Historical Richness Research Articles

This Way Fantasemes

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...

The French Law of Arbitration by Jean Robert and Thomas E. Carbonneau

The French Law of Arbitration by Jean Robert and Thomas E. Carbonneau Published by Mathew Bender, New York, 1983 (Nine Chapters plus Preface, Table of Contents, Appendices, Selected Bibliography and Index). Price $75 US. A Swiss-American Perspective of a Franco-American Treatise Gallic arbitration law holds a special fascination for the student of international commercial dispute resolution, whether scholar or practitioner, connoisseur or novice. France's popularity as an arbitration situs may explain some of this interest.1 However, the deeper intellectual significance of the subject probably lies in the historical richness of the French judicial and legislative elaboration of a special status for international commercial arbitration. The development of French arbitration law represents a paradigm of the modern trend toward ‘delocalised’ procedure,2 in which arbitral autonomy is restricted by only a bare minimum of local procedural imperatives. The French Law of Arbitration is a first-rate adaptation of Jean Robert's classic treatise on French arbitration law, first published in 1937, and now in its fifth edition.3 But it is much more. The authors' guide to the interaction of judge and arbitrator in France provides an interpretation of civil law concepts for the common law mind that constitutes valuable scholarship in its own right. The work is an intellectually rewarding, practically useful, and elegantly styled contribution to the growing literature in the field.4 This effort illustrates the potential for fruitful co-operation among comparativists from divergent backgrounds, and should stimulate further inquiry into broader questions relating to the way curial norms of the place of arbitration apply to international arbitral proceedings. The experience, talent and credentials of the authors, as well as the reputation of Columbia's Parker School, under whose auspices the book was published, would lead one to expect a quality book. This expectation is not disappointed. Jean Robert has been a distinguished member of the Paris bar for well over half a century. Thomas Carbonneau is a tenured member of the faculty of Tulane Law School and Assistant Director of the Eason-Weisman Center …