Put this into the “I wish I’d read it before writing Chapter 2 of my book” file:
“There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as glass, strong as iron, that hangs forever between the world of magic and the world that seems to us to be real. And when once people have found the little weak spots in that curtain which are marked by magic rings, and amulets, and the like, almost anything may happen.” ~ Edith Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle, Chapter IX
I’m betting a few different connections can be made between this statement and some of our favorite stories. Some have already noted the Tolkien parallel with the magic ring. A few paragraphs after this one, a statement was made that struck me as something that could come right out of The Lord of the Rings:
“I haven’t done anything with the ring yet,” Kathleen said.
“I shouldn’t think you’d want to when you see the sorts of things it does with you,” said Gerald.
Remember also how Uncle Andrew found the way into Narnia and other magical worlds: magic rings. Nesbit’s influence on Lewis is well-documented. In “The Aunt and Amabel,” young Amabel finds a magical world through a wardrobe in a spare room. That should sound familiar. Back to this in a moment.
Two things are noteworthy as far as Harry Potter goes:
First, this “curtain” between two worlds to which Nesbit refers fits, thematically, Rowling’s work, as we discussed a couple days ago when exploring the magical train parallels between Rowling and Nesbit. Now, watch these themes all come brilliantly together, and how the symbols all communicate the same thing. From “The Aunt and Amabel,” as Amabel is exploring the Spare Room:
When Amabel had sniffed at both bottles and looked in all the pots, which were quite clean and empty except for a pearl button and two pins in one of them, she took up the A.B.C. again to look for Whitby, where her godmother lived. And it was then that she saw the extraordinary name ‘Whereyouwantogoto.’ This was odd – but the name of the station from which it started was still more extraordinary, for it was not Euston or Cannon Street or Marylebone.
The name of the station was ‘Bigwardrobeinspareroom.’ And below this name, really quite unusual for a station, Amabel read in small letters:
‘Single fares strictly forbidden. Return tickets No Class Nuppence. Trains leave Bigwardrobeinspareroom all the time.’
And under that in still smaller letters-
You had better go now.’
Here, it’s a train station in the wardrobe; trains leave from there. In The Enchanted Castle, it’s a magic ring. In the Narnia books, it’s a wardrobe in one book, a train station in another, and magic rings in another (along with a painting and a schoolyard in others). In Harry Potter, it’s a train station, and a veil between death and life.
The second thing to note about Nesbit’s use of magic and the interaction of magic with our own world is that she’s not terribly optimistic about magic itself, one would think. In Five Children and It, the children are granted a wish per day from the Psammead, but they’re never able to wish wisely, and all their wishes go wrong. In The Enchanted Castle, the ring becomes a wishing-ring, and the same lesson is learned. Kathleen says, “I think magic things are spiteful. They just enjoy getting you into tight places.”
This is the Kathleen who, just a moment earlier, said, “I wouldn’t do things like that [getting into tight spots!] if I were wishing with it.” Sounds a lot like everyone who wanted to hold the Ring in Tolkien’s books. Good intentions, but the magic takes over.
Rowling was demonstrating something similar. Dumbledore’s wise words are key to this lesson: “Humans have a knack for choosing precisely the things that are worst for them.” Magical power becomes a serious temptation for those human beings. Rowling said that she was trying to “subvert the genre” of fantasy:
“I was trying to subvert the genre,” Rowling explains bluntly. “Harry goes off into this magical world, and is it any better than the world he’s left? Only because he meets nicer people. Magic does not make his world better significantly. The relationships make his world better. Magic in many ways complicates his life.”
Of course, this is hardly genre-subverting; we just saw the same things in Nesbit, Lewis, and Tolkien. While she subverts the genre in many other important ways, Rowling stands in the great tradition of imaginative fiction here, wherein the great themes of the Great Books are the real power, not the magic itself.
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{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent post, Travis ! That needs some churning over….
Interesting post Travis. You can see this motif even carrying through in modern fantasy incarnations like Del Toro’s works (Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth) and also Stardust–the idea that a magical world is there, just beyond a barrier. This makes me think a lot about some things I’ve been learning through the teachings of N.T. Wright about the biblical understanding of heaven and earth. He talks about this in “Simply Christian”. Basically he talked about the complex and interconnected relationship between the earthly and heavenly realities, and how in biblical history various places and people have served as various points of interconnection (e.g the Temple as the place of God’s dwelling with his people). Perhaps there is a parallel here?
thebardling, yes, absolutely! N.T. Wright’s heaven and earth concept is what I always think of when I’m pondering the Faerie/Primary World borders that are constructed in imaginative fiction.
