UNDERSTANDING THE INKLING TRADITION: PART 2

 UNDERSTANDING THE INKLING TRADITION: PART 2

Continued from Part 1...

Fantasy as the child of myth

Now, myth is the center of the Inkling tradition, but how does myth relate to fantasy?

As we said in the previous article, myth is the basis of fantasy for the Inklings, so it follows that everything true of myth (transcendence, the relationship with the Divine, the importance of language and culture) will be true as well for fantasy. But for the Inklings, fantasy, unlike myth, is not so much about the story as it is about the technique.

This is well-explained by Tolkien in his already mentioned essay On Fairy Stories. To tell a mythic story, one must make use of the art of Fantasy and its techniques. This technique of Fantasy consists of two steps. The first is to use the mental power of image-making (the Imagination) and thus create new images of things or new forms. But at the same time, we must also create all these new forms in a manner that is consistent and will make them credible, so credible indeed that the audience will begin to see it not as a fiction but as a reality. In other words, Fantasy consists of making the yellow sun green and then making the world of the green sun consistent enough so that the green sun will be seen as real rather than fictional. This is the basic technique at the foundation of Fantasy and the essential tool of the myth-maker.

This technique of Fantasy relates to an important point C. S. Lewis makes in his essay On Stories. In that work, Lewis argues that for a story to be good, it is not enough for it to have interesting characters and a thrilling plot; it is also necessary that it has a potent theme. By theme, he means that quality in the writing that can transport the reader into the world he is reading and make him be captivated by it. He gives the example of the folktale of Jack the Giant Slayer and the novel The Last of the Mohicans to illustrate this point. In the first case, it is not enough that Jack is a fun and relatable character, nor it is enough that the giants he fights against are a great danger and obstacle. It is also important that the giants really feel like giants and not some generic opponents. Lewis says there is a sort of "Giantship" present whenever the giants are around and that this feeling of "Giantship" is so real to the reader that it fascinates completely his imagination. Likewise, when discussing The Last of the Mohicans, a novel about the colonial struggles between the French, British, and their respective Indian allies in North America, the atmosphere and environment of the world of the North American Indians is also able to transport the reader into it and make him feel he is living in it. This is what Lewis means by theme, and it is not hard to see how it relates to myth and Fantasy.

Fantasy, therefore, as the prime technique of the myth-maker, should aid in the crafting of a world that is consistent, credible, and immersive. All of this is part of what Tolkien called the process of Sub-Creation, which is also essential to understanding the tradition of the Inklings. A Secondary World, as Tolkien calls it, that is crafted in the art of Fantasy will be a sub-created world, not only because the world is so believable that it becomes almost as real as the Primary World, but also because Tolkien and the Inklings acknowledged that nothing done by man can truly be called Creation. Only God creates. We men sub-create. As creatures made in His image and likeness, we have the power to imitate the great act of Divine Creation by sub-creating our own humble worlds and thus rendering honor and glory to Him by Whom everything exists. 

This recognition of our littleness as craftsmen and sub-creators is necessary to understand the Inkling worldview as well because too often the technique of Fantasy and the power of mythic storytelling is used, not for the Glory of He Who is Master of all technique and story, but for the vain fame of the human author. Almost all modern fantasy writers fall into this trap. They want to "make a name for themselves" forgetting they only have the power to sub-create in the first place thanks to He Whose Name is above all. Such vanity and idolatry of the world will then lead to a corruption of myth and Fantasy, emptying them of their original splendor. Why? Because as we affirmed before, myth is ultimately the story of men about the Divine, and therefore, it must always be done in reverence and service to the Divine. And by extension, Fantasy, as the technical handmaid of myth, must also be used to give honor to God. But if we corrupt our ability to sub-create with pride, soon enough the Divine will be second-place for the myth-maker (which must never happen) and the myth will begin to be about us instead of about God. Hence, we must remember that we are only humble imitators of the Master Creator to avoid falling into the pit of corruption that would ultimately kill our myths.

The effects of myth and fantasy

The last important aspect of the tradition is the effects that myth and the use of fantasy should have when done well. Here, we once more return to Tolkien's essay to summarize the three main effects of mythic stories: they are recovery, escape, and consolation. Besides being important guidelines for those interested in crafting stories in this tradition, they are also illustrative of some important principles of the Inkling worldview.

