31 March

Fantasy as Antifantasy: 11 Postmodernist Strategy of Antifantasy -- The Ridiculous in The Last Unicorn continued

The author Peter S. Beagle was cleverly and meticulously working on all sides, to strategically develop the antifantasy front in The Last Unicorn. It is not surprising that Attebery was confounded by the author’s camouflage and misunderstood the full picture of the operation. In order to uncover the ambushed lineup, set up by Beagle, it will be necessary to reexamine each and every part of The Last Unicorn that at first glance may seem like a shallow pleasantry that Attebery seems to have avoided pointing out further.
A good example of how a fantasy that is supposed to tell a dignified and sublime narrative world can depict something close and real, can be seen in the description of the cage of a circus party where the unicorn is captured.

Their [wagons’] draperies were gone, and they were now adorned with sad black banners cut from blankets, and stubby black ribbons that twitched in the breeze.


The author’s descriptive attitude does not try to increase the depth of the story he is creating, instead of trying to construct a profound world picture, he exposes an even more flimsy stage background by thrusting papier-mache; and writing props in front of the audience, and proceeds to describe it in an insatiably cynical manner, as if it were nothing more than an imitation of a failed piece. Readers accustomed to Tolkienian majesty and solemn narrative attitude, who expected fantasy to construct an otherworldly horizon that should depict wonder and the sublime, may harbor infuriating frustration, as in the case of Attebery. Attebery, who could not stand the familiar grapefruit peel that had entered the magical ancient world that was supposed to have transcended any sense of era, must have also rejected oatmeal, which evoked the kitchen routine of the modern world.

Schmendrick’s face had gone the color of oatmeal.


To the warriors who stood up in defense for fantasy literature, these would have been seen as an anti-chivalric act of anachronism that should not be committed. The act of injecting stimulants that dragged a familiar sense of reality into the work, had to be regarded as a taboo in the operation of depicting a world of wonder by the participants of the chivalric defense campaign who craved for martyrdom for the sublime.
Another aspect of this disturbing detached attitude in The Last Unicorn, that irritated Attebery is, something that can be called a “manga” presentation manner. Let us give a description of the term “manga”, as follows. “Manga narrative” introduces as a method of its peculiar description mode, the subject that gives the reader a decisive sense of impossibility into the fantasy domain of impossible wonders, even from the viewpoint of postmodernist re-evaluation of fantasy, keenly aware of varied epistemological phases. (note)

note:
In everyday language, both “fantasy” and “fairytale” seem to have a broad part corresponding to the word “manga” in Japanese, meaning “nonsense” and “rambling dream”. If we juxtapose the concepts of irony and fantasy in Western perspective with the concepts of “Fukyou” (風狂: assumed “madness” or “absurdity”) in Eastern perspective, we will be able to clarify some of the axes of reevaluation of fantasy in this study.


To put it bluntly, The Last Unicorn is a story with a terribly cartoonish aspect to be read as a serious work of literature. What Attebery, who was equally able to tolerate Tolkien and other fantasies, could not admit was this cartoonish part of the literary work. Although it is a passage that Attebery has already pointed out, I will again quote the part in question here, faithfully to the course of the story.

The witch’s stagnant eyes blazed up so savagely bright that a ragged company of luna moths, off to a night’s revel, fluttered straight into them and sizzled into snowy ashes.


Even in the world of magic, fairies, and monsters that follows Tolkienian perspective, the decisively otherworldly component that seems to set it apart, is this flaming eye and a swarm of moths that have jumped into it and burned to ashes. This was a banned spell that should never be practiced in the prestigious world of high fantasy of Tolkien’s. However, the same “manga” drawing practice was carried out immediately after this audaciously.

A few grains of sand rustled down Mommy Fortuna’s cheek as she stared at the unicorn. All witches weep like that.


In arguing Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, C. N. Manlove cited the introduction of the Ent (Fangorn), a kind of spirit in the form of a tree that is Tolkien’s original creation, as an example containing descriptions that make it difficult to accept the world and prevent the reader from forming a concrete image in their mind. (note)

