ANIMALS IN FICTION: REVIEW
Crossover Animal Fantasy Series: Crossing Cultural and Species as Well as Age Boundaries

Marion Copeland

ABSTRACT
Crossover fantasy series such as Harry Potter (Rowling, 1997, 1999, 1999, 2000, 2003), designed to appeal to readers of all ages, have received much popular and critical attention of late. Series like His Dark Materials (Pullman, 1995, 1997, 2000), more sophisticated and complex than Rowling’s, have benefited from Harry Potter’s press. In Rowling, nonhuman animals play roles but are not foregrounded. They are not central to action or theme or, in any sense, developed characters. Pullman’s books foreground nonhumans and develop their characters. His three novels, however, belong to their human protagonists. In the worlds of true Crossover Animal Fantasy Series such as The Wolves of Time and The Duncton Trilogies (Horwood, 1997, 1989), the novels belong to their nonhuman protagonists. This review essay suggests how understanding the characteristics of Crossover Animal Fantasy Series enhances readers’ imaginative grasp of the lives of other species. The best of these series cross cultural, species, and age boundaries, and are an unsung force in bringing about a paradigm shift that will affect our cultural perception of nonhumans.


Ironically, or perhaps not at all ironically, many of the novels that most vividly and accurately foreground nonhumans as protagonists, center their plots on nonhuman concerns, and acknowledge the communication abilities and cultural complexity of nonhuman animals are commonly labeled “fantasy.” Almost always, it is implied that they are fantasies for child readers. This is because, invariably,in such novels “…animals are given the powers of articulate thought and speech” (Swinfen, 1984, p. 43). Because there is no scientific evidence of animals’ having such powers, this is seen as anthropomorphism: endowing nonhumans with human capabilities. Even when authors provide a rationale for the device (everything from magic to genetic enhancement has been posited) the fantasy (or science fiction) label remains. Such labeling, accurate or not, reflects attitudes apparently inherent in Western culture in which children and animals are seen neither as interesting or as sophisticated and “evolved” as adult humans. Consequently, novels so designated have received little attention from the academy or from “mainstream” literary critics.
Social critic Fudge (2002) detects a basic fear behind such critical arrogance. She suggests that if we were to go beyond such labels and acknowledge that “animals” are, like humans, sentient beings belonging to cultures comprised of individuals enacting, as Quinn (1992) phrases it in Ishmael, “culture stories ,” it would be difficult, if not impossible, to treat them as we do. In 1850, Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin revealed the personhood of slaves. In 1972, Adams’ Watership Down revealed the personhood of its rabbit protagonists and became what now can be recognized as the first crossover animal fantasy -- as intended -- accessible and enjoyable for adult as for child readers. Perrin (1997) comments:

One of the glories of the book is that it stays almost entirely true to rabbit behavior while still telling an anthropomorphic story.
Yes, Adams makes his animals talk, and they can talk across species lines, though with an accent….
But in this language…Adams has them discuss only behavior that rabbits really exhibit….You would hardly go to Bugs Bunny for insights on animal behavior, still less for any clue on how best to live. But you would turn to Watership Down. Considering that you also get a true epic [the founding of a new rabbit warren/nation], finely observed landscape, a gripping plot, any amount of good dialogue, and five legends that all by themselves would make an excellent book, I think you would have to conclude that you had been reading a masterpiece. (pp. 125-126)

When Adams (1996) published Tales From Watership Down, his lapine epic became one of the first crossover animal fantasy series.
The critics who have recognized the importance of these novels are, for the most part, those who focus either on children’s literature per se or specialize in the still borderline genres of science fiction, mystery, horror, and fantasy. One of the best of these, Swinfen (1984), devotes a chapter to animal fantasies. The brief 30 pages provide the essential background for understanding the significance of the genre, its popularity, and its long tradition. Swinfen believes, as do I, that “man’s relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom strikes a deep chord of imaginative recognition in the human consciousness [which]….accounts for the continued fascination of beast tales” (p. 12).

In cultures world wide, traditions and tales survive that point to the human “urge to leap the gulf which divides men from the animals.” Originally associated with shamanistic and “totemic practices—the desire to enter the skin of the animal and assume his very nature and individuality,” that urge is reflected in “all animal tales, from the most naturalistic to the most symbolic” (Swinfen, 1984, p. 14). Perhaps that explains why “modern animal fantasy is more closely linked to, and borrows more heavily from, its antecedent literature than most other types of fantasy” (Swinfen, p. 13). Folk tales, fairy tales, and beast fables all contribute to the modern animal fantasy.

