What's the opposite of escapism?

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Epilogue

Epilogue


This "joy" which I have selected as the mark of the true fairy-story (or romance), or as the seal upon it, merits more consideration.


Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: "inner consistency of reality," it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the "joy" in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a "consolation" for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, "Is it true?" The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): "If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world." That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist). But in the "eucatastrophe" we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. The use of this word gives a hint of my epilogue. It is a serious and dangerous matter. It is presumptuous of me to touch upon such a theme; but if by grace what I say has in any respect any validity, it is, of course, only one facet of a truth incalculably rich: finite only because the capacity of Man for whom this was done is finite.


I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairystory,or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: "mythical" in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the "inner consistency of reality." There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.


It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be "primarily" true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the "turn" in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is preeminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves. Legend and History have met and fused.
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David Johansen said:
Ursula K LeGuin has an essay, I'll have to dig up. She makes an interesting argument for Frodo being very much a realistic character transplanted into fairy land. A drown trodden fellow bearing a heavy burden, just doggedly trudging on against all odds and without hope.
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One of the commonplaces in Tolkien studies is that the killer app of Lord of the Rings is Tolkien's mixing of novelistic discourse and a variety of premodern genres (epic, saga, romance, annal, etc.). A kind of Bakhtinian heteroglossia.

This meant, of course, that a lot of the fans who were waiting for the Silmarillion were not pleased when they just got the premodern genres.
 
It's in the label: escapist entertainment is entertainment that lets you escape.

Escapism is entertainment that takes you away from concerns, issues, troubles, etc. you face in real life - it lets you vicariously experience an alternate environment where you get to not have to think about your problems for a time. The opposite is entertainment (fiction or non-) that brings back to mind problems you're already facing in real life.

It's not about genre. Horror fiction can be (often is) full of terrible things inevitably happening to helpless victims, but is still generally escapist. Noir fiction about anti-hero or villain protagonists being very gritty can be escapist. Even the darkest fantasy can be escapist.

But if you're dealing with a specific problem that's also being dealt with in the entertainment, then it's not helping you escape. If the art deals with it well it can be very resonant, if it deals with it poorly it can be insulting or at least not entertaining. If you're going through an acrimonious divorce then there's probably a lot of movies you just don't want to watch right now, while for other viewers they'd be escapes from their concerns. Whether a particular work is escapist depends on the individual engaging with the work.

This definition of escapism is not in any way a value judgement on the work itself. An escapist work can be full of insight and wisdom. It's just whether it takes you away from your troubles by letting you engage with a different set of problems that aren't yours for a while.
 
SoManyRats said:
This definition of escapism is not in any way a value judgement on the work itself. An escapist work can be full of insight and wisdom. It's just whether it takes you away from your troubles by letting you engage with a different set of problems that aren't yours for a while.
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That's an interesting take. After all the essay is about fairies but also about all the things tolkien likes or doesn't like.

So is it really that fairies and lamp posts are mortal enemies? I remember Les contes de la rue Broca (1967) (the fables of Broca street), which had this modern retelling, but without the heavy handed satire that has come to be associated with "modern retelling of fairy tales" - ok, maybe a touch of lighthearted parody. It's focused on a street of Paris and has these fairy creatures living in modern objects, like the fairy of the faucet or the witch of the broom closet. There's also the presence of catholic characters, such as the Pope and Virgin Mary and the Institut Pasteur, but none of these elements are treated as incompatible, and they converse almost unsurprised of each other's existence.

There's also the elephant in the room : the magical chocolate factory of Roald Dahl. At any rate wonderment can inhabit anything, it seems... though maybe such objects lack the epic dimension of say arthurian tales.
 
