Most theories, of course, really don't mean much at all until you try to use them in practice, which is something I haven't yet had much of a chance to do with Rhetorics of Fantasy, but hope to do someday. I like her formulation of the four types of fantasy (portal-quest, immersive, intrusion, liminal), and what they indicate about our ("the reader's") attitude toward the fantastic, especially as regards observation (but then of course I would, as I am obsessed with observation). Mendelsohn has a keen attention to detail and complications (her point that genres work differently in different media, and thus we can't assume what she says is true for novels is also true for Buffy the Vampire Slayer is well taken), and I look forward to digging into her work in more depth at some point.

see http://www.sfsite.com/09b/rf280.htm ( )

You can add up the parts;
you won’t have the sum. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1223512.html

In Rhetorics of Fantasy, Farah Mendlesohn identifies four different ways in which fantasy writers engage with their book (and their readers). First is the portal / quest fantasy, where the hero leaves his or her normality to enter a fantasy world on a heroic journey. Second, the immersive fantasy, which is entirely set within an imagined world. Third, the intrusive fantasy, where the abnormal intrudes into the characters' reality. And fourth, the liminal fantasy, where we are not certain which is which.

These are not absolutes; many books combine writing in more than one of these rhetorical modes (eg The Lord of the Rings begins as a quest and becomes immersive, and I would say even intrusive in the closing section in the Shire; Perdido Street Station is an immersive fantasy into which there is also an intrusion from elsewhere). But Mendlesohn is convincing on the basic point that these are four very different ways of writing the fantastic, which call on writers (and readers) to approach the texts in specific ways. Four long chapters give specific examples for each of the four rhetorical modes; a fifth looks at exceptions to them.

I'm not acquainted with literary theory, and my academic training is in the rather different fields of hard science and history (where the words 'polysemic' and 'phatic' are not often used), so when I read books like this I am not really looking to participate in the intellectual debate that the author may want to have. I am looking for i) a better understanding of books I have already read and ii) for suggestions of books I might read in the future which may appeal to me, and Rhetorics of Fantasy supplied me with plenty of material on both counts (and I'm brewing a livejournal poll based on my reading of it). ( )

This is an academic book and may not be an easy read for non-academics, however I feel it was well worth the effort. Farah Mendlesohn's analysis of different modes of fantasy is insightful and illuminating. ( )