MacDonald’s great with this, too – like in Phantastes, when FairyLand opesn right up in the protagonist’s room, and in The Golden Key, where the young boy lives right on the edge of FairyLand (which is, by the way, represented by a Forest, which is another powerful symbol/realm often employed to communicate the same theme).
A lot to think about, as Victoria says.
About the curtain, about how authors are influenced by other authors – as well as mythology and legends, and about the role of magic.
I’ll start with how authors influence each other.
I Googled The Aunt and Amabel and the first thing the search engine spat out was this, from the site http://www.nndb.com/people/238/000044106/
But perhaps Lewis’s most famous Christian-influenced fiction was his seven part series, The Chronicles of Narnia. The work was inspired in part by Lewis’s real stint as a host for young English refugees. Fleeing Nazi bombing raids on their city, a group of children spent a long period at his home, The Kilns, and one in particular liked to pretend about a wardrobe having a secret back entrance. Lewis was charmed by the idea, which also called to mind the magic wardrobe in Edith Nesbit’s The Aunt and Anabel, a tale he’d loved as a boy. In Lewis’s iteration the wardrobe evolved into a magic portal to the land of Narnia, where four refugee children learn compassion, courage, faith, and loyalty as they battle the White Witch and befriend a Christ-like lion named Aslan.
Sounds like Lewis directly borrowed from Nesbit – and used her idea to build some pretty powerful ideas and imagery of his own.
Nesbit’s magic ring also seems pretty influential in the genesis of Tolkien’s One Ring. The ring in Enchanted Castle confers invisibility, is strongly coveted, and has unforseen but unfortunate side effects. The only good thing to do with it, it turns out, is to wish it out of existence. So far, almost an exact match with the One Ring.
So I decided to Google magic rings. Lots of magic rings in legend and mythology. Norse legend came up with Andvarinaut, Andvar’s ring which made gold. When Loki stole it from him, Andvar cursed the ring so that it brought destruction to its owner. Andvarinaut also seems to be the ring that Wagner used in his Ring operas. Because T0lkien was interested in Nordic mythology, I used to think that that’s where he got the idea for his ring from. But there’s more. There is also King Solomon’s ring (aka Seal of Solomon) which confers power on the wearer to command demons/genies and to speak with animals. That’s very similar to Aladdin’s ring in Thousand and One Nights. Not much of a link there. But then we come to Plato, who writes about the Ring of Gyges, which confers upon the wearer the power of – invisibility. Plato uses the ring to talk about moral behaviour – not too much of a stretch there.
I would expect Tolkien to be aware of all of these stories. Perhaps Nesbit was, as well. Did Tolkien borrow from Nesbit? Did they both borrow from Plato? There’s a thesis in there – or at least a publishable paper .
I find JKR’s statement that she’s trying to subvert the genre a little disingenuous. A lot disingenuous, actually. OK, so magic isn’t the answer to all problems, and magic doesn’t make the world better, people and relationships are more important. But it was magic which sold 400 million plus copies of the HP books. It’s magic which makes the books fascinating, intriguing, and fun. Take away the magic and you still have the bones of a strong story: good versus evil, love and friendship, self-sacrifice, death and resurrection. But it would be difficult – impossible? – to tell that story effectively in modern terms and reach one thousandth part of the audience that HP got. You’d have to go metaphorical and lose a lot of people in the process.
Which brings me, unwittingly, to one of Travis’ recent hobby horses: the role of fantasy and imagination in conveying profound human truths. Magic allowed JKR to spin a tale with strong emotional and spiritual impact. It allowed her to bring in a clearly Christian message under the radar of the British reading public who are resistant to such things. It allowed her – forgive me all Lewis lovers but I want to use this line one last time – to out-allegory Lewis.
Don’t be underestimating magic.
Rocker, the line is great assuming that what Lewis was doing was allegory & also what Rowling was doing was allegory. While Narnia may be pseudo-allegorical, there’s no way HP is allegorical, so Rowling didn’t out do Lewis there. And frankly, I don’t really like playing them off against each other. I kind of hold Rowling to have joined that pantheon of great fantasy writers who were doing more than just writing fantasy. Amongst such people there can be no talk of outdoing.
I think you’re both right. Strictly speaking, “allegory” doesn’t fit what either Lewis or Rowling did. But I think there’s a looser way to use the term “allegory” which is stronger than “parable” but not as strong as the strict definition of allegory.
