Subvertinq mythopoeic fantasy: Miyuki Miyabe's The Book of Heroes

All stories are the sin of their weaver. The Lament of the King in Yellow AS MAREK OZIEWICZ OBSERVES, THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT among scholars today that Tolkien and Lewis started new genre especially steeped in myth (65). This genre, perhaps most adequately referred to as secondary world (1) has become one of the most popular types of fantastic writing, at the same time playing an essential role in what is sometimes described as twentieth century mythological revival or twentieth-century rehabilitation of myth. (2) The mythological affiliations of fantasy as well as the cultural, social, psychological, and ideological significance of the phenomenon has been extensively discussed by numerous researchers and critics. We might mention here, by way of example, inspiring discussions of the presence and function of mythic structures in particular fantasy texts (notably those by J.R.R. Tolkien or Ursula K. Le Guin, who have become universally regarded as archetypal mythopoeic fantasy writers) by Jeanne M. Walker, Tom Shippey, Pauline Archell-Thompson, Milena Bianga, or Micha} Stawicki, and also more synthetic and theoretical treatments of mythopoeic fantasy as whole provided by Oziewicz (3) or Le Guin herself. (4) The present article ventures to discuss recent novel by the Japanese writer Miyuki Miyabe, The Book of Heroes (published in English in 2009). This interesting work, while retaining the core assumptions of mythopoeic fantasy, at the same time considerably breaches or actually subverts its semantic and ideological patterns. My subsequent discussion will be divided into two principal parts. In the following section I will attempt to specify my understanding of mythopoeic fantasy and summarize its predominating conventions and meanings. In the next section I will discuss how these paradigms are transformed in Miyabe's novel. Mythopoeic Fantasy Although it might be difficult to find fantasy book completely devoid of some mythic elements, it is, on the other hand, by no means justifiable to qualify all books of the genre as mythopoeic. In the present section I will try to delimit mythopoeic fantasy in the true sense and distinguish it from numerous works in which mythic elements are applied more superficially. In the first place it might be useful to draw line between what I have approximated in another publication as the and the structural mythopoeia (Trebicki, Mythic Elements 32). In the case of episodic mythopoeia, mythic motifs appear either with low intensity or in way that is relatively fragmented and isolated. They constitute purely scenographic element or simply inform the plot. By way of example, we can mention here numerous contemporary fantasy works, (5) set in our world, in which the textual reality has been enriched by various fantastical elements, usually borrowed from particular mythologies or folk traditions. Thus, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys (2005) includes frequent references to African myths and legends. The protagonists of The Art of Arrow Cutting (1997) by Stephen Dedman have to fight demons of traditional Japanese mythology. Creatures of Irish mythology invade ordinary reality in War for the Oaks (2001) by Emma Bull or The Wild Reel (2004) by Paul Brandon. In all those texts the primary function of the mythic motifs is to evoke sense of wonder in the reader or make the plot more attractive. The texts in question offer no complex ontological systems of their own and when they employ the existing ones, they tend to rely on the superficial attractiveness of various mythic elements rather than try to convey their deeper significance and original meanings. They rarely attempt to offer a holistic vision of the universe (Oziewicz 71) or reenact the cosmic struggle between good and evil. They are driven by the conventions of the romance, the detective story or the adventure story rather than by mythical archetypes. …