My Problem with Fantasy: Charles Palliser on Tolkien, Le Guin, Pullman and Rowling

I owe a huge debt to Tolkien’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS and yet I read very little “fantasy” fiction now and I’ve puzzled about that for many years.

I think I’ve finally worked out why that is so. Usually, as I read, I am projecting myself into the “world” of the novel and speculating about how I would react if I were the character I am reading about. If I were in Jane Eyre’s position, would I like Rochester or find him patronising and arrogant? Would I guess the secret he is hiding in his attic? If I were Nick Carraway, would I be so enchanted by Gatsby’s charm and generosity that I would not suspect the sinister origins of his wealth?

That doesn’t even have to happen consciously. It’s how most readers engage with most fiction without being particularly aware of it, I think. My problem with most fantasy is that because the author is at liberty to invent anything at all without regard to what we know exists or happens in the real world (whatever that is!), I find I cannot usually enter into an imaginative dialogue of that kind with the novel.

It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that Tolkien invented almost everything in fantasy that has been worth doing and he has, of course, inspired many dismal imitations from writers who have understood only a small part of his achievement.

One hurdle at which many would-be Tolkiens fall is this: Writers of fantastic invented worlds have the challenge that they have both to make some elements comprehensible and keep some as a surprise. They also have the problem that in a world in which magical things are possible which are not possible in our real world, tension can be dissipated by the “with one bound he was free” option. That is, they can simply invent something that changes the situation and which could not have been foreseen by the reader. (There’s a parallel with the obligation on a writer of detective novels to make the “solution” to a mystery available to the reader but in a concealed form that tests the reader’s acuity.)

Tolkien deals superbly with the problem of inventing an unfamiliar world and yet allowing the reader to engage with it, because he lays out his world in advance by having his characters explain things in fairly straightforward ways — usually as a dire warning of the dangers that lie ahead.

In other words, Tolkien plays fair by letting the reader know enough about the elements of his invented world that will be encountered to understand the “constraints” but in doing that he leaves himself room to surprise the reader. His ability to do that is helped by the fact that he uses almost exclusively fantastic elements derived from Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Celtic mythology: elves, dwarves, dragons, the Riders of Rohan, and so on.

Philip Pullman manages that less well, in my view. The HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy is certainly not an attempt to imitate Tolkien but on the contrary seems to me to be the most original contribution to fantasy since THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Its literary ambition and range of influences – Milton, Blake, in particular, but much of English literature besides – put it in a category of its own. The compelling vision and the quality of the writing are remarkable and his invention of the “daemon” is a stroke of genius.

In contrast to Tolkien’s way of introducing the reader into his world, Pullman has his main character, Lyra, discover the strange nature of his trilogy’s alternative reality in a dramatic process along with the reader.

In contrast, in THE LORD OF THE RINGS the reader realises early on that Tolkien is not going to “cheat” because he shares with the reader from the beginning what the “rules” of his invented world allow and what they don’t permit. It’s like chess: you know what the pieces and the moves are because they are defined by the rules but you don’t know what moves the other player will find to surprise you with while still obeying the rules.

I remember – or perhaps misremember – a Monty Python sketch I saw more than fifty years ago in which new army recruits are being trained to deal with an attack by a man armed with a piece of fruit. The instructor gets one of them to attack with him with a banana and he pulls out a revolver and shoots him.

In my view, that’s what many writers of fantasy do. They retain the right to revise the “rules of the game” in the middle of it.

Very few writers have achieved the narrative drive of Tolkien’s trilogy which keeps you gripped through hundreds of pages and numerous intertwined stories. That is helped, I suggest, by the fact that the author makes the quest clear from the beginning and it doesn’t change in focus but only in its size.

So Tolkien lays out a very simple structure in which a good hero carries out a noble quest against a wicked enemy and is helped by well-intentioned people along the way.

In contrast, Pullman does not make clear what exactly is at stake and, intriguingly, blurs the good/evil distinction in the figures of Asriel and Mrs Coulter.

Pullman’s complicated view of good and evil contrasts with Tolkien’s who makes the very issue of magic a profoundly moral question.

Ursula Le Guin makes that the central issue of her wonderful A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA in which the apprentice magician, Ged, gives way to the temptation to use his magical powers to his own advantage and in doing so unleashes a dark and destructive force that threatens him and others.

One of the weaknesses of the Harry Potter books, I think, is that they don’t show the same interest as Tolkien and Le Guin in magic as a metaphor for power and its dangers while lacking the ambition and originality of Pullman’s secularist humanism.

However, although, as I’ve made clear, I admire Tolkien, Le Guin, and Pullman, I’ve never felt the desire to write fantasy, so when I say I owe a huge debt to THE LORD OF THE RINGS I’m referring to something else: Tolkien’s astonishing storytelling abilities.

From the perspective of our age, many of his views seem out-dated – particularly his treatment of his (few) female characters. What hasn’t dated is the narrative skill which impels the reader through the long narrative.

About the Author

This essay is part of the reflections of Charles Palliser.

Learn more about his background and literary career here:

👉 Biographyhttps://www.charlespalliser.net/biography

Explore his novels:

👉 Homepagehttps://www.charlespalliser.net/

👉 The Quincunxhttps://www.charlespalliser.net/the-quincunx

👉 The Sensationisthttps://www.charlespalliser.net/the-sensationist

👉 Rusticationhttps://www.charlespalliser.net/rustication