The Fantasy Book by Franz Rottensteiner

The Fantasy Book
by Franz Rottensteiner

'The Fantasy Book' (160 pp.) was published in 1978 by Thames and Hudson, UK.

Franz Rottensteiner (b. 1942) is an Austrian critic, editor, and essayist on topics of 'fantastic' literature, including science fiction and fantasy. 'The Fantasy Book' is a companion volume to Rottensteiner's 1975 book The Science Fiction Book: An Illustrated History and follows the same format of interspersing text with black-and-white, two-color, and full-color graphics.

'The Fantasy Book' opens with an Introduction in which the author contemplates various definitions (made by European academics and writers) about what constitutes 'fantasy' literature. The book then provides, in chronological order, an overview of the topic from its beginnings in the Gothic era of the 18th century, on up to the late 1970s. 

In Rottensteiner's view, fantasy not only includes the Tolkein-esque stories nowadays most associated with the genre, but also horror literature, as well as experimental or avant-garde literature typified by writers such as James Branch Cabell.

While in his Introduction Rottensteiner states that he does not intend the book to represent an academic or scholarly analysis of fantasy literature, in many ways the book is indeed an analysis of 'literary' fantasy, and possesses a correspondingly pedantic tone. 

Much attention is given to books (Melmoth the Wanderer, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, Out of the Silent Planet, etc.), that, by modern standards, fit comfortably into the category of mainstream or 'classical' literature.  

There are some sections that deal with fantasy as a component of pop culture, such as a discourse on sword-and-sorcery, and the influence on the genre exerted by pulp magazines such as Weird Tales and Unknown. These sections will be more recognizable, and more rewarding to modern-day readers, that the other content in 'The Fantasy Book'. 

Rottensteiner's devotion to works issued during the 19th and 20th centuries by rather obscure authors from Eastern Europe likely will have limited appeal for 21st century readers. As well, in hindsight the works from the 'Magic Realists' of Mexico and South America that are showcased in 'The Fantasy Book' never achieved much traction in the popular culture of the Anglophone countries (where fantasy now is a formidable commercial juggernaut), and with the passage of time, such books nowadays only are accessed by the fast-dwindling 'highbrow' readership. 

In fairness to Rottenstein, at the time he wrote 'The Fantasy Book', likely he was not aware of the gradually-increasing profile of the fantasy genre in the U.S. and what it portended. For example, 1978 saw the first appearance in mass-market paperback of Stephen R. Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, which demonstrated that Tolkein-esque 'epic' fantasy could be commercially successful in a way that Lin Carter's Ballantine Adult Fantasy series had not. 

Also garnering increasing attention at that time were the fantasy novels of Katherine Kurtz, Anne McCaffrey, Tanith Lee, Lynn Abbey, and Carolyn Janice Cherryh, all of whom were drawing a readership much wider than that engaged by the sword-and-sorcery and science fiction genres. 

The implications of the success of the Donaldson novel were not readily apparent in 1978, but within the next two years, it became clear that the Lord Foul franchise was the catalyst for the expansion of the genre throughout the 1980s. In so doing, it redefined the concept of the fantasy novel into the massive, series-based tomes that nowadays weigh down bookstore shelving.  

As a critic and reviewer, Rottenstein is quite opinionated, and his treatment of some of the leading Anglophone figures in the genre is less than effusive. For example, on Tolkein and The Lord of the Rings, Rottensteiner states:

.......though its present reputation may well be temporary, The Lord of the Rings will eventually be included in the long list of works of fantastic literature which will always be cherished by some connoisseurs; not, perhaps, a major work, but never to be entirely forgotten  - a book like J. B. Cabell's Jurgen, Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros, or Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer.

 

Summing up, while necessarily dated in its treatment of the subject, and overly preoccupied with works that nowadays are considered to be marginal in terms of their fantasy affiliation, 'The Fantasy Book' will be a helpful resource for those interested in the wider landscape of the genre as it stood in the late 1970s.