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History and Precarity: Glen Cook and the Rise of Picaresque Epic Fantasy
- Author(s):
- Dennis Wise (see profile)
- Date:
- 2019
- Group(s):
- Speculative and Science Fiction
- Subject(s):
- Fantasy literature, History
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- picaresque, epic fantasy, grimdark
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/v25v-xw42
- Abstract:
- This article argues that Glen Cook’s The Instrumentalities of the Night seeks to drain epic fantasy of its characteristic “totality,” a concept first theorized by György Lukács. Cook accomplishes this by blending the epic fantasy structure with a picaresque plot. The Black Company books had already attempted to fracture totality through their unique first-person narrative framing device, but this experiment, I argue, only partially succeeds. By applying the picaresque, however, a literature of precarity, Cook achieves a vision of history and historical change as fraught with chance, accident, and randomness—a radical Heraclitean flux. While the series captures totality after a fashion, this totality comes emptied of larger epic meaning. In this regard, Instrumentalities bears some striking resemblances to Lyotard’s famous incredulity toward master narratives, but a low humanism better describes Cook’s approach. In the end, Cook’s experimental picaresque epic fantasy articulates an anthropocentric storyworld without metaphysical legitimations for human action.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 2 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
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