From the literature of the "New Wave" to contemporary English-language fantasy: Zelazny, Martin, Gaiman

Anisimova Ol'ga Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0003-3116-2996 PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Department of Higher School of Linguistics and Pedagogy; Humanitarian Institute of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University 19 Politechnicheskaya str., Saint Petersburg, Russia, 194021 lesoleil81@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Savushkina Tat'yana Aleksandrovna PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Department of Foreign Languages; St. Petersburg State Institute of Technology (Technical University) 197706, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Sestroretsk, Primorskoe highway, 270, sq. 32 tasavushkina@yahoo.com

Despite the fact that the fantasy genre is one of their youngest, it has managed to undergo significant changes, still remaining a sought-after literary form. The purpose of this study is to trace the development of trends that originated in the fantasy literature of the "New Wave" in the 60s - 70s of the last century in the work of modern fantasy writers.

In the 60s of the last century, the so-called "soft" science fiction began to form in science fiction literature, which appeared due to the "New Wave" movement. The term was coined by P.S. Miller in the early sixties as a definition for innovative science fiction literature that rejected the established canons of "hard science fiction" of the so-called "Golden Age". His representatives were criticized by the younger generation for the static and flatness of the characters, as well as the template of the plots being developed. Representatives of the old and new generations were also distinguished by the "scientific" component of their fiction: if some relied on exact sciences, then the writers who replaced them appealed to the humanities, which led to their informal designation as "humanities" ^[1].

Following their colleagues from the field of cinematography, representatives of the popular French Nouvelle Vague movement of the 50s and 60s, Anglo–American science fiction writers turned to describing the inner cosmos of man, while creating deep psychological portraits of the characters. The rejection of traditional science fiction formulas and the appeal to psychology and philosophy allowed fiction to become closer to great literature.

In the 1950s, postmodern literature emerged in the United States as part of the school of "black humor", one of the most iconic representatives of which was Thomas Pynchon. His early short story "Entropy" became a prime example of how non-fiction writers incorporate elements of traditional science fiction into their texts in elite literature. In turn, science fiction writers such as Ballard, Aldis, Dick, Zelazny, Vonnegut use the features of the poetics of great literature (intertextuality, syncretism, intermediality).

Representatives of the "humanities", combining science fiction with history, mythology, mysticism, computer technology, etc. in their work, created new syncretic genres such as science fantasy, cyberpunk, steampunk, alternative history, etc. By becoming a source of experimentation, science fiction has blurred the boundaries between fairy tale, science fiction and fantasy ^[2]. Even today, one can see many examples of combining fantasy with a Victorian novel (S. Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell"), a detective novel (D. Adams's "Dirk Gently's Holistic Agency"), a historical novel (M. Stewart's cycle of novels about Merlin's life) and a fairy tale (J. Rowling's cycle of novels about Harry Potter, N. Gaiman "Stardust") and others.

At the forefront of these experiments was Roger Zelazny, an American writer of Polish-Irish descent, who became the most influential representative of his generation ^[3]. Having received a philological education, Zelazny was influenced by both classical English literature and the works of representatives of "hard science fiction" and at the same time by his contemporaries, the authors of "soft science fiction". The wide range of interests of the writer (practicing martial arts, deep immersion in psychoanalysis, knowledge of Eastern and European philosophy, current linguistic theories, as well as a love of world mythology) allowed him to create works whose genre is not always possible to define in a single way. The achievements of technological progress and Hindu gods easily coexist on the pages of his books, Tristan and Isolde become heroes of psychoanalytic experiments, and the crown princes of fantasy kingdoms lose their memory in a car accident on Earth. Zelazny himself noted: "I don't want my work to be tailored to one particular genre ... That's why I tried to cover various areas" ^[4].

Many of Zelazny's contemporaries confessed to the influence that the American science fiction writer had on them at the time. American Gods, one of the most famous works of the modern English writer Neil Gaiman, is often compared to Roger Zelazny's series of novels The Amber Chronicles. At the same time, the writer himself admitted: "I did not set myself the goal of writing a book in Zelazny's style. I think he was the best fantasy/SF writer of the 60s and 70s, during the peak years of his career. I didn't really try to imitate him, I just wanted to write a book that I thought he would appreciate" (Dornemann R., Everding K. Dreaming American Gods an Interview With Neil Gaiman). And yet it was to him and Katie Acker that Neil Gaiman dedicated one of his most famous works.

Another student of Zelazny is the equally popular American writer George Martin, who knew the science fiction writer well. Martin expressed his own attitude to the writer's personality and work in the preface to Zelazny's collection of short stories, as well as in an article In Memoriam: Roger Zelazny: "His work is unlike anything created before: the poetic language of his works, the way they play out the myth ..." ^[5]; "Roger Zelazny left a trace in fiction. Just like he left a mark on my life" (Martin G. In Memoriam: Roger Zelazny).

One of the characteristic features of the writer's work is the treatment of topics related to the issues of immortality and demiurge. The immortal hero, who possesses considerable strength, but enters into a psychological struggle with himself, the doubtful creator of worlds, becomes the central character of most of Zelazny's works. For a writer, such a hero opens up an amazing opportunity to find out what will happen to a person who will have an unlimited opportunity to learn, expand his life experience, read, and meet an infinite number of new people. Unfortunately, the characters often disappoint the author, not taking advantage of the opportunities of eternal life.