Recovery is probably the simplest of all three effects. What the Inklings propose is that, through fantasy, one should be able to recover a fresh view of things too long taken for granted. This is also expressed by a figure very influential in the worldview of the Inklings: G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton observed that fairy tales and myths can renew our fascination for the world in a way that no other piece of literature can. Thus, when we read about magic, golden apples, we can later appreciate the apples in our everyday life in a totally fresh way. Previously, we might have thought of apples as nothing more than tools for nutrition; but now that we have encountered the Beauty in the apples through the enchantment of the fairy tale and myth, we have recovered that magical experience which makes apples a totally meaningful thing. This is what Chesterton affirmed in his works and also what the Inklings believed about the power of myth. 

But why is this power of re-enchanting the world so effective in fantasy and myth? Why don't other genres have this power as well? The answer is rather philosophical but it is not impossible to understand. As philosopher Peter Kreeft notes, the magic of recovery that we notice in the Inkling tradition has its foundations in the reality of essences or forms. The philosophy student may identify this as Plato's Forms, but the reality is the same. Through fantasy, we are able to go beyond the material particulars of our experience and come into contact with more vivid symbols of the real essences of things and thus come closer to a knowledge of their form. Hence, in our example of the apple, the magic apple served as a vehicle to bring the reader into contact with that higher, more real experience of the form of the apple. Gone were matter and the fallenness of our world; now he can know in a closer what the reality of appleness is. This is the reason why only the fantasy genre can achieve recovery in this way because only fantasy has the enchantment necessary to help us encounter the reality of the forms. This too is a pillar in the worldview of the Inklings.

This brings us to the second of the effects of myth, and that is Escape. Myths offer an escape from one world into another. For the Inklings, this is not bad, as some would claim it is. On the contrary, it is virtuous and healthy. Because the world we are escaping is a prison. It is the world of modernity. For modernity, there is only physics and matter, technique, and machine. There is no consideration for virtue, meaning, or transcendence. It is all industrial, rationalistic work, the tyranny of the Iron Crown as Tolkien aptly called in his poem Mythopoeia. Only the vicious man and the demon would wish to live in such a world. As for the world that we are escaping into, that is, as the Inklings well knew, our real home. It is the world of enchantment, where all things have a purpose and a transcendent meaning. The world of grace and Salvation, of God and His angels, of man and his Savior. It is a world that has tragedy but that it ultimately ends with Triumph. This is the real world. Therefore, in the Inkling tradition, fantasy and myth become immensely important since they are the vehicles by which we can escape the prison and go back to our home.

Lastly, there is Consolation. Consolation has a lot to do with both Escape and Recovery. Thanks to the recovery of meaning and the escape from modernity, we can find true consolation in the home for which we were made. But Consolation is more than that, and it has to do with what we said before. Because although myth can and does bring us to a world of meaning and transcendence, this world (i.e. the truly real world) is not without its sorrows and catastrophes. We are still fallen and the risk of losing the gift of Grace and Salvation is still present. Hence there will be many times in myth and in reality when it seems that all is lost and that evil has won. But that is not the end. The Inkling tradition of fantasy acknowledges the reality of evil but it does not see it as all-powerful. Good shall triumph in the End, even if it seems unlikely at times. This is what Tolkien called eucatastrophe (good catastrophe in Greek), and one may find examples of eucatastrophe present in all of the Inklings' work. 

Such are the effects of fantasy and myth in the Inkling tradition.

The True Myth

Finally, it is fitting to remark on what is the most important aspect of the worldview of the Inklings, and that is the reality of the True Myth. The Inklings were Christians, and as such, they knew that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ marked a pivotal point in both the History of men and the history of myth. By coming into the world and sanctifying it in the Person of Christ, God has turned History and Myth. For no longer are Myth and History separate; they are now the same. The Divine Story and the human story have come together in the History of Salvation.

This History of Salvation, which contains all of our lives and our eternal destinies, contains in it all the great marks of a good story. It is a story about God and His relationship with men; it is a story that inserts itself into the bosom of many cultures and languages thus transforming these cultures forever; it is a story that already has us immersed in an enchanted world, our world, the real Primary World; it is a story that brings us into contact with a reality that is wondrous and helps us recover the real meaning of things; it is a story that brings us out of the modern world and into a world filled with Divine Light; and lastly, it is a story with greatest Eucatastrophe of all, the Resurrection. When all hope seemed lost and the Son of Man had been Crucified, the third He arose again and triumphed over death and sin. Hope and Joy have won. That is the Story of the Evangelium, the Good News, to which all the Inklings adhered.

This True Myth encapsulates all of the tradition and worldview of the Inklings. Fantasy and myth, therefore, are not so much about dragons and wizards but rather about bringing through our sub-creations this Light of the Gospel into the bosoms of our cultures. Because only the genre fantasy has the power to bring weave stories and secondary worlds that allow men to recover, escape, and find consolation. That is what fantasy is about for the Inklings.