by Fraser Hibbitt for this Carl Kruse Blog
Magic in fiction appeals easily to a certain duality that exists within man. He scorns it when he thinks there are inconsistencies, or when it seems to come out of nowhere and save the day, Deux Ex Machina-like. He wonders in awe at it, is humbled by it when it seems like the stars, or the inapproachable question of the birth of the universe. He gets a kick out of his clever criticisms, raises himself above magic by his tactful remembrance of events; he is elated when the mystery burns before his eyes, and he can rest with that bittersweet feeling of never fully comprehending – only, it leads him to nostalgia, to want to inhabit the magic again.
Magic done well plays on these two veins: the lively will to understand, critique, and use reality, and a need to be brought like a babe before the mystery of existence, thrilled by its outstanding excesses. In fiction, using magic makes you a writer of fantasy although something similar can be said about writing in general. William James tells an anecdote in an essay called ‘On a certain blindness in human beings’ of an American traveller ‘who had just come into possessions of a stray copy of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and was devouring it column by column. When he got through, they [the local Africans] offered him a high price for the mysterious object; and, being asked for what they wanted it, they said: “for an eye medicine” – that being the only reason they could conceive of for the protracted bath which he had given his eyes upon its surface’. But this is a needless sidetrack.
As soon as the magic lets itself be known this duality is employed. Through fiction, the method of employment is as varied as you like, but the writer must balance these dual veins. In the movie Birdman, an otherwise realistic movie, the finale implies that the director of the play (in the narrative), flies out of the window. The sudden burst of magic is risky, but nevertheless, is here effective. It would be terrible if this piece of magic had been used to make everything better; here, it only gives an ambiguity that casts its shadow on the rest of the narrative. An extreme example when compared with the general fantasy genre, but it is merely to show that magic can make or break a narrative. The more it is used, the less potency it has to cause havoc on the narrative; not that it ever escapes this role of narrative insulation.
Whether magic should have strict rules probably depends on the writer. You can play fast and loose with magic, but you cannot play similarly with narrative; applying magic over the wounds of a narrative won’t heal it. If there are rules, the reader learns along – however frustrating that may be when they feel they could solve the issues given their knowledge. If the rules are haphazard, then the reader is as confused as the characters – equally frustrating at times; it’s either character-based (stricter rules; how the character uses their knowledge and comes up against things not yet known) or world-based (like the position we find ourselves in).
A writer is somehow granted a free range with magic. These preternatural powers are readily accepted by the reader, they only say and think: “fine, fine, that’s fine”; The successful fantasist gives magic a reader can grasp outside of the book, not that it has any power in the literal sense; I’m sure there are arguments for the psychological: fantasy usually revolves around the fairy tale narrative: the light and dark, and the strangeness of innocence lost. All that is, to my mind, a higher use of magic, and a fantasist stumbles upon it with foreknowledge or not; mere enchantment is already floundering on the border to this world.
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Contact: carl AT carlkruse DOT com
Other articles by Fraser include On the Consolation of Psychedelics, Google Glass, and the James Webb Telescope.
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