For example, I think the stories contain political “allegory,” but I don’t think there’s a direct one-to-one, this=that correspondence at all points.
Maybe we could call it “paragory” or “allable.”
I think it would be neat if The Hogshead would be able to contribute a new term to literary analysis. That would be quite the compliment!
Googled metaphor. Found out it’s stronger than analogy and that allegory, catchresis and parable are considered subsets of metaphor.
Since the word allegory stirs up strong emotions, and since both Lewis and Tolkien disliked it and rejected it for reasons unknown to me, but possibly because they saw the word as reductionistic, I would not be opposed to using another term.
I am opposed, however, to constructing a neologism, when there are already so many words which are available for conveying the meaning of a story which alludes to or conveys a connection to larger issues. I’d personally go with metaphor.
But all this is beside the point I wanted to make: magic is an effective device which allows the author to make a point about those larger issues and thus should not be underestimated.
Great post, Travis! I’ve read about Lewis’ debt to Nesbit, but have never read The Enchanted Castle (it’s going on the TBR list now). It’s clear from the extracts you’ve quoted that the debt is obvious, which somehow doesn’t surprise me…I think Lewis would have no problem finding delight in paying homage to his literary antecedents while moving/deepening things in his own direction.
The “don’t mess with magic theme” does seem strong across the board of imaginative literature. Sometimes it takes on ominous overtones, and other times the overtones are more humorous. One of things I love about Lewis’ development of the character of Uncle Andrew in MN is his ability to combine those effects. Uncle Andrew is such a pathetic character: the humor comes through his pomposity about magic and the ways he gets in over his head. But the *results* of this cluelessness and blatant misunderstanding of the real powers of magic are anything but funny. Sometimes ignorance can be sinister. Umbridge’s character works on similar kinds of levels for me.
Five Children and It is the only Nesbit I’ve read. She does the “wishes gone wrong” theme so well in that book…it would be fun to trace that through other literature too, such as Edgar Eager’s Half-Magic which I think owes a great debt to Five Children and It. It’s fun to trace the family tree of imaginative literature!
Back to the point of Travis’ article, this not terribly optimistic view of magic is quite important. Both in Lewis & Tolkien one sees quite clearly that magic is best which is in accord with the natural order of the world. As John puts it in his books, that which “sings along with the Great Song of the world.” And both Narnia & Middle Earth are formed through singing.
In Middle Earth, magic, for lack of a better word, is best when it follows Eru’s will. When the Valar at the creation of Middle Earth sing along Eru’s great theme all is well. It’s only when Morgoth tries inserting his own themes that things go wrong. And also magic that sings along with the created order is by nature not very flashy or very awe inspiring, because its intent is not to dominate or to create things outside of what is already created.
When I used to play D&D back in the ’80’s, a lot of people were bored with LOTR because nobody was running around flinging fireballs around at each other or calling down lightning or doing spectacular feats of magic, except maybe the bad guys. Of course, they were upset because true magic fits into the ordered world & doesn’t seek to work outside of that order. Thus, the Wizards when sent to Middle Earth by the Valar were forbidden to directly oppose Sauron might to might, because such a use was outside of the intended purpose of magic & it led to worse problems. And so it’s very low key.
And I think this plays into the works of Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling, Nesbit et al, in that their use of magic as a literary device plays into supporting the created order of what God has intended, whether they’re consciously doing this or not. As such, their magic is quite different from the magic that some Christians rightly fear, which seeks to achieve power outside of the created order & by calling on evil powers. Their magic, Tolkien et al, is actually used to point people towards the one, true Great Magic.
Does any of that make sense? I kind of tend to think I was just rambling on some thoughts I had.
revgeorge, that was a great ramble, and it’s similar to what I was trying to get at in Chapter 4 – evil as dehumanization, the deliberate acting out of accordance with created intent. I think you’re right on the mark.
Now, I should clarify that I disagree with Villaluz’s contention that the baddies in HP are calling on “evil powers.” I think John Granger is right on this one, that no magic in HP is invocational.
But what Rowling is getting at in her constant theme that Death is natural, that pain is natural to the human condition, and that the attempt to rid oneself of these things at the expense of others by magic is what makes it dark, is similar thematically to what you’re getting at.
The only magic that really makes any lasting difference is the one common to magical and muggle people – Love.
