Genre Crossovers

This probably won't be posted for months, but I'm going to start this now...

I stumbled across an author named Melanie Dickerson, who has written mostly romance novels... many of which are medieval-themed. 

If you catch her page on Amazon, you'll notice that her longest series is a fairy tale/historical fiction/romance/Christian series. That combination of genres in and of itself made me highly nervous. Each reason could be a blog post on its own, but for the sake of clarity, here are a few of them:

• I do not like most modern-day Christian fiction. See this from the Babylon Bee to understand my reasons. 
• I get nervous about the combination of historical fiction and fairy tales, because the expectations, suspension of disbelief, and whole point of each genre is completely different (I would argue even opposite)
• I don't like modern romance books. (Give me Pride and Prejudice, where it honestly is a surprise who Elizabeth ends up with! Or at least, it legitimately might be, if not for the fact that everyone has known the story for the last 100 years...) 
• I'm not crazy about some of these adaptations of fairy tales. The last one I paid any attention to was a TV series, which... which started off just fine, but the story had nothing to do with the fairy tales, and... it wasn't what I was looking for in fairy tales. I liked Once Upon a Time all right at first, but it didn't stay up to the same quality, in my opinion. Then there are the live action Disney remakes, which... gag. 

But of course, moth to flame. The books had pretty covers, the openings were smoothly written, and I love fairy tales. (Which are not fantasy, by the way, but that's another issue altogether.) 

I haven't read all of her books, and I haven't even read all of the series I'm going to review. It's supposed to be chronological, but I get a very distinct feeling that it isn't entirely necessary to read them all to properly understand the stories, and in honor of my savings account I did not read all of them. I'm just going to review the ones I have read. 

Why these books? I do read a lot of fiction, so why don't I write reviews for all of them? There are a couple of reasons (to be discussed anon), but generally speaking, I think I had a lot to say about these.

So, without further ado...

Okay, as I was writing this, I realized I can't launch into these reviews without at least explaining myself as far as the genre crossovers are concerned, because that's going to come up a lot in my reviews of these books. 

What is Suspension of Disbelief? 

It all begins with suspension of disbelief. I think when people consider suspension of disbelief, people tend to think of breaking the laws of science (magic in fairy tales, etc.), or for how time gets warped (i.e., falling in love in one dance, a la Disney Cinderella). In short, it is when the reader is willing to accept something in the story, without too many questions, that would never happen, or be terrible, or end differently, in real life. You, the reader, are willing to accept magical wands in Harry Potter because of different rules for the book's universe; therefore, you suspend your disbelief about the magical wands. If, on the other hand, a bunch of magical wands suddenly showed up in Little House on the Prairie, you would roll your eyes and stop reading the books. 

The thing that I think some modern readers either don't realize or simply disagree with me on (probably just disagree with me on, but hear me out) is another category of suspension of disbelief--what qualifies as right and good. What are good goals, basically. What makes a good outcome. 

The best example of this that I can think of is the ending to Return of the King. In the end, Aragorn is of course crowned king because he is the last descendant of the kingly line of Gondor. His ancestry makes him the right person for the throne. In a fantasy story, this is perfectly acceptable, because of what it embodies--strengthening of the kingdom, renewal of an ancient ideal, things being put right. You can accept this from Lord of the Rings, because that's part of the rules of the world that's been created--part of all things being put right means putting a king from the right family in power. 

However, imagine hearing that in a story that is supposed to more closely mirror real life. Can you just hear the cringe? The idea that one person is "rightfully" the king, not because of anything they did, not even because of anything their father did, but because of somebody their long-distant ancestor was... that makes many of our modern sensibilities recoil and protest. After all, wouldn't Faramir have been an equally good king? Possibly even a better one, if you think about it? His followers were willing to die for him (and murder for him), he managed parts of Gondor during bleak times, and his people knew him. Why is Aragorn preferable? Aragorn is preferable because he comes from a line of kings, and Faramir does not. That means that Aragorn must be king in order for all to be put to rights. 

In our modern world, and in stories that are supposed to closely reflect our modern world, that is completely unacceptable. But in a fantasy story (heavily inspired by values and expectations from a completely different time in history), we can suspend our disbelief and suspend our expectations and accept it. 

