 'obvious' world into a world where all the possibilities are contained in you.
And that is where I want to escape, as a reader: into the world of the infinitely possible.
~~
I was also thinking about my lack of motivation to finish fanfics lately-- and how difficult it is to find a balance between writing for an audience and for one's own pleasure. Because I -do- write fanfiction for a circle of fellow fans, while I write fiction for myself-- and that doesn't mean I won't write unless I get reviews and adulation. It just means that having a community of fellow fans encouraging me and writing about similar issues and situations had meant a lot to me, and having lost that support almost entirely left me feeling more and more bereft.
So yeah, I miss that old sense of belonging, I guess-- that I wasn't just writing fic, but writing fic as a part of a group phenomenon. And I know people post a lot of meta about whether fanfic is for fans (and does it therefore imply some sort of obligation on part of the reader) or for themselves... but for me it's not a matter of fannish obligation so much as support and a greater meaning in context. It means something that my fanfic can be read in context of other stories on the subject. My writing doesn't exist in a vaccuum, and it's that sense of meta collaboration that has often inspired me to a response as a writer, at least in part.
I guess I'm saying that I feel more and more isolated, and while it's not stopping me from writing anything, it's probably limiting how much I do feel inspired, I guess.
On the other hand, I've always wanted to see stories be written as realistic and vital as possible; I'm tempted to call what I'm looking for (emotionally) realistic fantasy (or realistic escape?). My concept of realism is really a question of basic plausibility-- that is, I'd like to suspend my disbelief, but I don't want to have to work very hard to do it. I want the story to enchant me and beguile me to the point that I think this jump of the imagination (fairies, 'true love', other worlds, wizards, boys who act all sensitive) is natural and I never knew it. It's like some hidden reality being revealed-- and within the confines of the story, you can believe and feel both transported and grounded at once.
I'm mostly relating this to my current craving for something other than angst. I'm kind of emotionally exhausted with H/D, at least, and if I were to read anything, I'd want it to reassure me, to put me at ease. However, I'm not quite willing to pretend everything is completely fine between them, and really Draco is a beautiful cultured prince with a perfect command of everything, including Harry-- because that's not escape to me so much as a lie, and yes, I think there's a difference. It doesn't make me feel better so much as... distracted. And I want to still remember the bad things-- and see good things in spite of them. That's what escapism means to me, and I think that's what JRR Tolkien was getting at as the purpose of fairy stories-- that sense of redemption, of transforming the ugly into the beautiful.
Pure fluff doesn't fulfill that function because its roots are so shallow, it seems like-- while it's bubbly and light and pleasant to read, it doesn't help when what you have, as the reader, is an emotional need to satisfy. Fluff is short-term in the extreme in its effects because it doesn't touch the deeper fears and needs within us-- thusly it doesn't truly have the power to comfort, it seems to me, as it fails to recognize the hurt.
It's the equivalent of someone you barely know sitting down next to you and going 'there there' while patting you on the shoulder-- while it's 'nice', I suppose, it hardly helps in any real way, does it?
In this way I feel that escapism and realism shouldn't have to be at opposite ends of the spectrum-- merely because I think there's a connection between them, within a particular kind of story. And now, in the H/D pairing at least-- post-OoTP-- there's a particular need for that sort of story. A story that tells us it's all right while not flinching at all vision of the problems and obstacles in the way of either Harry or Draco's happiness. A story that shows us the way out without lying to us about it being at all easy. The escape becomes quite literal, then-- it's an exodus from something horrible, something you remember quite well, and that's why you're escaping.
Some people would claim that all fiction is a lie, and fantasy romance even more blatantly than most-- and while there's some truth to that, I think it's not the whole truth.
So yeah. I think it's what we all want, even if we deny it-- something real that makes us feel good, and it just depends on what makes us feel good. Some people feel good just reading good writing-- or their pairing of choice in a situation they find realistic and thus easy to picture-- or reading something that's real to them because they have some particular connection to that scenario or character no matter what else is going on in the story. I think I feel best combining all these things-- but especially great when I feel like the story itself is talking about a transformation of some sort, from darkness to light, from despair to hope, from need to fulfillment.
Enough people would say that you can't have 'realism' without showing that such transformation is always temporary and impossible to trust-- that human beings are so fallible, and their emotions so transitory, that in the end you'd always have to close your eyes to the truth if you want to experience joy. Not just happiness, which can be a surface thing because it's just another mood, but joy, which is reached upon having attained one's desire. I don't know if I'm explaining it right. Suffice it to say that you can have sadness, pain and deep loss suffused with this sort of joy of being-- because you are both who and where you want to be. And that is the ultimate escape of this dreary 'obvious' world into a world where all the possibilities are contained in you.
And that is where I want to escape, as a reader: into the world of the infinitely possible.
~~
I was also thinking about my lack of motivation to finish fanfics lately-- and how difficult it is to find a balance between writing for an audience and for one's own pleasure. Because I -do- write fanfiction for a circle of fellow fans, while I write fiction for myself-- and that doesn't mean I won't write unless I get reviews and adulation. It just means that having a community of fellow fans encouraging me and writing about similar issues and situations had meant a lot to me, and having lost that support almost entirely left me feeling more and more bereft.