Does Villaluz contend that about the magic in HP? That it’s calling upon evil powers? If so, she’s really missed the boat & that’s a major flaw in her book right there, in addition to the poor writing style. I still haven’t gotten beyond page 50 in it.
You also said, “But what Rowling is getting at in her constant theme that Death is natural, that pain is natural to the human condition, and that the attempt to rid oneself of these things at the expense of others by magic is what makes it dark, is similar thematically to what you’re getting at.”
Very right, although I would disagree with Rowling that death & pain are natural, if that’s what she’s intending to say, but everything else is right on. That one cannot avoid death or pain or attempt to defeat them by main force. But they can be conquered & in HP that conquering takes place through love, particularly self-sacrificial love. That’s the key.
I’m glad my ramblings made some sense & fit in with the theme. I’ve been listening to LOTR again & thinking also about The Silmarillion too. The whole history of the War of the Silmarils plays into this theme, that the elves go outside of the Valar’s created order when they attempt of their own strength to wage war against Morgoth & regain the Silmarils. And what results is a long losing battle, not without victories & great deeds & great goodness but also overshadowed by the coming defeat & bitter sorrows & very evil deeds. And what results in the end after the elves’ defeat is the Valar intervening & overthrowing Morgoth but which also results in the breaking & changing of the world.
And in the LOTR the difference is clearly shown between trying to oppose Sauron by direct force or through his own weapons & instead simply working against Sauron’s plans & seeking to undo Sauron’s misuse of the created order through the destruction of the Ring. The former generally doesn’t work out well & usually leads to the downfall of those attempting to do so, i.e. Saruman, Denethor, & Boromir, while the latter is the way to the defeat of Sauron & it is the right way to go even if Sauron triumphs because those opposing him would’ve have followed the way of the created order & in that there is no true defeat, as Sam remembers in Mordor when he sees the stars sparkling high above the darkness & knows they will outlast the darkness of Sauron.
I should clarify that I read that Villaluz made that argument. I haven’t actually read the argument in the book.
Awhile back I found this web page, which tabulates possible Nesbit influences on Lewis, and includes links to the Nesbit books in question. Also, this page has a fuller list of links to Nesbit e-texts.
Travis said, “I should clarify that I read that Villaluz made that argument. I haven’t actually read the argument in the book.”
Ah, come on, Travis! As the semi-professional HP expert on this site, I expect you to slog through Villaluz’s book, no matter how painful it might be or mentally damaging.
I never got the impression from the books that the magic that the bad guys do is different from the magic used by the good guys. If anything, I’d say that Rowling fights against that notion. For instance, the spell Hermione performs on the DA coins is compared to one used by Voldemort. Then there’s the argument Hermione makes against Umbridge’s textbook.
Slinkhard writes that ‘counterjinx’ is the name people give their jinxes when they want them to sound more acceptable, while Hermione argues that jinxes can be useful when used defensively. Slinkhard wants to declare all jinxes bad, while Hermione says that they can be good if used for a good purpose. Even the Unforgivable Curses seem to support this idea. It’s clear that these curses are banned because no end should be worth torturing another human or depriving another human of life or freedom. But the tone of the book doesn’t suggest that there’s anything wrong with Moody using them on the spider, or even using them on students in order to teach them to better defend themselves.
Travis, thanks for pointing out all the connections. I’ve only read Five Children and It, so it looks like I need to read some more by Nesbit.
Red Rocker, you get more informative results when you google than I do, so thanks for all the info. Mataphore does seem to be the appropriate word, though I kind of like the sound of paragory.
But in reading through the comments, the name Villaluz was mentioned. I seemed to have missed something, but who is that? When I googled that name all I found was a soccer player, and I don’t see any tie in with HP.
Pat
Pat,
Nancy Solon Villaluz, “Does Harry Potter Tickle Sleeping Dragons?” Priced at a ridiculous $25 on Amazon. I’ve only managed to get fifty pages into it; probably the same for Travis. She might have some interesting things to say but her prose drives me insane. It’s painful for me to try to push through it. But I admit that might not be everyone’s reaction. Most of the reviews on Amazon are practically sycophatic. The one really excellent review by inked, who posts over at Hogpro’s, seems to have been taken down.
Revgeorge, sorry to hear that about Villaluz. Thought maybe I’d try to find a library with her book and to get a different perspective on the series. But if you’re having problems slogging through, I’m scared how I could ever get through it.
