Too Good for Children - Cathy Butler

It’s a regular irritant. A literary novelist writes a fantasy or science fiction novel, and the reviewers fall over themselves to assure their readers that it isn’t really fantasy or SF. No, this novel (by Margaret Atwood or J. G. Ballard or, now, Kazuo Ishiguro) is taking those formulaic genres’ tired old tropes and subverting them, or ironizing them, or finding a new context for them that changes their meaning entirely. So, Marie Arana, writing in The Washington Post about Ishiguro’s latest, suggests that:

It would be too easy to call what Ishiguro is undertaking ‘fantasy’ or ‘magical realism.’ Critics will summon such phrases to describe this book, but they would be wrong to do so. Such facile labels – suggesting that the author is relying on literary devices pulled from old bags of tricks – have no meaning here. Instead, what we are given in The Buried Giant has the clear ring of legend, original and humane as anything Ishiguro has written.

In fairness to Ishiguro, he denies any disdain for the ‘F’ word, but the attitude exemplified in Arana’s words is widespread and of long standing. There are many good reasons to object to it, but the one I wish to highlight is the circular special pleading of its argument, which effectively runs as follows:

A: All fantasy is a formulaic “bag of tricks.”

B: But look at this example of fantasy! It’s beautifully written, has deep characterization, is philosophically provocative, and has all the qualities you profess to admire!

A: I agree. That’s how I can be so sure it’s not fantasy. As I said, all fantasy is a formulaic “bag of tricks.”

Even Philip Pullman, despite writing a classic fantasy trilogy as replete with talking animals, magic and witches as anything featuring Lucy Pevensie, once famously declared that he was engaged not in fantasy but in “stark realism”, on the grounds that – well, here is his own explanation:

I have said that His Dark Materials is not fantasy but stark realism, and my reason for this is to emphasise what I think is an important aspect of the story, namely the fact that it is realistic, in psychological terms. I deal with matters that might normally be encountered in works of realism, such as adolescence, sexuality, and so on; and they are the main subject matter of the story – the fantasy (which, of course, is there: no-one but a fool would think I meant there is no fantasy in the books at all) is there to support and embody them, not for its own sake.

So, His Dark Materials is fantasy per accidens, as it were; fantasy is present not as a “bag of tricks” but as a way of talking about real, human things. By implication, the avowed fantasies of other writers – such as Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea books, perhaps, or Diana Wynne Jones’s Fire and Hemlock, or Frances Hardinge's Gullstruck Island – take little account of such matters. Or if they do, then they must to that extent be stark realism rather than fantasy too. Pullman’s quotation is almost 20 years old now and perhaps it’s unfair to dust it off, but it retains its power to annoy, and besides, new dishes seasoned with its particular brand of chopped logic just keep being served up.

Of course, the very same tactic is also sometimes used against children’s books. If you look up the Wikipedia entry for ‎Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, for example, you will read: “Though ostensibly styled as a children's book, The Little Prince makes several observations about life and human nature.” Well, if it does that it can’t possibly be for children, can it?

However, the more common practice when it comes to children’s books is to declare that the best ones are simply “too good for children.” This ploy is all the more insidious because it’s always presented as a compliment, as in this Amazon list of “5 books too good for children” (a list that includes His Dark Materials, incidentally, although to do him justice Pullman has always spoken doughtily of the importance of children’s literature).

But isn’t this “too good for” line very strange? It tends not to happen with other genres, even ones that are looked down on by literary reviewers. “Chick lit” may be sneered at, but have you ever read a review of a chick lit novel that declared it “too good for women”? Nor is the same device used with other children’s products. Imagine an Amazon review of, say, a car safety seat, reading: “This car seat is well designed, is made of durable materials and meets all safety standards. In fact, it’s too good for children!” Or, take this description picked at random from a well-known children’s clothing catalogue:

A fabulous gingham shirt which doesn't need to be ironed for that ‘fresh from the washing line’ look. Pure woven cotton which has been peached for softness at the front. It’s far too good for children!

I made the last sentence up, of course. People who make and promote children’s clothing seldom feel the need to put their consumers down in that way. It’s only when children appear in their role as readers that this happens. I wonder why?

I’m not sure, but I do know it’s been going on for a long, long time. The earliest example of this practice of praising a children’s book by insulting its readers that I’ve been able to find dates from 1831, and a notice in the newly established Metropolitan magazine:

The Metropolitan’s anonymous reviewer also scores another first, however. He or she not only declares Mrs Watts’s The New Year’s Gift “too good for children”, but then immediately answers in the most sensible way possible: “and yet why should children not have the best?”

Why not, indeed?