[Uncategorized]
The importance of setting in establishing theme
We’re still nattering on about NeoVictorianism and setting over at Lotus Lyceum as well as back in my post of a couple of days ago regarding Victoriana. Gary Wassner raised an issue about why and whether setting mattered to the theme of a fantasy. (Or really, by extension to any book or story.) I said I thought it could matter a lot.
I’ve been noodling with setting since. That’s one of those fundamental auctorial choices that colors an entire narrative. What would Gormenghast be without setting? Or Dune? City of Saints and Madmen? But even stepping away from setting-as-character, I’m increasingly enamored of the notion that setting heavily influences theme as well as character and action.
It’s not that setting dictates theme. As I said earlier, an Old West setting provides a ready opportunity to talk about individuality, because American readers have a whole cluster of assumptions and stereotypes that come standard-issue with that setting. So when Tim Pratt writes The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl (highly recommended, by the way) and sends his character through the Western Door into the Old West, or something very like it, we all see John Ford movies and Larry McMurtry books and half-remembered history about Quantrill’s Raiders and Wyatt Earp. It can be easy, and sometimes appropriate, to use setting as a shorthand. (Not that Tim did this — he is a sophisticated and subtle writer.)
Likewise other examples which have been raised here and over at Lotus Lyceum — subcontinental Indian settings, the Near East, or pre-Columbian America. Each comes with baggage which has to be addressed, either by playing with it or deliberately turning away from it.
So with science fiction, or future fantasy. Mars means one thing (Barsoom, Stan Robinson’s books, Ray Bradbury, the rovers), while Planet X means another. The sheer elegance of Jablokov’s Carve the Sky or the wall-eyed bio-futurism of McLoughlin’s Helix and the Sword are both substantially driven by setting and its superset, world-building.
The more I think about it, the more I think setting does dictate theme. The writer either has to work with or against type. I also submit the causality runs the other way, that in general setting is chosen to suit other story needs, rather than the other way around. (Books like Dune being an obvious exception case.) As I recall, much of Tolkien’s early work centered around developing languages and history long before he really had grasped hold of his story — if this is true (I’m writing this on an airplane, no Google or Wikipedia for me right now), then Middle Earth made Lord of the Rings, not the other way around.
What examples are there of books where the setting runs jarringly counter to or aslant from the theme or story? Nothing leaps to mind as I sit here. Maybe the question is false? If a story is successful, has it validated its own setting?
Later, some thoughts on what fantasy means…
Posted: 10:20 am Thu June 08 2006 |
Share or Bookmark This
Consider adding this to one of the following social bookmarking sites.