Brent, I’d just qualify my remarks a bit. Don’t give up on the Villlaluz book yet, but also don’t buy it, if at all possible, before you read it. After all, I have only gotten through 50 pages. It’s possible it does pick up. And the reason I called the reviews on her book sycophantic is not because they’re positive or even glowing; it’s that they ignore what is obviously a problem with the book & off putting to people & that is Villaluz’s prose.
I, too, thought about Tolkien when I read Travis’ post.
Tolkien’s work has been a little different from other’s works in that the stories are not about getting into a different world but stories of this world in another age. And it is this world that has gone through radical changes. I think I recall in the Silmarillion somewhere that the world was once straight but now all ways are bent. Once Faerie and our world were the same world but now Faerie is unreachable by mortals. But Faerie somethimes touches our world and our myths were once part of everyday life.
” ‘Halflings!’ laughed the rider that stood beside Eomer. ‘Halflings! But they are only a little people in old songs and children’s tales out of the North. Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?’
‘A man may do both,’ said Aragorn. ‘For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!’ ”
Eomer- ” ‘It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. Elf and Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; and folk speak with the Lady of the Wood and yet live; and the sword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the fathers of our fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times?’
‘As he has ever judged,’ said Aragorn. ‘Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another thing among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.’ ”
Tolkien’s works are littered with the importance of fairytales and the fairytales of fairytales.
Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood is an interesting exploration of the location and source of our world’s mythical figures and how when their world becomes threatened it is someone from our world who plays the part of mythic hero… Sounds a bit to much like Neverending Story… but good.
I also think it’s a bit rich of Rowling to say she was trying to subvert the genre. If she really thinks that she has had a very limited exposure to her chosen genre. The corrupting nature of power is an often explored theme in fantasy. I read Megan Lindholm (AKA Robin Hobb) in an interview where she said that her Farseer Trilogy (Assassin series) was completely a study of the negative trade-off for power.
As for magic rings-
‘Hey! Come Frodo, There! Where be you a-going? Old Tom Bombadil’s not as blind as that yet. Take off your golden ring! Your hand’s more fair without it…’
Gandalf ‘A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off trecherously, but its keeper never abandons it.’ …Gollum…’called the Ring his “birthday present”, and he stuck to that. He said it came from his grandmother, who had lots of beautiful things of that kind. A rediculous story. I have no doubt that Smeagol’s grandmother was a matriarch, a great person in her way, but to talk of her posessing many Elven-rings was absurd and as for giving them away, it was a lie.’
Magic rings = Corruption, power and peril all in the one package. Reminds me of the Perivel ring withering Dumbledore’s hand when he exorcised the Voldemort spirit shard from it.
Excellent comments and quotes, Matthew.
I also think it’s a bit rich of Rowling to say she was trying to subvert the genre. If she really thinks that she has had a very limited exposure to her chosen genre.
And that’s precisely it. She’s admitted she hasn’t read much in the genre, wasn’t intending to write in that genre, and didn’t realize she was writing in it till she had written a bunch.
The real “subversion” going on is her translating the Great Books themes into a fantasy world and blending them with postmodern concerns into several other genres. Her genre-blending, while not unique to her, is probably not to the liking of fantasy-genre purists.
Enjoyed your discussion of the larger themes in HP. For the last 5 or so years, I have been re-reading the classics (Narnia, Hobbit, LOTR, Silmarillion, Ring of the Nieblung, etc.) and have literally re-read the entire HP series about 10 times…maybe a little obsessive-compulsive, I admit…first for story, second for character development, third for plot lines, nuances, etc. and I have to say, the HP series is so well-constructed it actually holds this level of interest, even though some people I know think I am crazy for reading any book more than once (but I consider these people illiterate, so there you go). Of course I have moved on, since my reading habit has become a bit insatiable recently. Most recently, the Twilight series several times over and now historical-fiction: Philippa Gregory’s exploration of Tudor England and Nicole Galland’s work on the Crusades are my diet.
My main interest is these works is more anthropological (I am a post-modernist archaeologist of Middle Eastern antiquity…just imagine how poor I am) and appreciate how these works through using mythological themes (mythemes, see Levi-Strauss) or constructed historical themes, reflect back to the reader very tangible messages that are relevant to us through their use of symbolism (allegory or parable, your choice but look up “meme”, see Roland Barthes). It is really a larger theme of our human tendency to reify the intangible. I am quite happy that we have a history of writing stories in this genre, because they all contribute to a larger store of human knowledge about ourselves and our present (physical and spiritual) condition.
Thanks for your contributions…one critique though, since this is kind of a literary thread, could you guys put some effort into your spelling??