Dear Internet Braintrust

[bodlon]

So I'm hard at work at my senior capstone project. Right now it looks like I'll be doing something about relation to the real, possibly focusing on changing attitudes about returning to it by time period or gender (possibly tying this in with differences in how Campbell's Hero's Journey breaks down by gender). The five works I'm looking at so far are:

- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - mid-19th Century, children's book, girl hero enters fantasy world, chooses conventional reality
- J.M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy - pre-WWI, children's book, girl hero enters fantasy world, chooses conventional reality
- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere - contemporary, adult literature, male adult hero enters fantasy world, chooses it
- Graham, Jordan, and Pharoah, Life on Mars - contemporary, adult program, male adult hero enters fantasy world, chooses it
- Cathrynne Valente, Palimpsest - contemporary, adult literature, ensemble cast enters fantasy world, tries like hell to stay there

The breakdown so far seems to be that prior to postmodernism, these kinds of narratives were about (mostly) girls who have a mad adventure but then come back because they are supposed to, while now we're writing about (mostly) men who "find themselves" while in non-standard reality and stay there. I'm also considering including C.S. Lewis (who wrote the Narnia books between '49 and '54), but I'm not sure I'll have time to reread ALL of the books. He'd be another example of children who come back, but is just outside of the year range. That might suggest that the thread I'm actually looking for is that children come back, grown-ups don't.

So here's my question: is there a book or film you'd include on this list that breaks my theory? Is there a little boy or girl who stays? A grown woman or man who chooses to come back? Which time period? I'm trying to nail down what's happening in these narratives and could use another work or two to really solidify what I'm working on.

Comments

[sanginmychains]

I'm gonna have to give this a think. Right now I'm stuck on the idea of J. G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun, which doesn't break your thesis, but more specifically it's arguably non-fiction and the protagonist isn't given a choice (but does to an extent long for the unreality of the POW camp, which was largely written in the style of a Boy's Adventure novel).

There's...oh. Oh! I so rarely get to actually reference this, my favourite book of all time. The Sheltering Sky. The female protagonist goes off into the wild, the foreign unknown (and unknowable). She's led there by men, three of them, in turns, and once there, she never does fully return. One gets the sense that she prefers to drift in the wordlessness rather than return to her world (whatever that is).

If you're going to include Alice and Peter Pan, I think you probably have to give a gander to some of the equivalent boys' fiction of the time -- Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island, for example. Otherwise, you're really doing an apples-to-oranges comparison. Am I being too scientific method about this? I think if you want to trace changing attitudes, you need to have a good spread in each of your time periods.

In Angel, Cordelia goes home to California rather than stay in the other dimension where she's been made Queen. THis is supposed to show character development, I suppose, but it does reinforce your Victorian narrative.

I'll share other random thoughts as they come, I'm sure.

[sanginmychains]

Heart of Darkness...

In The Wide Sargasso Sea, the madwoman in the attic (Berta? Bertha? It's been awhile) chooses immolation rather than civilization, but she's being asked to embrace a form of civilization that's too cold to bear, and as English society is not *her* domesticity, I'm not sure how that one plays. Jean Rhys, the author. PoMo.

One other thing you should consider is the audience. You have two books aimed at kids, and those are typically much more conventional than adult literature. That's another apples-and-oranges thing you have working against your ability to form a convincing thesis. If you want to discuss children's literature, I think it needs to be kid lit across the board. Which is a valid and rich form of study, don't get me wrong. But don't compare Carroll to Gaiman and expect to learn anything especially useful about changing attitudes.

Me? I was always, and I remain, all about the production and reception of art in context. I'm all about the training, expectations, conventions, fears, habits, and knowledge set of the producers and the receivers. Always thought that New Criticism was more than a little incomplete as a theory.