I was introduced to zoology and palaeontology ("for children'') quite as early as to Faerie. I saw pictures of living beasts and of true (so I was told) prehistoric animals. I liked the "prehistoric" animals best: they had at least lived long ago, and hypothesis (based on somewhat slender evidence) cannot avoid a gleam of fantasy. But I did not like being told that these creatures were "dragons." I can still re-feel the irritation that I felt in childhood at assertions of instructive relatives (or their gift-books) such as these: "snowflakes are fairy jewels," or "are more beautiful than fairy jewels"; "the marvels of the ocean depths are more wonderful than fairyland." Children expect the differences they feel but cannot analyse to be explained by their elders, or at least recognized, not to be ignored or denied. I was keenly alive to the beauty of "Real things," but it seemed to me quibbling to confuse this with the wonder of "Other things." I was eager to study Nature, actually more eager than I was to read most fairy stories; but I did not want to be quibbled into Science and cheated out of Faerie by people who seemed to assume that by some kind of original sin I should prefer fairy-tales, but according to some kind of new religion I ought to be induced to like science. Nature is no doubt a life-study, or a study for eternity (for those so gifted); but there is a part of man which is not "Nature," and which therefore is not obliged to study it, and is, in fact, wholly unsatisfied by it.
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The city I was born in, Metz, has it's very own dragon, the Graoully. It's one of the stories on the theme of the subduing of the serpent (sauroctonous saints). Saint Clément arrives at Metz to evangelize the pagans, but there are serpents/dragons in the amphitheatre, poisoning the city. He subdues them and parades them through the city before asking them to leave and banishing them.
330px-St-Clément,_premier_évêque_de_Metz,_conduit_le_«_Graouilly_»_sur_les_bords_de_la_Seille..jpg
That gave rise to parades, where an effigy of the dragon is symbolically walked across the city.
330px-Graoully.jpg
It is generally thought that the sauroctone saints represent the subdueing of pagan religions and christianization, and as the tale evolves, the dragon becomes a punisher of sin sent by God to punish the debauchery of the pagan inhabitants, and then Saint Clément even drowns the dragon.

Now where do dinosaurs come into the picture? Nowhere, because if the dragon had a geomythological origin, it was more likely a marine reptile. Ichtyosaurus and Mosasaurus fossils were found round the river Meuse; so it's been speculated that might have something to do with it. Although I would not place bets on this one, as there are precedents, both of giant reptilian fossils being called dragons and of fossils themselves ending up on heraldry.

I've dug in this thread (it's in French tho) :
www.geoforum.fr

Culture populaire et fossiles

www.geoforum.fr www.geoforum.fr
And found some interesting things, quoting here a user named Herakles :
Confrères de Geoforum, voyez vous ce document extrait du "ESSAI HISTORIQUE SUR LA VILLE BI BAYEUX ET SON ARRONDISSEMENT" de Frederic PLUQUET (1829) (p. 69-70)
L'inscription suivante se lit dans la cathédrale (de Bayeux) sur la porte qui conduit à l'orgue, elle est gravée profondément en caractères gothiques du XVe siècle :
Crédite mira Dei serpens fuit hic lapis extans.
Sic transformatum Bartholus attulit hùc.
Ce qui peut se traduire ainsi : Cette pierre fut un serpent vivant, croyez aux miracles de Dieu, Bartholus l'apporta ici ainsi transformée.
On aperçoit au dessus la trace d'une pierre enlevée, l'inscription elle même a été grattée mais on peut encore la lire. Voici l'explication toute naturelle de cette bizarre inscription. On n'était pas fort sur l'histoire naturelle et la minéralogie dans le XVe. siècle. Un chanoine de Bayeux, professeur de médecine de l'Université de Caen, nommé Bartholus, natif d'Angers, ayant trouvé en 1482 une corne d'Ammon ou ammonite bien conservée, la prit pour un serpent pétrifié, l'apporta dans la cathédrale de Bayeux où il la fit placer avec les deux vers que nous venons de rapporter. Dans la suite le chapitre fit ôter le prétendu serpent et gratter l'inscription.
J'ai vu quelques maisons à Bayeux où l'on avait aussi encastillé soigneusement des cornes d'Ammon.
M. l'abbé de la Rue a trouvé dans un très ancien cérémonial de Bayeux qu'à certaines époques de l'année on plaçait sur l'autel des cornes d'Ammon et d'autres coquillages fossiles ou étrangers. (1)
(1) Mémoires de la société Linnéenne du Calvados, tome 1er. 1824, p 69
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Translation of the quote
"Historicall essay on the city Bi Bayeux and it's borough"n Frederic Pluquet 1829