Note:
Ref. C. N. Manlove, Modern Fantasy, pp. 201_2


Cartoonishly ridiculous part cited above must be difficult for Attebery to accept, who was able to fully accept Tolkien. If we rephrase the fictional existence that we have just named “manga” as “the element considered to be the least existentially possible, among various things that are allowed to exist only in the fictional world, even with the logistical support of ‘voluntary suspension of disbelief’ on the part of the reader,” some of the ontological changes of the conditions of fictionality, suffered by the components of its world since the age of uncertainty of meanings, will come into view with clear outlines. In other words, it can be said that the manifestation of the reflexive mental mechanism is the essence of the description mode called “manga”, that is always aware of the fictionality of the world being created, and also the awareness of being its reader as a make-believing self, maintaining a detached attitude that ridicules the non-existence of his own imaginary world that is being accepted and constructed in his own mind. Alternatively, one may be able to transform the coordinates of the field by describing as follows, “the distinguished function of fiction that is aware of its fictionality” gives the impression of “manga” to the recipients of the fictional world, which is a self-referential drawing technique that reflexively convolutes one’s own act of “describing something that should not be possible”. These are characteristic tendencies in postmodernist culture, in which art was liberated from authority and the sublime after the typical modernist era, vulgarity and childishness came to be also recognized as interactive components that should contribute to the creation of active art works. In the 20th-century culture that tolerated Tinker Bell and Andy Warhol, what is inexplicably yet to be properly evaluated is the psychology of the “manga” element in this act of describing the fictional world, and the acceptance of it. And it may be this concept of “manga” that may be able to correctly illuminate the connotation of the term “the fantastic”, which is literally accepted as an essential element in all research of fantasy, but does not necessarily seem to be fully understood. (note)

note:
Eric S. Rabkin discussed the essential element of fantasy by giving the term “the fantastic,” defined as “180 degree reversal of the ground rule” (The Fantastic in Literature, 1976). Although as a normative definition of fantasy literature, his definition of “a 180-degree reversal of the ground rule” has exposed several problems, if it is viewed as a projection that sets an efficient viewpoint for the fundamental problems that seem to encompass all fantasies issues, such as rebelliousness, perversion, and every “anti” tendency, it can be said that the significance of the idea is worthy of much attention.


Both the incorporation of familiar sense of base reality and the out-of-tune anachronism can be regarded as instances of phase transition shown in the gradual hierarchical structure of this “manga” element. Therefore, I will focus on the dynamics of this “manga” element and further examine the actual examples of the manifestation of the antifantasy mechanism in The Last Unicorn.
As Schmendrick is able to perform only tricky magics, he tries to threaten his enemy with his clever words, even hinting at the use of mystical judo holds, instead of demonstrating arts of terrifying magic.

The magician stood erect, menacing the attackers with demons, metamorphoses, paralyzing ailments, and secret judo holds.


The list of threatening words presented here, is also a classic example of an “anticlimactic catalogue.” After various magical arts are mentioned, it is the secret technique of judo relying only on a completely different dimension of phony menace that is referred to, where most powerful spell should be brought up, as if abandoning the lofty superiority of magic. In addition, “The secret Judo hold” serves to evoke the everyday nature of vulgar contemporary America, as an example of anachronism. Karate and Judo, which are commonly used as synonyms for Eastern mysteries, must have been forbidden words in the lofty fantasy world developed on magical perspective, even in the flirtatious modern American culture. It is easy to see that this use of anachronism in The Last Unicorn is an effective cover for the close construction of the “manga” element of the work.
Following part is also a very “manga” like description. This is a depiction of the soldiers guarding the castle of King Haggard, the symbolic villain in this story.

Both men were clad in homemade mail—rings, bottlecaps, and links of chain sewn onto half cured hides—


What we have here is an insipid descriptive attitude, as if revealing the inside of a handmade costume at a school show in a close-up. If we understand the mechanism of accepting fictional works as an act of promoting make-believe on the part of the reader, what is being developed here is nothing but the blatant exposure of the “making-of” part that hinders the “believe” procedure. Without doubt, the author deliberately employs these manga depiction methods. Attebery attributed Beagle’s lack of confidence as a creator to the world he was describing, that led to this behavior of disruptive writing. However, this flimsy sense of reality that permeates the work is actually considered to reflect the characteristic temperament of the postmodernist fantasy, manifested in the act of narrative depiction which is deeply related to the fundamental theme of The Last Unicorn, and seems to illuminate 70’ s American culture and its philosophical situation. (note)

note:
The characteristics of Peter S. Beagle’s peculiar sense of reality are manifested in his short story “Lila the Werewolf”. This werewolf story set in contemporary New York, depicts everyday life occurrences through the eye of the protagonist Farrell, who is a lover of a werewolf girl, and whose talent is acceptance, the ability of ever-detached bystander. Through its surreal and unrealizable chase scenes set in the city at night, this work seems to disclose that reality is nothing more than a volatile additive, studded in the surface of dream, wonder and fantasy.