High
and Low Fantasy: The Drawing of Maps
By
Valerie Moore
There
is a literary distinction made between high and low fantasy. Low fantasy is something that takes place on
earth, or in a universe where earth exists.
High fantasy takes place in a universe where the Earth doesn’t exist. Yet both are fantasy and have the same backbone:
World Building. In both low and high
fantasy books, a world is a necessity for storytelling. A story that is in a well-built world is
easier to understand and is easier for the reader to immerse themselves
in. The difference between high and low
fantasy is where the world is built.
Authors
of low fantasy, like Neil Gaimon when he wrote Neverwhere (http://www.amazon.com/Neverwhere-Novel-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0060557818/)
use a familiar place to be the world of the story. In Neverwhere that world was London. Authors of high fantasy on the other hand,
Like Ursula Le Guin when she wrote A Wizard of Earthsea (http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Earthsea-Cycle/dp/0547773749/),
create a new world that we don’t recognize.
Using a known world means that less has to be explained, less time has
to spent on describing the big picture, we already know what Earth looks like. However, by using a completely new world,
and universe, an author is less constrained by reality and has more freedom to
tell a story. Le Guin wanted Ged to go
to a wizard school on an island, so she just created Roke. Neil Gaimon didn’t have the same freedom
because he chose to write in a place we know.
So he had to use stuff that already, at least partial, exists in our
world, however, he didn’t have to describe to us how a Tube station looks
because we already have the idea.
The
distinction made between high and low fantasy is a small one. The differences that we perceive are only a
result of our reaction to the things that we don’t recognize. High fantasy is considered more unlikely, but
I think that it is just as likely for there to be a school for wizard’s on Roke
somewhere out there as there is to be a floating market in London. Both stories could have taken place in the
others world, the world that it did take place in was just a choice made by the
author. The only difference is the type
of the map in the front of the book: is
it one that corresponds to a place on our earth, or is it of somewhere else?
Map of The London Tube from
Neverwhere 1
Val, putting aside the misspelling of Neil Gaiman's surname (it's "man" with an "a," I'm afraid!), you do hit up an important point here that I would have liked to see discussed a little more specifically: how does space define a story? I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that LeGuin and Gaiman's stories are effectively plausible/possible in the other author's location, because the conflict of each text is deeply rooted in setting. Ged is a wizard in a world replete with wizards, and must find his proper place among them; Richard is a man of the ordinary world fallen into the extraordinary world that has always lurked on the margins of his reality. If you swapped settings, wouldn't the conflicts and characters also experience marked changes? It's really all tied together.
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