Both Cashdan (1999) and Zipes (2003) remind their readers that fairy tales, now seen as children’s literature, “were never meant for children.” They served originally as “adult entertainment” at social gatherings, in spinning rooms, in the fields, and in other settings where adults congregated—not in the nursery (Cashdan, p. 6). Zipes confirms this, adding that they began in the oral traditions and “were based on rituals intended to endow meaning to the daily lives of members of a tribe” (p. 10). Literary fables and fairy tales from Aesop to the tales of Strapparola and Basil in sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy to the French fairy tales and fabliaux in the seventeenth century addressed “the concerns, tastes, and functions of the court” (Zipes, p. 11).
Not surprisingly, Swinfen (1984) lists, as the first of the themes common to animal fantasies, Man as but one animal among many. The second, prevalent particularly in quest tales, is the theme common to all epics: the search for a new home or the effort to return home. Here, at least one of the animals serves as the epic hero, using his or her talents to help their friends (p. 31). The third, often accompanied by social satire of the human community, is the search for the ideal society.

All Swinfen’s (1984) observations hold true of animal fantasy series in general and of what I am calling crossover animal fantasies in particular, despite that by 1984 neither had become prevalent enough to warrant her critical attention. Certainly, animal fantasy series existed then. The seven volumes of Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia had been published between 1950 and 1956, and Lofting’s Dr. Dolittle books appeared considerably earlier Swinfen considers both, but there were not a sufficient number of animal fantasy series to necessitate separate critical consideration when Swinfen was writing her study. She considers each author, however, commenting on Lewis’ series that although “there are no fully articulate beasts …Medwyn, a Celtic Noah, understands the speech of animals ” connecting him with Lofting’s Doolittle. Lewis’s “Hen Wyn the oracular pig and Kaw the crow communicate at least partially with human characters as well” (p. 78). Swinfen acknowledges that Lofting adds to that formula—much as Burroughs did in his Tarzan adventure series—“the ever tantalizing idea of a man able to speak the true languages of the animals” (p. 17).

Crossover novel series are designed to appeal to readers of any age: Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, His Dark Materials or Watership Down. Pullman who won the prestigious Whitbread Award for The Amber Spyglass—the first “children’s book” to be so honored—commented in his acceptance speech:

If any good has come out of my winning and the subsequent publicity, and Harry Potter being a mass best seller all over the world, it is that it is drawing the attention of adults to the work of other children’s writers. (A. W., p. 44)
Unlike the Harry Potter novels, Pullman’s (1995, 1997, 2000) trilogy qualifies as an animal fantasy series, although of a type distinct from Watership Down.

Those crossover series that belong to the Watership Down type share with it the virtual exclusion of human characters and concerns, focusing solely on the world experienced by their nonhuman protagonists. What humans appear in Watership Down, often with the lethal effect of a predator, nonetheless are seen as peripheral, as part of the landscape, as wall paper—as animals most often are seen in novels concerned with human story. Pullman’s novels have more of the quality critics associate with magic realism where, intimately related and interdependent, animal and human characters communicate and participate equally in plots of as much significance to one species as to the other . Neither attribute applies to Rowling or Colfer novels.

Another hugely popular animal fantasy series, Jacques’ (1986-2003), Redwall novels though influenced by Adams’ realism, belong to yet a third category, actually the oldest of the three, descended from series classics like Potter’s (1902) Peter Rabbit and his neighbors and Grahame’s (1908) Wind in the Willows. More complex than they may at first appear, these seemingly fanciful tales, peopled by dressed and undressed talking and conspiring animals,often otherwise very familiar to their child and adult readers, are closer to the realism of Watership Down than usually is assumed. As in Potter and Grahame, the animal behavior and plots are as realistic and species-specific as in Adams. The anthropomorphic details of clothing and domestic settings, at once appealing and ambiguous, may serve to remind readers, young and old, that too often we translate similarity to sameness.
The best animal fantasies always operate on two levels: the animals serve as mirrors or models of human behaviour, but at the same time they are also true animals in their own right. The proportions between the two may vary, but both are always there. (Swinfen, 1984, p. 43)

In Swinfen’s (1984) view, they mirror humans only because of the “closeness of the animals to ourselves,” but what “establish[es] the basis parameters of the animal tale” is not their similarity to us but “their severance from us” (pp. 42, 43). Peter, Mrs. Tigglywinkle, Rat, Toad, and the others are not humans but beings of other species made to resemble humans so we can share in their lives in ways we cannot do in real life.

