Description
Book Synopsis“The books are true while reality is lying…” Championing the popular Fantasy genre on the same terms as its readers, Rayment casts a critical eye over the substance and methods of political critique in the Fantasy novels of Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman and China Miéville. Ranging across subjects as diverse as exquisite fundamentalism and revolutionary trains, encountering pervert-priests, dwarf hermaphrodites and sex-scarred lovers and pondering the homicidal tendencies of fairy tales and opera, Fantasy, Politics, Postmodernity develops a theoretically wide-ranging and illuminating account of how the novels of these writers do and do not sustain politically insightful critique of the real world, while bringing intellectual and ethical concerns to bear on the popular Fantasy form.
Trade ReviewA short video-interview with Andrew Rayment: "Fantasy, Politics, Postmodernity shows how Fantasy makes reality look more real than reality ever does". .
Table of ContentsPart I – The Politics of (In)Sight Introduction: Fantasy Sight: ‘Real Being’ One: Metaphor and Domain Maps: Parallax Sight Two: From Mind to Real: Ontological Sight Three: Theory, Fantastic Beings, Space: ‘Purificational’ Sight Four: Seeing Visions: Experimental Sight Five: Dwarfs, Hermaphrodites, Lovers: Fantastic Sex Part II – The Politics of Blindness Six: A Plague of Punctum: Postmodern Excess Conclusion: “What It Seems It Is...” (Is a World of Seeming) Bibliography Index
