Today's ponderable

[swan_tower]

I'd like to talk about portal fantasies. Or rather, I'd like you to talk about them.

By that term, I mean the stories where people from this world go into another, more fantastical world. Narnia, for example. Once upon a time, these seem to have been more popular; now, not so much. And if I had to guess, I'd say that's at least in part because of the way a lot of them were transparent wish-fulfillment: Protagonist (who is an emotional stand-in for the author, though only in egregious cases a Mary Sue) goes to Magical Land where things are more colorful and interesting than in the real world. And maybe they stay there, maybe they don't.

Talk to me about the portal fantasies you've read. Which ones stick in your mind? What was your response to them, both as a kid and now? Which ones did the wish-fulfillment thing extra transparently, and how so?

(Yes, I actually have a special interest in the bad examples of this genre. In fact, if you approach this entire question as an academic curiosity of the structural sort paired with a authorly eye toward writing a deconstruction -- not a parody -- of the tropes, you'll be on the right track.)

Portal fantasies. Talk to me about 'em. Good, bad, ugly, laughably naive. What's your take?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Hello, I'm Kari (Sperring), new on your f'list: fan and academic.
When I was 8 or 9 I came across a book called The Unicorn Window by Lynette Muir, a British writer who published only a handful of books, for all children. It was Elidor without the hopelessness; Joan Aiken with extra Mark-and-Harriet. The story follows a brother and sister who break a window in a relative's house and find themselves trapped in an alternate world where they must recapture the unicorn they themselves have set free. It charmed me completely, and still does, even though I am now way too old for it. It's my favourite portal fantasy, I think -- the only other one that had the same impact on me at that sort of age as The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
And yet I don't really care for many adult portal fantasies. They never ring true, somehow: their protagonists annoy me and seem always to be somehow patronising the worlds they arrive in. I'm not comfortable in worlds which can only survive through the intervention of magical outsiders. It's too colonial, perhaps even too American for me (I'm British -- technically mostly Welsh, indeed). The imported character -- meant to be my eyes on this new world -- becomes a barrier I resent. Adults, somehow, don't fit in the Otherworld (and that I learnt from C S Lewis, from Uncle Andrew's discomfort in the World Between the Worlds).
edited for typos.

[snickelish.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with your YA/adult divide - a lot of things that bother me in 'adult' portal fantasies are just part of the game in children's versions. I still like the children's fantasy worlds to be consistent and make sense and all those things, but I'll accept conveniences there if there hand-waved prettily enough that I won't accept in adult fantasies.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yes. I demand quality out of my children's fiction, but I don't necessarily demand the same level of grittiness.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I hear you about the colonial (or even American) overtones. As someone else said in this comment thread, it kind of smacks of the Great White Hope.

Of course, not all portal stories are about the outsider protagonist being necessary to save the world. It does seem to be a common reason/justification for the crossing, though.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yes: my example of good practice would be Barbara Hambly, whose displaced protagonists learn and change but don't save. Whereas G G Kay alternately makes me howl with laughter or spit (I'm a Celticist) and as for Thomas Covenant...