By giving their animal characters “articulate thought and speech,” the authors of animal fantasies return nonhumans to the circle of human compassion. This seems all the more important in light of Swinfen’s (1984) belief that
Man… like the young King Arthur [in White’s The Sword in the Stone], has much to learn from the birds, beasts, and fish. The animal fantasy helps to remind us that we are, after all, only dressed animals, shielded by a few flimsy mechanical devices from the often harsh, but more natural life of our cousins. The strength of the animal fantasy lies in the closeness of this link. (p. 43)
Wildly popular with young readers, Jacques’ Redwall novels have less chance to attract an adult audience because Grahame’s work influences them so strongly and because they are so formulaic. Being formulaic, however, does not stop adult readers from devouring romance, horror, adventure, and mystery novels. Anthropomorphism is key to Jacques’ novels as it was to Potter’s little books early in the twentieth century. On the other hand, as was recognized as early as 1967, The Wind in the Willows works on at least two levels: as a child’s tale but also as an adult novel “heavy with symbolism.” (Taylor, 1967, p. ). Similarly, Lowe (1976) saw that the complexity of Grahame’s characters differentiated them from the characters of traditional beast tales. She suggested The Wind in the Willows be seen as a “beast tale in transition, its animal characters exhibiting the effects of romanticism, Darwinism and the industrial revoltution.” (Jacques’ series also works on different levels and offers characters both stock and complex. The Jacques (1986) animals are small, wild beings who, extravagantly dressed, live in elaborately detailed, recognizably human settings and participate in plots that seem no different from the plots of human adventure stories. If treated seriously by critics, such novels invariably are seen as charming allegories on human issues that are not relevant in the real worlds of such creatures. That assumption, of course, allows readers young and old not actually to understand the characters as animals or affect attitudes toward, or treatment of, animals. The epic plots of Adams-type animal fantasy should make it clear that the dualism endemic in Western culture disguises complex issues as simple matters of good and evil.

Were readers to see the rat Cluny the Scourge or the adder Asmodius, adversaries of the Redwall animals in Jacques (1986) simply as evil, Jacques would be supporting the all-too-common view that certain animals are “pests” worthy only of extermination instead of being drawn from that view to the biocentric view basic to all animal fantasy. Careful readers will find Asmodius also defined as one of nature’s “efficient undertaker[s]” and realize that Cluny and his army are the result of the release of non-native animals, brought to England by trade and commerce, into territory already filled by native species. The resulting struggle for territory is necessary for the survival of either population. Both act out of necessity, not innate good or evil, to respond to circumstances they cannot control.

Many animal fantasies suggest that although human awareness may be raised first through close contact with domestic species, those species have, in turn, been changed by domestication. Perhaps the most essential perspectives, these fantasies suggest, are those that can be contributed only by species never removed from the wild, many of whom as Horwood (1997) noted with wolves, have been actively avoided, even exterminated, by man. Change in attitude must occur before the insights of such species can be recognized, at least by humans, as part of the solution. What King, (1997, 1999); Peak (1989, 1992); and Hunter (2003) hope to accomplish in terms of human understanding and appreciation of feral cats, Oppel (1997, 2000, 2003) hopes to accomplish for bats and McCaughren, in his Irish series (1984, 1987, 1997), for foxall animals devalued, if not demonized, as pest species.
Horwood, who is concerned both with realistically presented animals and with affecting attitudes toward, and treatment of, animals in a seriesThe Wolves of Time or the Duncton novelsalso is the author of a series of contemporary Wind in the Willows novels. These same concerns, with perhaps a more subtle approach, inform his Wind series as they do all crossover animal fantasy series.

The British Horwood (1994, 1996, 1997, 1999), then, spans both traditions. His sequels to Grahame’s Wind in the Willows—(Mole Gets Lost, vol 1); (Flying into Danger, vol. 2); (Toad in Trouble, vol. 3) fall into the first category. However, Horwood’s (1980, 1982, 1984, 1987) early stand-alone animal fantasiesDuncton Wood, The Stoner Eagles, Callandish, and Skallagriggand the six volumes (1980-1993) of The Duncton Trilogies, The Duncton Chronicles and The Book of Silence, belong as firmly to the Adams’ tradition as do the two novels that comprise Horwood’s (1993-1997) duology, The Wolves of Time.

