Back from the Conference on the Fantastic

Haven't caught up on my flist, but I wanted to post a link to this nifty bit of work that I saw before I left and that I haven't seen widely linked. I referred to it several times over the course of the Conference, most particularly in discussion after a paper on the two (authorized) Mandarin Chinese translations of The Lord of the Rings.

Great Expectations, by Dickens Charles

Great Expectations is a novel which has been historically acclaimed as a portrait of the Victorian society of Eng-land, and of the social mobility that was taking place during this time of upheaval. Named for the autocratic monarch of the country at that time, this period was marked by a gradual liberalisation of the native warlords (who began taking on a more political than military role) and of the gender-segregated and caste-based society. The author of the novel, Dickens Charles (Man or Male-person, a common Eng-land name), was one of the most representative writers of Eng-land.

Translation is difficult. Dealing with names in a translated work is one of the most difficult parts--how do you properly convey which names are common (Rachel) and which are exotic (Rivka), which are sexy (Lolita) and which aren't (Dolores)? And dealing with names in a work with as many carefully considered neologisms as Tolkien's oeuvre would be enough to drive one to madness.

A couple of observations from the Conference

1. While thinking of examples for the "Funny Pages: Or, Why Do You Think They Call Them Comic Books?" panel (which went very well, thanks to everyone on it), I tried to remember if there were science fiction or fantasy elements in Richie Rich. One of the points I most wanted to make is that humor comics were among the most successful comics in American history. Given that, the Harvey line seemed like something I wanted to explore. Sure, there's lots of fantasy--Caspar, Hot Stuff, and Wendy the Good Little Witch, of course, and the borderline surreal Little Dot and Little Lotta--but not so much sf. Then I chanced to remember that Richie had a robot maid, Irona. Of course he had a robot maid. If William Gibson is correct that "The future is here; it's just unevenly distributed", then an obvious corollary is that "The richer you are, the further in the future you are."

2. I spent a fair amount of time thinking about sword and sorcery, and other forms of "heroic fantasy" (Leo Grin's essay did come up several times), and I realized something important about its history: sword and sorcery stories, and the forms of heroic fantasy that build on earlier s&s, owe as much to the western as "high" fantasy owes to the fairy-story or gods-and-monsters mythology. Robert E. Howard was deeply steeped in the western, and the format of the Conan stories, of the wandering loner ambivalent hero/rogue going from town to town, comes straight from them. "Beyond the Black River" (op. cit.) is very much a western, with savage Indians painted blue and renamed Picts, and with St. Louis or Kansas City renamed Aquilonia. Conan even eventually becomes governor king, just like in real life.

(Noticing that Conan stories are re-themed stories that Howard couldn't sell to other pulps is hardly original to me; it's well known that the first Conan story, "The Phoenix and the Sword", is a reworked Kull story published posthumously as "By This Axe.. . I Rule!" Less obvious, to the point that I might never have noticed it myself, is that "The Tower of the Elephant" is a classic gangster caper story; the giveaway, as David Drake pointed out to me, is the accomplice parked outside in a getaway chariot.)