The Fantastic in Fiction

It’s kind of like if you went through the wardrobe in the Narnia books, only instead of finding Aslan and the White Witch and horrible Eustace, you found this magic clothing world–instead of talking animals, there were feather boas and wedding dresses and bowling shoes, and paisley shirts and Doc Martens and everything hung up on racks so that first you have black dresses, all together, like the world’s largest indoor funeral, and then blue dresses–all the blues you can imagine–and then red dresses and so on.

Kelly Link’s “The Faery Handbag” takes the familiar story of the Chronicles of Narnia and creates a similar story to describe both the clothes in the thrift store and her grandmother’s handbag. As we discussed in class, writing a story by taking a familiar object and/or a familiar story can lead to the realism and fantasy that we as readers often enjoy.

Link also uses first-person point of view. It allows the reader to learn more about how easily Link has believed the stories her grandmother told her. First-person point of view also shows how unreliable as a character she may be because of her perception of the stories her grandmother told her and the ways in which she uses those stories to explain the events that take place in the story. Also we are able to see through the lens of a young child, who usually believes almost anything or any story his/her parents and/or grandparents tell them. Link even writes, “I know that no one is going to believe any of this. That’s okay. If I thought you would, then I couldn’t tell you. Promise me that you won’t believe a word.” Link has the narrator say this for two reasons: first, to make us question whether the narrator is trying to deceive the audience; secondly, also wants to make the narrator’s story of the handbag believable and intriguing. By introducing the story with the comparison to Narnia, it implements the fantasy aspect of the story and makes the story of the handbag more believable to the reader. It also creates a conflict between the narrator and the audience because the audience questions everything the narrator is saying. This is what makes this story a part of the fantastic realm.

No, the real division was between the visible world and that other world, where Isabel waited for me like a dark dream. (p.63)

The story “The Room in the Attic” by Millhauser becomes extremely fantastical when Isabel is introduced. From the beginning of their friendship, David doesn’t even know if she is real, or if Wolf was fooling around with him. As their friendship develops between David and Isabel, David is drawn to this fantastic world in which everything is a mystery. What is so fantastical about Isabel is that she is almost ghost-like, hiding in the darkness and her touch
and presence fleeting. Millhauser makes us feel the mystery of her and the surrealness of this room that David comes back to almost every day. I was extremely surprised when Isabel revealed herself and David covered his eyes and ran out of the room and away from the house. It’s as if David wanted to continue living in the fantastic reality of not seeing or truly knowing. Through the story, David becomes more immersed in the love for darkness and is lured into the excitement of the unknown. Two lines that struck me, though, were when “during these seizures, I have delusions I call Isabel.” (p. 56) and “… I waved to Wolf’s mother, who turned out to be a jacket on the back of a shadowy chair …” (p. 73) because both suggest that everything that David has described in Wolf’s home may have just been his imagination. If the mother is a jacket and the family isn’t real, had David been visiting an abandoned, dark house? The darkness would have been real, but everything else could have been in his mind.

“He said that the purpose of books was to permit us to exercise that faculty. Art, he said, was a controlled madness, which was why the people who selected books for high school English classes were careful to choose only false books that were discussable, boring, and sane, or else, if they chose a real book by mistake, they presented it in a way that ignored everything great and mad about it. He said that high school was for morons and mediocrities. He said that his mother had agreed never to enter his room so long as he changed his sheets once a week. He said the books weren’t made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of images that inserted themselves into your brain and replaced what you were seeing with your eyes.”

Steven Millhauser’s short story “The Room in the Attic” brings forth a sense of dramatic realism that would typically not be seen as boring. The setting itself would not be seen as something that brings forth conflict. Millhauser chooses to put a young girl (Wolf’s sister) in the attic to make the darkroom more interesting and appealing. The idea that this little girl is living in the attic tends to draw the reader in. It also is Millhauser’s way of introducing a potential conflict between the narrator and the young girl. As we discussed in class, conflict in any story needs another person in the story to be interesting and be a relatable conflict. Furthermore, when Millhauser begins the novel with, “I first saw Wolf in March of junior year. This isn’t his story, but I suppose I ought to begin with him,” he is establishing that the point of view is first person. This usually means that the narrator is unreliable. Because we know this as writers, we question whether the story is about Wolf or not; this causes us as readers to want to know the truth. As we find out, the story is not about Wolf, but Millhauser’s exposition makes us believe that the narrator has lied because he is constantly describing how cool Wolf is in the exposition and what Wolf thinks about school. We learn as we go into part II of the story that this book is about the unseen in the darkroom and the mystery of Wolf’s sister who eventually disappears. Millhauser’s writing of the dark room and what Daves thinks is in this room gives us a realistic, but magical perception and this is what makes this story fantastic.

Emily Rapp Black is a very with a positive spirit, which was very unexpected. Though she has been through very rough challenges, she still has a great sense of humor and is confident in who she is. When she read part of her essay “Casa Azul Cripple,” I was really able to see the true authentic talent of her writing that allows the reader to be intrigued by something unfamiliar. The amazing thing about this essay is that she draws parallels between the painting of the dead babies to the death of her son, Ronan. Rapp Black’s emotions are conveyed throughout the scenes of her being in her son’s nursery and also when she switches to the scene where she is in the Mexican museum. This raw method of writing allows the reader to see the frame of mind Rapp Black is in when she is looking at this weird painting and how it is closely related to her own experiences; this authenticity allows us as readers to feel like we are there in these places with her, feeling these emotions. It is absolutely beautiful, and it seems that the writing is so natural. I will definitely be spending my spare time reading Poster Child: A Memoir and her many other works.

By using Google images or by clicking on the links I’ve provided, search for works by the contemporary visual artists listed below, all of whom make use of the surreal in their work. Identify a single image from which you will create a story no longer than three double-spaced pages.

Penelope Slinger
Shannon Bool
Jo Ann Canlis
Caitlin Keogh
Shana Moulton
Julie Curtiss
Carina Brandes

Step 1: Place the image you have chosen for your story on the blog.

Step 2: Write your story.

Step 3. Revise. Revise. Proofread.

Step 4. Place your story in the Exercise 2 folder on Google Drive.

Regret is a pilgrimage back to the place where I was free to choose.

In “Reeling for the Empire,” it follows Kitsune who is one of many girls captured and forced to have their bodies change in order to produce silk from their bodies. This short story is extremely fantastical, creating these creatures that are stuck in this factory. The author does well explaining the world of Kitsune and the other girls, showing us her past, the changes one goes through, and “Nowhere Mill” where they cannot leave. I think this
story is a story of not repressing your past and who you truly are, and also taking control of yourself and your own future, as Kitsune does by revolting and using her memories to create the blackest silks she can. My favorite quote from the story is: “Regret is a pilgrimage back to the place where I was free to choose.” (page 45)