The first novel of The Wolves of Time, Journeys to the Heartland (Horwood, 1993) had its genesis in Scandinavia where Horwood, an inveterate walker, actually encountered wolves. Having misjudged his distance, he was forced to camp overnight, “hungry and alone under the Northern Lights.” He heard wolves howling nearby and, instead of finding himself afraid, suddenly felt “all anxiety [leave him] completely….as if the wolves were saying, ‘You don’t have to worry about anything.’”
The experience inspired Horwood to depict wolves, not as “ ‘the personification of all we fear about nature,’ ” but as they…are: “ ‘they actually do a better job of looking after themselves in their own communities than we do, ’ ” he has explained, and “ ‘I wanted readers to understand this, and to see that wolves are in many ways more worthy than man.’ ”
Horwood returned from the trip committed to the research necessary to write The Wolves of Time, which “traces the adventures of some of Europe’s last remaining wolves as they set out…to Czechoslavakia’s High Tetra Mountains, the mythical heartland of wolfkind” (http://homepage.dtn.ntl.com/tony.jackson/wild.html). The Wolves of Time, then, like Watership Down, is an epic. Its animal protagonist can be seen as the epic hero, charged with bringing his people from a land that is no longer safe to a new and welcoming home or habitat. Other examples exploring the habitat requirements of other species are Dann’s (1979) series The Animals of Farthing Wood , Jarvis’s (2003) The Depford Mice Trilogy , King’s (1997, 1999) The Wild Road and Golden Cat, and Hunter’s (2003) Warriors Into the Wild. The most striking literary device of these novels is their verisimilitude. Their animal characters do not wear clothes, live in houses, or necessarily provide direct allegorical commentary on human affairs. Their anthropomorphism is confined to areas of behavior still in question. They speak and have cultures, complex systems of thought that often include mythologies and religions, and their plots often are generational.

Still another direction being explored by animal fantasy seriesat least in the United Statesis the mystery genre. These are different from the 25 volumes of Braun’s series, The Cat Who… in which, although the main character’s two Siamese figure, often mysteriously, in the solving of crimes, cats are not foregrounded as are the human characters. In Murphy’s Joe Grey, cat detective, series and Brown & Brown’s Mrs. Murphy series, the nonhuman and human characters share the foreground of the plot. The reader is privy to the worlds of both. Both are, in the traditional sense, fully realized characters. The domestic animal characters are privy to the full range of human affairs. Humans in the Browns’ series are unaware of the degree to which the animals (the cats, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter and the Welsh Corgi, Tucker) are involved in, and contribute to, the solution.
A select few of Murphy’s human characters have been allowed knowledge of the cats’ powers of language and their history—very like the history shared by the feral cats of King’s British cat series. Thus, Murphy’s series suggests, as do recent novels by Smiley (Horse Heaven), Kingsolver (Prodigal Summer), and Brown (Outfoxed) that the real mysteries of life will be revealed only when humans learn to augment their own species’ perceptions with those of other species.

The most recent example of the Potter/Grahame type is Hoeye’s (2000, 2002) Time Stops for No Mouse: A Hermux Tantamoo Adventure and its sequel, The Sands of Time, both of which Penguin and Puffin bought for a sum unusual for children’s novels before Rowling and have become best sellers among adult readers. Actually, after the success of Hoeye’s novels, one of their ancestors, Sharpe’s The Rescuers and the series of nine Miss Bianca novels that followed were reissued in hardback and offered both by the Science Fiction and the Book of the Month Clubs.

Like Miss Bianca, Hermux is a city mouse. His costume, if not his home, is more complex than hers, although other mice in Sharpe’s series wear more elaborate clothing than does she. She is the companion animal of an ambassador’s son; they are the mice who inhabit the walls of human houses. Hermux is neither owned nor a denisen of human dwellings. Humans, in fact, are not a part of his world. Hermux lives in the mouse city of Pinchester (which has a very Potteresque sound to it) where he inherited from his father, and now runs, a modest watch making and repair establishment.

