This Way Fantasemes

Abstract

This Way Fantasemes Nancy Huse (bio) Nikolajeva, Maria . The Magic Code: The Use of Magical Patterns in Fantasy for Children. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1988. Maria Nikolajeva, a Russian emigré to Sweden who teaches at the University of Stockholm, prepared The Magic Code as her doctoral dissertation under Professor Vivi Edstrom, who holds Sweden's first endowed chair in Children's Literature. Consistent with the relatively high status of children's books in Scandinavia, this book approaches their study with the intention of describing the nature, logic and regularities of a genre; to this task, the critic brings a breadth of reading (250 fantasy novels for children, mainly British, 1900-1980, and 100 secondary sources). No apology or explanation for studying children's books is offered, nor does Nikolajeva concern herself specifically with reception theory or evaluation, though she peppers the book with remarks about children's needs for security and about the value of certain innovations in fantasy. Drawing mainly on structuralists like Todorov and Propp, and on semioticians like Lotman and Bakhtin, and relying on the work of Edith Nesbit as a generative source for imitation and opposition by other writers, she sets out to describe fantasy at the morphological level. Her method is spelled out precisely as a treatment of a narrative element, the fantaseme, used to introduce the extraordinary. The fantaseme, as Nikolajeva defines it, differs from motifs, functions, and other elements in that it is unique to fantasy (linking primary and secondary worlds) and involves complex new relationships of time and place. Stating that her method is closest to that of Ann Swinfen, Nikolajeva proceeds to analyze her materials in terms of laws that govern magic in fantasy, and the ways that magic space, time, passage and impact are patterned. As a U.S. critic accustomed to discussing the meanings and contexts of stories, and interested in the crossing of genre boundaries rather than the delineation of them, I find The Magic Code a demanding read despite its clear language, familiar examples, unequivocal categories, and genuine zest for children's fantasy. Rather like a structural grammar book, it spells out forms and their variants, changes in forms, and the basic rules for ordering fantasy, by stating definitions and giving brief instances. The overall effect is impressive, offering systematic evidence for both the orderliness of the genre and its historical richness; but a reader would do better to return to the book many times for applications of the theory than to expect a synthesis of the theory within the text. Where the book seems most interesting to me is in the intricacy of the fantasemes. For example, observing that children may be disturbed by linear journeys away from the primary world, as in the rare instance of Tuck Everlasting, Nikolajeva then notes the many variables possible wthin the "rule" established by Nesbit that no primary time will be lost: time in both worlds can be apace, as in Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz; or compressed in the primary world; or complicated by flashbacks in the secondary. In discussing the magic impact, Nikolajeva describes similar complexities inherent within the rule that a visitor to the past cannot affect the past, yet must preserve memory and self-confidence. While acknowledging her debts to previous scholars, including many English and American ones, this critic delights in showing the interconnected yet dialectically predictable manifestations of the magic code. "Devices and patterns that may seem to betoken lack of originality, plagiarism, secondarity, in adult literature are a deliberate creative approach in children's books" (118) is her way of explaining the continuity and canonicity of fantasy. Seeing despite this repetitive and rule-bound structure an evolution toward psychological depth comparable to realism, Nikolajeva concludes by pronouncing fantasy a genre of great potential for the future. As a distinctly different approach from those common in English-speaking countries, the morphological analysis supplied by The Magic Code should prove helpful in discussions of formulaic patterns, literary allusions, and conceptual change. Without discussing context, Nikolajeva acknowledges it by concentrating on British examples (rather than American, which she had planned to use more fully) and by recognizing the importance of relativity theory...