So yeah, I miss that old sense of belonging, I guess-- that I wasn't just writing fic, but writing fic as a part of a group phenomenon. And I know people post a lot of meta about whether fanfic is for fans (and does it therefore imply some sort of obligation on part of the reader) or for themselves... but for me it's not a matter of fannish obligation so much as support and a greater meaning in context. It means something that my fanfic can be read in context of other stories on the subject. My writing doesn't exist in a vaccuum, and it's that sense of meta collaboration that has often inspired me to a response as a writer, at least in part.
I guess I'm saying that I feel more and more isolated, and while it's not stopping me from writing anything, it's probably limiting how much I do feel inspired, I guess.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 03:07 pm (UTC)I also don't actually have a problem with escapism on a theoretical level - I think it's a completely valid thing to enjoy and/or write. I just don't, myself, personally, like it, because I'm all about confronting the tragedy of life and, I guess, accepting that the world sort of sucks. That's why I could only love Remus/Sirius after Sirius died, LOL.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 07:06 pm (UTC)I'm definitely an INFP, though I like to think I can justify/talk about things in rational/intellectual terms if I have to, I'm just too lazy most of the time :> I switch around, anyway-- I dislike the idea of being like, trapped by my emotions so I can't imagine the outer world, so I've always practiced disagreeing with myself~:))
I think the whole escapism thing as I mean it wouldn't necessarily be something like writing/wanting to read a fic that brings back Sirius-- even realistically. For me, tragedy can be contained within a story of redemption, because the redemption could come for someone else, or too late, or it wouldn't necessarily cover everything. LoTR is definitely like that-- say, it's a tragedy for Frodo, y'know? And yet not. I sort of like that blurry line between hope and despair, with hope prevailing because no amount of despair has to end up destroying one's heart or humanity. I mean, the world sucks and yet one can be content-- or at peace, maybe. I'm always looking for the silver lining though, I do admit that, it's just that I'm definitely all for admitting the cloud exists :>
no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 09:02 pm (UTC)The rest, you know, I think that's a fairly consistent difference between your tastes and mine? Correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm trying to understand your position and may be totally misunderstanding, but I've gotten the impression that you enjoy stories where things are generally improved: people are brought to their deeper, truer, healthier and better self, for example, or the world begins as it is and then, as you said upthread, develops into what it should be, from there. Basically stories of healing/acceptance/improvement.
Whereas I tend to write (and read) stories where things either get worse or remain essentially the same, LOL! And I guess I prefer romances, for example, where a person makes the lover the exception to ones where the person is actively improved. Mainly because to me a romance is about finding the other that works for you, rather than finding the you that works for them? That is, I admit, a negative way to phrase it, but that's how I tend to perceive the kind of stories you're talking about.
Which isn't to say I'm against stories where people find their true self and are better for it, it's just, I guess to me, that feels like more of a solitary thing?
And part of it is, I think, that I don't look for healing in stories so much as exploration, if that makes sense.
But I do like a mix of the good and bad, because nothing is solely one or the other. And I don't really have issues with positive endings, for example, as long as they're realistically positive, even though I prefer tragedy because I'm just an angst!whore like that.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 01:10 am (UTC)It is true that I do tend to focus on the positive Hero's arc-- the eucatastrophe, the discovery of Self and so on. And I actually agree that it's a solitary process. Which is why I'm often in a bind, trying to figure out what I mean by all my ramblings about love-- this is at least partly because I find Identity to be such a... solitary thing, I guess? We all experience the dark night of the soul alone, to borrow from Joseph Campbell some more :> So yeah... I accept that as truth.
On the other hand... as I was trying to say with my example of Frodo, I think the sense of eucatastrophe could be a sense of gestalt rather than individual. This happens a lot in science fiction stories where it's the world that's redeemed as much or more than any person. I am just as happy with that, and it's probably why I'd been so deeply obsessed with Star Trek throughout adolescence, heh.
I definitely didn't mean to imply that I believed romance is about changing or tailoring yourself for the other person-- I mean, yeah, it's about finding the one that works for you. Generally, the process that I want to read about in romance is not the shifting of self with the goal of 'achieving' some sort of union with the other person, but rather achieving a realization of what it is precisely that you want and how you can get it. Like, you'd start off with ignorance and awkwardness and tension between you and the other, or you and the other and the world-- and eventually you discover yourself enough to know what you need & want. You know, whether that's the other person is... well, it depends :> Hopefully it is, but it's okay if isn't, if you're stronger for the experience.
Like, I don't think I find meaning in life or fiction from a union with others-- I'm definitely a cat that walks by itself. It is only that I think others can reflect or complement or support you in various ways as your journey continues.
I am pretty happy with stories where the lover is the exception but they remain the same-- in fact, I find that's the norm in romances~:) It's just a coincidental truth that I like coming-of-age stories as well as romances, and both in conjunction, though they don't need to be. When I was initially talking about escapism, I just meant that I enjoy the idea of escape-- emotional, literal, intellectual, it doesn't matter. I'm also excited by stories about people who explore other worlds and discover truths about the universe they'd never expected to find :> To escape into another person and make them your haven from the world-- that is just one variation :>
I guess I like a combination of healing and exploration, with a focus on personal truth vs. the universal, but both existing in a balance~:)
Exploration because my curiosity is nearly insatiable, and healing because I feel bad for people who're messed up, I guess? It's that pesky empathy and over-identification with pov characters thing :>
no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 09:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 01:19 am (UTC)...Or make them look at you like you're a total freak. Which I am. But still >:)