A simple mouse with simple joys, Hermux is thankful for the good things with which his life is filleddonuts and coffee and his pet ladybug, Terfle. His neighbors and friends consist of a Potter-like cast of small animals (mostly mice but also chipmunks, beaver, otter, squirrels, moles, and a dogbut no cats). The reader learns about the absence of cats (the absence of humans is left unexplained) in the culture story of the civilized city of Pinchester in Hoeye (2001) The Sands of Time. Adult readers are likely to recognize the irony in the fact that the mice have expunged all memory—well, almost all memoryof cats from their culture and react to the idea of cats being real rather as humans now react to the idea that humans are, themselves, animals.
Kenyon-Jones (2001), commenting not on animal fantasy series but on the works of the British Romantics, suggests that when animals are foregrounded (as they are in both bodies of literature), readers are drawn “to think deeply about animals” (p. 19). Her insight applies as well to crossover animal fantasies. Like the work of the Romantics, Crossover Animal Fantasy Series are artistically sophisticated. Their literary devices are intended to attract…or arous[e]…us by means of the striking, original or beautiful ways they [are written], stimulating us to consider whether or not the way in which we now share the earth with other species is the way we want to go on doing so in the future. (p. 19)

Crossover Animal Fantasy Series Cited

Adams, R. (1996). Tales from watership down. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
Adams, R. (1972). Watership down. New York: Avon
Dann, C. (1979). The animals of Farthing Wood. New York: Elsevier/Nelson Books
Hoeye, M. (1999). Time stops for no mouse: A Hermeux Tantamoq adventure
New York: G. P. Putnam.
Hoeye, M. (2001). The sands of time: A Hermeux Tantamoq adventure. New
York: G. P. Putnam.
Horwood, W. (1988). Duncton quest. New York: Ballantine Books.
________ (1989). Duncton found. New York: Ballantine Books.
________ (1992). Duncton rising. New York: Ballantine Books.
________ (1993). Duncton stone. New York: Ballantine Books.
________ (1991). Duncton tales. New York: Ballantine Books.
________ (1980). Duncton wood. New York: Ballantine Books.
________ (1996). Toad triumphant. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
________ (1999). The willows at Christmas. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
________ (1994). The willows in winter, New York: St. Martin’s Press.
________ (1997). The willows and beyond. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
________ (1993). The wolves of time, I, Journies to the heartland. New York:
HarperCollins.
________ (1997). The wolves of time, II Seekers at the Wulfrock. New York:
HarperCollins.
Hunter, E. (2003) .Warriors into the wild. New York: HarperCollins
Jacques, B. (1986-2003). Redwall. New York: Philomel.
Jarvis, R. (2000). The Dark Portal: Book I of the Depford mice trilogy. New York:
SeaStar.
King, G. (1999). The golden cat. New York: Del Ray.
King, G. (1997). The wild road. New York: Del Rey.
McCaughren, T. (1984). Run to earth. Dublin: Wolfhound Press.
McCaughren, T. (1985). Run with the wind. Dublin: Wolfhound Press.
McCaughren, T. (1987). Run swift, run free. Dublin: Wolfhound Press.
Oppel, K. (1997). Silverwing. New York: Aladdin.
Oppel, K. (2000). Sunwing. New York: Aladdin.
Oppel, K. (2003). Fire Wing. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Peak, M. (1992). Catamount. New York: Roc.
Peak, M. (1989). Cat house. New York: Signet.
Stanton, M. (1988). Heavenly horse from the outermost west. New York: Baen.
Stanton, M. (1989). Piper at the gates. New York: Baen.

References

A. W. (2003). The trouble with Harry. Book May/June, 44. Cashden, S. (1999). The witch must die: The hidden meaning of fairy tales. New York: Basic Books.

Fudge, E. (2002). Animals. London: Reaktion Books.

Grahame, K. (1933). The wind in the willows. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Kenyon-Jones, C. (2001). Kindred-brutes: Animals in Romantic-period writing. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Lowe, E. C. (1975). Kenneth Grahame and the beast fable (Doctoral dissertation, New York University, 1976). Dissertation Abstracts International, 37, 5817A.

Perrin, N. (1997). A child’s delight: Essays on children’s classics. London: University Press of New England.

Potter, B. (1989). The complete tales of Beatrix Potter. London: F. Warne & Co.

Pullman, P. (1995). The golden compass, his dark materials (Book I). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Pullman, P. (1997). The subtle knife, his dark materials (Book II). New York: Alfred A.
Knopf.

Pullman, P. (2000). The amber spyglass, his dark materials (Book III). New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Quinn, D. (1992). Ishmael. New York: Bantam.

Swinfen, A. (1984). In defense of fantasy: A study of the genre in English and American literature since 1943. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Taylor, K. (1990). Universal themes in Kenneth Grahame’s The wind in the willows (Doctoral dissertation, Temple University, 1967). Dissertation Abstracts International, 29, 5817A.

Zipes, J. (2003). quoted in www.surlalunefairytales.com


 

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