The following inscription can be read in the cathedral of Bayeux, on the door leading to the organ, it is engraved in gothic letters from the XVth century :
Crédite mira Dei serpens fuit hic lapis extans
Sic transformatum Bartholus attulit hùc
Which may be translated as following : this stone was a living serpent, believe in the miracles of God, Bartholus brought it thus transformed.
We see on it the trace of a stone taken away, the inscription itself scrubbed, but it can still be read. There is the very natural explanation of this strange inscription. We weren't good about natural history and mineralogy in the XVth centurey. A chanoine of Bayeux, professor of medicine at the University of Caen, named Bartholus, born in Angers, having found in 1482 a horn of Ammon, or ammonite well conserved, believed it to be a petrified serpent, brought it th the Bayeux cathedral and made it be placed with the two worms we have reported on. Later, the chapter took out the so-called serpent and scrubbed the inscription. "

Leading me to Fossils and popular beleifs (Fossiles et croyances populares, 2017, Eric Buffetaut for which a powerpoint is available here : https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi116mB0u6EAxUwVKQEHURcCQcQFnoECE0QAQ&url=https://www.siteany78.org/IMG/pdf/fossiles_et_croyances.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1LGh0edMIC8GGGwJxUCjqY&opi=89978449 )

It presents numerous exemples aside from snakestones, from belemnites beleived to be arrowheads of elves, to ammonites used by native americans as talismans, to fossilized shark teeths attributed to subdued serpents or sauropod tracks supposedly caused by the Virgin Mary on a mule. Here's one of the most striking :
okpokopko.jpg
"In a church of Swhwäbisch Hall (Germany), a mamoth tusk found in 1605 is suspended to a metallic armature adorned with small unicorns"

And here is a very interesting article on snakestones : https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/snakestones-ammonites-myth-magic-science.html

Then there's also this "Madona of urchins and silex", adorned with fossilized urchins, from the underground city of Naours, though I was not able to obtain a datation :
297-madone-oursins-silex-Naours-01-br.jpg
Aside from snakestone, the thunderstone also appears to eften be fossils, belemnites or urchins.

I think that's interesting. People had all sorts of explanations for these acient fossil, and interpreted them according to their understanding of the world. Is there really such a gap, leaving fossils bereft of fairy-ness and wonder?
 

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Idea for another thread : Is Chris Pratt in Jurassic World a modern reimagining of the sauroctone saint?
 
Tbh thanks to this thread I am adding "travelling taxmen" to my game's list of common adventurous jobs. Travelling in remote marshes to collect taxes from people who hate you on sight, having to protect the treasure and deal with all sorts of bs sounds as adventurous as anything.
 
Voros said:
I've read a few essays and one light biography on Tolkien but can't recall if he ever explained the absence of religion in LotR (its absence in The Hobbit is less notable to me).

I've read somewhere the idea that struck me as plausible but speculative that Tolkien shied away from depicting the divine directly in LotR as he may have thought it was impious.

But to me that seems a bit too Protestant a take for the Catholic Tolkien. As you no doubt know, Catholic doctrine is much more relaxed in matters of iconography and other depictions of the divine.

He was certainly critical of the clumsy Christian allegory of Lewis' Narnia but that always struck me more a criticism of craft and taste rather than a moral or theological charge.
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Urdlen's best boy said:
Yes, that's something I actually just noticed but Tolkien does not in fact have real religions in his works.

