So from Justine's I followed a link over to a very interesting lj discussion in which Charles de Lint is pretty much being blamed for creating a sub genre of urban fantasy in which normal is bad and artsy/quirky is good.
And this is all bad, mind you.
I am a fan of de Lint, have been from the very beginning. So of course I'm biased, but in this case I'm also vastly well read on the subject. There are a couple of things that really strike me as odd about this discussion, and since no one has seemed to bring them up in the comments I thought I would mention them here. First, de Lint is largely credited with inventing the whole concept of urban fantasy. You can argue this with other authors (heck you could argue all the way to Bradbury on it), but he certainly popularized it with his novels and stories set in the city of Newford. And he's been writing about the same types of characters - artists, musicians and writers, from the very beginning. So is the problem that there are a lot of similar types of books out there now from other authors really his fault? He was there in the beginning and he hasn't really changed, so if you have a problem with these types of novels, it seems like you should take it up with everyone else who followed, not with the guy who has been there for decades.
Secondly, in the very beginning de Lint established that there was an arts college in Newford. Many of the early characters are known to have met there as students or teachers and become friends. So, over the years in the novels they have become professionals at what they originally did as students - they are now artists, musicians and writers.
What did readers expect them to do?
You have a bunch of college friends who have stayed close and work in their chosen fields. Several of them also work in bookstores, coffee shops or restaurants to pay the bills (and even at the local newspaper or galleries) and that's how they live. (The whole day job thing is lost in the lj discussion but if I had to I could go back to the stories and give easily a dozen examples of jobs that characters have held that would certainly seem "normal".) Honestly, I'm not sure how they are supposed to live differently. If you want to be an artist I don't think you get a job as an engineer. And you don't hang out with engineers either. There has been also some major professional evolution over the years for several of the characters - one developed a small press, another has become a well respected writer and so on. There's also a character who was established as a social worker in the beginning and she has remained so, another is a cop, etc. But the stories do focus on the core group of artists, musicians and writers and the fantastical elements around Newford they interact with. And I just don't see how that is false or odd. Are they supposed to be more susceptible to this sort of thing because they are artists? I dont' know - but what does it matter? These are the people he follows in this town and it is what they see and do that matters to de Lint. What's going on in the high rise down the road is immaterial, because he just isn't looking there.
And also, don't forget that de Lint is a writer, married to an artist and they both are performing musicians.
See a pattern there?
It could be as simple as a writer creating a world that is peopled with folks that he knows - with types of people he knows. I just wrote a novel about pilots, want to know why? yeah - cause I know pilots. Maybe it really is just as easy as de Lint knowing an artistic section of society, liking the folks he meets there and enjoying that kind of life. So that's who he writes about.
Must we deconstruct every damn thing these days?
Finally, I have a problem with the suggestion that de Lint does not address his homeless characters with enough honesty. He is pretty serious about the number of young people in trouble in his books and stories - Jilly Coppercorn had a horrific beginning and her story is one of those that he has followed for decades in his work. What interests me though is that from the lj discussion readers seem to want more despair in the homeless. Consider this:
Except. All his street people are animal people, or unicorns in disguise. Or people down on their luck for just a little while; he makes passing mentions of alcoholism, but it's rarely seen in all its nastiness. And they all seem to be able to see the magic in the world. It's a good thing not to paint every street person as a nobody, but he's tipped it too far the other way. It's a good thing to try and signal to someone caught on the street that yes, you're somebody and somebody worthwhile, yes you can get out. Yes, there are people who will help you. You can get back to normal.
Except that he paints normal as the most unappealing thing to be. His normal? A small studio apartment, a part time bookstore job. Staying connected to the street. Growing your artistic career.
And yet nobody seems to have it so bad. Okay, not nobody; he does have his share of child abuse tragedies, and a very small handful even don't come out the other side. But compared to the reality, it's a minuscule proportion. He's this close to glorifying being broke and starving, or addicted. Few of his street people die of overdose or freeze to death or get stupidly killed without some *other* explanation, some secret magic involved.
I'm at a loss here. We are comparing life in a string of urban fantasies where all matter of mythical creatures are running wild with reality? We want homeless people to show up dead or frozen or drunk more frequently? We want them to suffer more so it can be more realistic? We don't want the homeless to just engage in the occasional conversation with main characters?
Hmmm.
It's interesting what is suggested here. Is a fantasy author really supposed to inject a certain amount of reality or normalcy into his plots? Do we have to read about people dying as addicts as opposed to victims of otherworldly violence? Is one so much better than the other? And are readers forgetting in all this that maybe de Lint is suggesting something else - that violence is not just because of hate but maybe something more, that alcoholism isn't just simple addiction but something magical or mysterious? Did you ever think that having his characters live the way he does he is showing a more fantastical version of our world, which is his goal by writing this way to begin with?
A couple don't break up because of a fight in Newford; she gets lost into a picture in an antique shop and is trapped forever in the past. That's from "Slipstream", one of his earliest stories. It would have been more normal for her just to leave, but that's not the point is it? Normal isn't supposed to be the point in fantasy.
February 15
2007
10:11 AM
Colleen,
I don't like to bash authors in public, so the address above is not real, and if this goes unread into your spambucket, that is okay. I am writing mostly to clarify what I think about De Lint. I almost love his writing. I do love the idea of urban fantasy and I enjoy seeing art and music wovenn into a story. I am pretty sure that there are DeLint stories out there that I would love, but I am not looking for them. I have had enough of his shallow characterization and romantic view of streetpeople. You asked who needs realism in fantasy? I do. It is exactly the intersection of realism and fantasy that excites me. Dragons in the real world in McAvoy's first book. The Wardrobe in WW2 London. Edward Eager and his bizarre magical tokens in American postwar suburbia. Faeries in Central Park, and inhabiting the New York Central Library.
But if you don't give me the "real" to contrast to the "fantasy," then the whole thing just doesn't work for me. And DeLint's overly romanticized view of streetpeople makes his world a shallow construct. Need a shaman? He's always the guy living in the abandoned building with no heat and no running water, need a saint? she works at the homeless shelter with all the other saintly people who have a higher consciousness than ordinary people. they are the cool people, the really worthy people that the rest of society denies the admiration they really deserve.
and then, there are bad streetpeople, just a few for effect, overdrawn, one-dimensional counterpoints to all the saints. they provide the opportunites for grisly close calls that discomfort the reader. so its all Rose Colored Glasses interspersed with DarkDark I Tell You This World Is Dark.
I just don't get the feeling that De LInt really knows what he is writing about when he describes his urban world. He sounds like someone who has done a little research, taken a lot of notes so he can add "authentic details" and is fudging the rest. That may be because he doesn't know the urban underworld, or it may be bad writing, and I don't care which it is.
what frustrates me is this: if this world was just a little more realistic, if the characters were more real, if the "gritty details" weren't so mechanical. I would so love these stories. charles de lint has written some things that i think are great and that's what makes me so disgusted i want to shake him until his teeth rattle.