Self-contained worlds (was The proximity of the Potterverse)

[Amy Z]

Anne U wrote:

> Now 
> that I'm used to the Potterverse, I find myself feeling impatient 
> toward novels that create self-contained worlds, because I have to 
> take time out from reading them to consult "the map" frequently. I 
> realize that's probably a failing of my own imagination

Not at all--it's a matter of preference.  I find the two experiences 
satisfying in different ways.  It is definitely a thrill to imagine a 
wizarding world overlaid upon the one that is so familiar (even most 
of us who have never seen Charing Cross Road or King's Cross can get 
the general idea and enjoy the juxtaposition).  Self-contained worlds 
provide a different kind of delight:  that of getting to know a new 
country and find it familiar over time even though one has never been 
there.  I have just been reading The Other Wind, the latest Earthsea 
novel by Ursula LeGuin <wave at David for tipping me off to its 
existence>, which has a detailed map.  I loved looking at all the 
island names, imagining little harbors in the deepest coves, and 
noting the towns near mountains that must be full of terrace farms 
and goats, and thinking about what it would be like to live on a tiny 
island where to get to the nearest town you have to get in a boat 
<shudder--I don't do well on boats>.  (I *was* impatient that she 
only includes the main archipelago in her map, though.  I wanted to 
see the Kargish lands.)  There's something really special about 
entering a whole new world--and JKR thinks so too, tipping her cap to 
JRRT for being such a master of world-creation:  "he created a whole 
mythology, an incredible achievement."

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/quickquotes/articles/2001/0301-
comicrelief-staff.htm

But even with books that create a whole mythology, geography, 
history, language, etc., one makes the bridge by the "new world" 
having some similarities to our own.  The bourgeois sensibilities of 
hobbits make them endearing and annoying in exactly the way some 
humans we know are.  With Earthsea, the description of Havnor is 
familiar to anyone who knows cities, seaports, palaces, and human 
nature; reading The Other Wind, I could fit into our world the 
sailors who are superstitious about a wizard passenger who has dark 
nightmares and the children who make games out of gardens and twisted 
streets.  If the world of a scifi or fantasy book weren't anything 
like our world at all, I don't think we could care about the story or 
the characters.

I suppose this all ties in to what people say about scifi/fantasy 
books--that they are "escapist"--and why I don't find them so.  At 
least not the ones I like best.

Amy Z