The Politics of Fairyland: Neil Gaiman and the Enchantments of Anti-Bildungsroman. Issue 5 (19th October 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lee, Derek
• Is Part Of: Critique. Volume 57:Issue 5(2016)
• Page Start: 552
• Page End: 564
• Publication Date: 2016-10-19
• Subjects: Bildungsroman -- consciousness -- enchantment -- fantasy -- Neil Gaiman; Fiction -- 20th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Letterkunde; Engels; Electronic journals; 809.304
• DOI: 10.1080/00111619.2016.1138444
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0011-1619

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This study argues that Neil Gaiman's recent fictions mark a sharp pivot in contemporary fantasy discourse by reinterpreting escapism through the ethics of enchantment. While Marxist criticism has long disparaged fantasy for its anti-political aesthetics, Coraline and The Ocean at the End of the Lane subvert this notion by fusing the formal structures of the bildungsroman and the fairy tale to develop a new politics of self and society. By employing the theories of Jane Bennett, I analyze how Gaiman develops the fantasy anti-bildungsroman as the "novel of enchantment" in response to the dominant "novel of disenchantment" that is the realist bildungsroman, a generic innovation that reconsiders both humanity's relationship with capitalist society and the role of fantasy in contemporary life. In particular, I examine Gaiman's use of "parallel consciousness" as a formal technique operating as a new mode of materialist phenomenology.