One Guardian writer exemplified this conflict by analyzing Lord of the Rings in the same way, with the same expectations, he he would a piece of nonfiction or a story that is meant to reflect on specific parts of our world rather than universal moral truths. The entire article is worth reading if only to understand how not to read Lord of the Rings, but to summarize, he observes that in all the stories, you only hear the point of view of the good guys. One quote that stands out:

Both books are one-sided recollections made the Baggins family... A balanced telling might well have shown Smaug to be much more of a reforming force in the valley of Dale.

 In other words, the author points out that a story is not reliable if you cannot hear both sides of the story. This is completely true--if you are studying a historical event or maybe a story about World War I. But it does not apply in a fantasy book--it's not part of the expectations the author has for the reader. It's not important to a fantasy story. (It can be included in a fantasy story, don't get me wrong, but it's not essential--at least, not in the same way that it is essential to a more real-world story. A fantasy story doesn't need this, but a historical or "realistic" story normally does.) 

Here is a quote that just sums up the problem beautifully:

The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings aren’t fantasies because they feature dragons, elves and talking trees. They’re fantasies because they mythologise human history, ignoring the brutality and oppression that were part and parcel of a world ruled by men with swords.

But he's not mythologizing human history. He's writing a story that has nothing to do with the rules of human history (human behavior, yes, but that's not the same as human history). When you read Lord of the Rings, you aren't supposed to be looking for a blueprint or guidelines or theses on to how to study history, how to run a kingdom, or how to solve some kind of geopolitical issue of the day. (You're supposed to be looking for personal courage, a sense of hope amid darkness, and other personal advantages.) 

These different expectations lead to a different--a significantly different--suspension of disbelief. It would be self-defeating to approach a fantasy in the same way you'd approach a historical fiction because the different expectations and different rules lead to a significantly different disbelief that needs to be suspended. 

Suspensions of Disbelief in Fairy Tales

I know I spent the last section waffling on about fantasy and Lord of the Rings, but the genre is very closely connected to fairy tales. I remember reading one paper (I can't find it now--if I find it later, I'll link to it) that struggled to describe the difference between fairy tales and fantasy stories in any meaningful way. One thing that both of them have in common, to be sure, is that they do not have practical how-to's or realistic expectations of rulers--or even realistic depictions of the world. 

One absolutely classic example of a fairy tale with expectations so wholly and completely at odds with our world is The Goose Girl, which, in summary, is about a servant usurping her mistress's place as a princess. The princess, because she is a princess, is good and kind and gentle, while the servant, because she is a usurper, is bad. But again, in a fairy tale, this is part and parcel of the genre. The good people are rewarded for being good by becoming princesses or simply being born princes or princesses; the rest of the fairy tale world is in order when everyone else respects them for their goodness and follows them and is loyal to them accordingly. There is also an arranged marriage in this story, which still leads to everyone living happily ever after because it is what is supposed to be. 

These are concepts that us modern post-Enlightenment readers would never accept, if anyone ever suggested letting them become a reality. However, we aren't supposed to view those details as the real point--the real point, which we are supposed to take out of the story and share in our world, is that goodness and patience will be rewarded, while liars will be found out and discredited. 

Granted, Goose Girl came from a time period with different expectations of how countries were meant to be governed. (Wikipedia says the Brothers Grimm published their first anthology in 1812. That is certainly after the Enlightenment, and after serfdom's decline in England and France, so it's possible the people who told them that story didn't hold to those values; and even if they did, I cannot possibly imagine that people back then were stupid enough to think that all rightful princesses were also good princesses. Nonetheless, the story comes from Germany and not England or France, and it was told by people who weren't necessarily part of philosophical and political revolutions inspired by the Enlightenment as early as 1812, and Wikipedia is still Wikipedia, so...) Let's instead look at a modern fairy tale, and turn our attention to Disney. 

The easy option here is Cinderella. (The good one.) I know it gets a lot of flack for having the "love-at-first-sight" business, enhanced by a musical number, even, but in a way, that doesn't really matter. The prince has no character because he isn't a character--he is a reward. You're not supposed to watch it and think that it's a commentary on healthy relationships; you're supposed to watch it and recognize that the main character was good (even when people around her were bad), and kind, and pleasant, and she was rewarded for those things. Totally illogical and unwise for a modern young adult reader looking for a husband or wife, but that isn't what you watch the movie for. 

