Thursday, June 10, 2004
More on Asterisk Reality
The ramblings of my previous post remind me of the debate over the relationship between fantasy and allegory. One is a fictionalised world where meaning "resides in the freedom of the reader", not in the "purposed domination of the author" (I'm quoting here from the Foreward to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings). If allegory dominates, it is an exercise of power, rather like what Tolkien calls magic in "On Fairy Stories". There he describes this "magic" as a fiction that enduces primary belief. I'm not sure that this is exactly an appropriate or accurate way to look at allegory, the function of which seems to me to vary by contest. But it does approach what I have been saying about historical conspiracy theory fiction when you think about the response of readers who are all too eager to embrace conspiracy as historical fact. Fantasy, by contrast, precludes the possibility of primary belief. But is it then truly reconstructive in the philological sense? Philology can only really recover essences, rather than actualities. The Proto-Indo-European word for father was something like *pater, not actually *pater.
When we turn again to reader response, there are some interesting implications. Asterisk-Reality fiction thrills use through the recovery of something that was lost. Historical conspiracy theory fiction thrills us through the discovery of something that was hidden. The former is often accompanied by a sense of regret at what has been lost, the latter by a sense of grievance towards those who do the hiding. Both promise a sort of liberation (perhaps Tolkien's term "escape" would be appropriate), but, whereas recovery delivers something essential--and so factual, if intangible--conspiracy theory delivers a lie. It is truly escapist in the negative sense--a flight from reality--whether you are convinced by it or whether it is pure entertainment. Hence, as reconstructed history, conspiracy theory assembled from historical sources functions quite differently than asterisk-reality fiction.
What happens when there is no conspiracy theory involved? What about historical fiction? This seems to me to be a much harder case.
When we turn again to reader response, there are some interesting implications. Asterisk-Reality fiction thrills use through the recovery of something that was lost. Historical conspiracy theory fiction thrills us through the discovery of something that was hidden. The former is often accompanied by a sense of regret at what has been lost, the latter by a sense of grievance towards those who do the hiding. Both promise a sort of liberation (perhaps Tolkien's term "escape" would be appropriate), but, whereas recovery delivers something essential--and so factual, if intangible--conspiracy theory delivers a lie. It is truly escapist in the negative sense--a flight from reality--whether you are convinced by it or whether it is pure entertainment. Hence, as reconstructed history, conspiracy theory assembled from historical sources functions quite differently than asterisk-reality fiction.
What happens when there is no conspiracy theory involved? What about historical fiction? This seems to me to be a much harder case.
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