Pure speculation, but I would more easily beleive something to the tune of he didn't feel capable of doing it justice, perhaps because he didn't trust himself to extract himself from his own framework enough to make something else than a christian alegory. That somehow seems more fitting, but then again, no way to actually know.
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I'm not a Tolkien expert and I've never read a statement of his on why he did not include detailed religions in LotR or his other Middle Earth tales. I'd always assumed it had to do with two things: (a) his own rather deep religiosity and (b) the seriousness with which he took his work of sub-creation. IMO, the imaginary world that Tolkien created was true to him--not in the sense that he believe it had a prosaic factual existence, but that it expressed fundamental ideas and values that he felt deeply about.

One of those things was Christianity. And so his world is in fact monotheistic, and his creation story can be at least vaguely assimilated to Christian views of creation ex nihilo, if not the detailed narrative of Genesis. Eru simply is another name for the monotheistic god. But if Tolkien had attempted to create a religion for Eru, he would have encountered significant problems. Either:
  • The invented religion would have been too close a simulacrum for Christianity, which would have worked against the suspension of disbelief--and, I suspect, would have felt crass and impious to him.
  • Or, it would have been a form or heresy, especially if it was an elvish religion. After all, the elves are presented in Tolkien as an older race, closer to Eru than humanity. Their religion, if they had one, would then logically be that chimera that Renaissance Hermeticists thought they had found in the Hermetic books--a prisca theologia, an earlier and better revelation untainted by human sin and error. Tolkien obviously couldn't have that; Christianity was the true religion.
Now, neither of those objections would have kept him from inventing a religion that was explicitly false, to be associated with Morgoth and Sauron. IIRC, there is some suggestion that they were worshiped by their followers in certain contexts. But I don't think Tolkien would have had much interest in exploring the details of such a false faith. It would have been distasteful to him; he took religion too seriously to want to invent a fake one.

Tl;dr: it's much easier to create an imaginary world with fully-fledged religions if you simply see them as a part of human culture, an invention.
 
They may abandon the "full Victorian panoply" for loose garments (with zip-fasteners), but will use this freedom mainly, it would appear, in order to play with mechanical toys in the soon-cloying game of moving at high speed.
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...I mean, he wasn't wrong, and he did make an accurate prediction right there:shade:!
 
Urdlen's best boy said:
Yesterday I saw the last Dune movie with my gf. Very nice. Main actor's a little one note & cut a touch confused but what can you do. Great props, great shots, pretty good cast, so solid on all the other fundamentals.

So this morning I watched this video comparing Herbert & Tolkien :


The main thrust she has is that Tolkien believed deeply in escapism whereas Herbert believed in ... social realism/critical realism applied to made up stories, I guess? I see exactly what she means, but I'm not sure we've got a word for it. I hesitated to say "grittiness", but I'm not sure that works - I tend to think "gritty" is a word that indicates a form of close-to-life horror, but it isn't exactly the opposite of escapism, is it?

So escapism, the opposite of escapism (social/critical realism ?), grittiness... what do you think they mean in the context of SF/Fantasy?
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That's interesting, but not surprising, as somebody who enjoys both Herbert and Tolkien. I think Tolkien usually came at things from his very spiritual/religious worldview and Herbert came at things from more a "I was raised Catholic but I am more a fiction author who wants to talk about these specific things in a fantastic way" - I don't know that it's exactly escapism vs. cynicism, but they certainly had different worldviews which influenced their writing. It's like comparing Lewis Carroll to Robert A. Heinlein; I enjoyed some of both of their books as well but they wrote with entirely different worldviews. I would reduce either of them to escapism or cynicism. (I wouldn't really reduce any author I really enjoyed to either of those traits. I'm uncertain that you could really reduce any human to those traits. Tolkien might have "believed" in escapism but he was cynical, I felt, when he thought he needed to be.)

Humans are complex. Binaries usually can't contain us.
 
Edgewise said:
"What's the opposite of escapism?"