The remake ignored that, and tried to be more logical and realistic. And we all know how that turned out. Yuck. (And don't even get me started on the other remakes.)

The point is, part of the suspension of disbelief in a fairy tale is a suspension of some logic and a lot of cynicism about people in power. 

Suspension of Disbelief in Historical Fiction

Historical fiction is supposed to represent and portray the particular struggles a certain group of people at a certain time faced. That means people need to behave in ways that are logical and influenced by their time, reflect common sense, and generally need to be explained in terms of how to navigate specific, real-world problems. 

Anyone who's ever studied history knows that history is a deeply cynical topic, for two reasons. First, there are a lot of scenarios where there really are no good guys. No horses in the race. Things don't change like we want them to (French and Mexican Revolutions come to mind), rightful kings are like John Softsword or Edward II of Caernarfon or (good grief!) Richard II, and honorable people frequently find themselves between two bad choices. Heroes have fatal (and often disgusting) flaws, and rulers who start off strong and good do not end that way. 

That story in fairy tales--about the "rightful king" being on his throne--is, in real life, often used as a justification and defense of awful tyranny, and rarely used in support of real justice and fairness. 

Not all of history is like that--Alfred the Great, the English barons and the Magna Carta, and the life of George Washington all stand out, and there must be others (that I can't think of just now because it's late at night)--but so often you hear about "heroes" and "the Great's" of history being horrific people who did brutal things to achieve their goals.

Part of what makes fairy tales fairy tales is the idea of all things lining up the way they are supposed to, but a study of history shows that that rarely happens. Suddenly, when you're forced to choose between one king or another king, one side or another in a war, you need to have as many facts as possible. You need to consider the logical outcome of either side. You need to know the policies, the actions, the belief in legality and individual rights. This information helped lead people to support Henry of Bolingbroke instead of Richard II, or Edward of York instead of Henry VI, or Henry Tudor instead of Richard III. And even then, was Richard III really a worse king than Henry Tudor? He probably murdered his nephews, but as far as his subjects were concerned, was he any worse than Henry Tudor? And after all, the Tudors gave additional power to the dreaded Star Courts. But even the story of the Star Courts is a convoluted story, because at the beginning, they were popular and were expedient ways to dispense justice, but over time became tools of oppression.

These are questions that just don't come up in fairy tales, but must come up when studying history. A historical fiction novel that doesn't address these moral dilemmas of how people in power behave (kings or whatever local power happens to be relevant to the story) is not believable.

So, what belief do you suspend when reading historical fiction?

Someone (I've no idea who said it first) once said that studying history is like visiting a foreign country. When you visit a foreign country, you leave your own cultural expectations behind (to the best of your ability) and expect to encounter the new country's customs. History--and, by extension, historical fiction--means recognizing that the characters will have different expectations, different mores, and different reactions to events because they are colored by their times and culture. 

To some extent, that is similar to a fairy tale, in that it doesn't follow your rules. However, it follows someone's rules, someone who was real and really there. In the case of the aforementioned kings, a proper historical fiction would portray the expectations of kings at that time, demonstrate why Richard III did not meet them, and why Henry Tudor did, bad royal lineage and all. A good king in a fairy tale, if his role as king is discussed at all, is just good and kind and not selfish; a good king in history is far more complex, and sometimes a person can be a good king but be a very bad man. 

Can you see why I'm nervous about combining these two genres?

A Word on Fantasy and Reality...

I can already hear my mom's chastisement, so I'm going to put this in here:

• Of course there are good people in history, and even good people in power. My only comment is that it is not common. Personally, I would like to see historical fiction focus on those good people (Alfred, Washington, etc.), or, at the very least, when you have a bad person in history, portray them as bad and as something to be avoided. But this is one of those concepts that deserves its own blog post. 
• Both fantasy and fairy tales reflect reality, which is why I used the phrase "real life" instead of "reality" in my paragraph (pedantic, but I'm tired and that's the best I can do just now). Fantasy and fairy tales reflect values, emotions, and (especially according to Tolkien), desires. However, the connection between fantasy and reality is extremely complex and runs too far afield for this blog post. If readers want, I'll expound on this concept too, but Tolkien already has, and I have nothing to add to the master. Just read Tolkien's essay, or a summary and analysis of it here. 

Oh, look at that. It didn't take me a couple of months. It only took me two weeks.