Non-fiction.
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Hmm, I don't think I agree. I regularly read non-fiction as escapism; books like A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England are, I think, far more escapist than The Handmaid's Tale or To Kill a Mockingbird.

Escapist fiction seeks to take you aware from the cares of the world; non-escapist fiction seeks to hold a mirror to the problems of the world and uses fiction to cast a critical eye over our world. Both categories are probably too crude to really encompass the complexity of all good fiction. Lord of the Rings may be escapist but that doesn't make it shallow; The Handmaid's Tale may be a bleak feminist polemic, but that doesn't make it not entertaining.
 
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Musing on this. This winter I've been experiencing both escapism and whatever you call it. I've been reading both PG Wodehouse's Bertie/Jeeves novels and Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch and related novels.
But I do lull myself to sleep with Traveller-style adventures...
 
I gave this question some thought during a long drive yesterday. My thoughts wandered from George Orwell past John Steinbeck and Upton Sinclair to Charles Dickens. I toyed with the idea that the opposite of escapism was muck-raking or satire, and ended up with they conclusion that it is probably didactisism. The authors of jailer novels and stories don’t explore a current social issue with you, except in pretence. They have already explored it to their satisfaction and now insist on telling you about it, either in “social realism” or in allegory.
 
Agemegos said:
I gave this question some thought during a long drive yesterday. My thoughts wandered from George Orwell past John Steinbeck and Upton Sinclair to Charles Dickens. I toyed with the idea that the opposite of escapism was muck-raking or satire, and ended up with they conclusion that it is probably didactisism. The authors of jailer novels and stories don’t explore a current social issue with you, except in pretence. They have already explored it to their satisfaction and now insist on telling you about it, either in “social realism” or in allegory.
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Thanks for giving it thought! Mulling on it, but it seems right. I feel like the good philosophical exploration leaves things open to pondering, which can be it's own pleasure; whereas those who merely seek to illustrate a moral point and educate the reader often feel pushy and unpleasant to me. Or said otherly, opening vs restraining horizons, if that makes sense. That seems like a transposition of "the jail" to the litterary media.
 
C.Jay said:
Is catharsis the opposite of escapism?
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Interesting thought.

Well, it kind of requires something to get catharsis from. So I guess it could be a kind of triangle where both escapism and the seek for carthasis is two separate corners, and not having something to avoid or confront in that way being the third corner.
 
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C.Jay said:
Is catharsis the opposite of escapism?
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Well there is catharsis in a fair bit of 'escapist' fiction.

For example, if as the video in the OP is correct that Tolkien is 'escapist' (I don't believe they are), the famous scene of Boromir's death and the apparent death of Gandalf in Moria are both moments of high catharsis for most of the audience/readers, as are the struggles of Sam and Frodo in Mordor and the ultimate fate of Gollum.

There are many such scenes in 'escapist' literature, I think of the ghostly return of Bêlit in Queen of the Black Coast.

I think the notion of purely escapist fiction is probably a bit of a chimera. It exists but is not that common the more you think on it.
 
Agemegos said:
...the opposite of escapism was...didactisism. The authors of jailer novels and stories don’t explore a current social issue with you, except in pretence. They have already explored it to their satisfaction and now insist on telling you about it, either in “social realism” or in allegory.
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Urdlen's best boy said:
Thanks for giving it thought! Mulling on it, but it seems right. I feel like the good philosophical exploration leaves things open to pondering, which can be it's own pleasure; whereas those who merely seek to illustrate a moral point and educate the reader often feel pushy and unpleasant to me. Or said otherly, opening vs restraining horizons, if that makes sense. That seems like a transposition of "the jail" to the litterary media.
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I believe the word for that is "irritaiment". ;)
 
Lalato said:
I was going to go one step further... existential dread.
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Yeah, although I seem to like heapin' helpin' of that in my entertaining escapes as well... maybe when it's OTHER people facing that feeling I feel comfort?
 
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