Zelazny's demiurge is the same immortal hero, but also endowed with the ability to create his own worlds ("The Chronicles of Amber", "Island of the Dead", "Creatures of Light, Creatures of Darkness"). In the context of Zelazny's work, demiurge is the image of a person endowed with creative energy, which finds its way out through the creation of a new universe. By creating it, he does not become a ruler or a god, but finds a welcome rest there. Created worlds look like works of art or human imagination. For example, in The Amber Chronicles, Corwin creates a world reminiscent of King Arthur's Avalon; in The Island of the Dead, the hero creates a world that looks like it came from Arnold Becklin's painting of the same name, etc. For Zelazny, any work of art is a whole universe that everyone gets access to as soon as they get acquainted with this creation. Thus, a work of art interpreted by a science fiction writer is a kind of teleporter that allows you to easily move between different worlds.

The main problem of the writer's work is related to Jung's psychoanalytic theories, the degree of influence of which is difficult to overestimate. In particular, Zelazny's central work is perhaps the most vivid illustration of these theories. The world of Amber consists of two opposite, but nevertheless interconnected parts, representing an ambivalent structure: Chaos – the unconscious, and Amber – consciousness ("From all sides we are surrounded by irrational, inconsistent with reason… Consciousness must possess intelligence in order to discover order for the first time in the chaos of disordered individual cases of the world whole, and then... also to create this order. We have something praiseworthy and useful in order, if possible, to eradicate the chaos of the irrational in us and outside of us" ^{[6, p. 112]}). Both components are integral parts of the functioning of the human personality ^[7].

On the other hand, Zelazny turns to the theory of archetypes. Jung defines them as "the essence of reality that is transcendent in relation to consciousness ... bringing to life complexes of representations that appear in the form of mythological motifs" ^{[8, p. 12]}; "These are the dominant forces, gods, i.e. images of dominant laws and principles of general patterns, which are subject to a sequence of images, relived over and over again." with my soul" ^{[9, p. 141]}. Initially, the creator of Amber, Dworkin, embodies the image of a Jungian elder. It is also worth noting that the path of the main character Corwin, the adventures in which he finds himself, can be interpreted from the point of view of initiation. All the trials that the main character goes through become the path to gaining integrity and individuation, which, in turn, is of key importance not only for the character, but also for the existence of the world as a whole. According to Jung, "individuation consists in becoming a separate being and, since we understand individuality to be our deepest, last, and incomparable uniqueness, to become our own self. Therefore, "individuation" could be translated as "self-restoration" or as "self-fulfillment" ^{[10, p. 235]}. From Zelazny's point of view, a person is both the creator of the inner world and the creator of the surrounding reality.

Central to the context of the eternal city of Amber is the Image, which is a maze through which the princes – its rulers – gain the ability to create shadows ^[11]. Shadows are products of the imagination of the Yantarites. The corrupted Image endangers not only the consciousness of the protagonist, but also the very existence of the Amber world. Thus, Zhelezny shows the need to realize the responsibility of each person for himself and for the reality around him, since a sick mind can distort physical reality.

Zelazny's language is distinguished by its extraordinary poetry and use of intertextuality, which a number of literary critics and researchers, as well as the average reader, admired at one time, while others expressed their criticism. For example, the American science fiction writer and literary critic Theodore Sturgeon compared too frequent references to various literary works of the past, famous personalities, as well as the abundant use of quotations with "furniture" that makes it difficult for the reader to "move" along the storyline of the narrative. Among the numerous allusions found in Zelazny's texts, one can single out references to various myths of the peoples of the world (ancient in "This Immortal", Hindu in "The God of Light", Scandinavian in "The Island of the Dead", Celtic in "The Chronicles of Amber" ^[12]), to poetic works (Shakespeare, Keats, Browning, Spencer, etc.), to historical events of different eras ^[13]. Often in Zelazny's novels, paintings perform a plot-forming function: Beklin's "Island of the Dead", Picasso's "Guernica", and works by Impressionist artists. Thus, the abundance of quotations turns the text of the science fiction writer into a bizarre work, woven from various mythological images and literary allusions, richly decorated with elegant poetic inclusions and inserts from the subjects of paintings.

Two successful modern writers can rightfully be considered the continuators of the fantastic tradition of Roger Zelazny: the Englishman Neil Gaiman and the American George Martin. In addition to their friendship with Zelazny, they share a number of common features with each other. For example, both started their careers working as a journalist, which, in particular, affected their artistic style. The fact that Gaiman was regularly interviewed influenced his interest in revealing the character's personality from different angles, which allowed him to hone his skills in creating diverse portraits of characters in his own works. Martin, in turn, creating the history of the universe of his books, demonstrates the features of a chronicle narrative.

Both writers have been interested in comics since childhood. Neil Gaiman wrote his first comic book at the age of 16, while Martin was an enthusiastic reader, later admitting: "Superheroes are the realization of fantasies about power. I've always wanted to be a Green Lantern. He found a magic ring and could do whatever he wanted with it. I didn't want to be Batman: he had to train all the time, do physical exercises. I thought if I could find this ring, then that was it, I'd gain power. Alas, I never found him" (Meeting with George Martin in Hamburg: about childhood and adolescence, the crisis of science fiction and power).

The love of myths of the peoples of the world is also common to both science fiction writers. Having been raised in a Catholic family, Martin organically integrates Christian mythology into the texts of his books. However, the mythology of the ancient Celts occupies a central place in his work. Gaiman, following Zelazny, uses a wider range of mythological images. Thus, in "American Gods", along with Scandinavian ones, Egyptian and Slavic deities are also found; in "Sons of Anansi", which takes place in the world of "American Gods", African folklore occupies a central place. At the same time, both authors are engaged in their own myth-making. So, for Martin– this is the religion of the God of Light or the Ironborn (note that in the case of the God of Light, we are talking about an allusion to the novel of the same name by Roger Zelazny, which Martin calls the best work created in the genre of science fiction that he has ever read). Gaiman, in turn, creates his own pantheon of gods of the new technological generation (this idea, however, is not original, since similar characters can be found in the trilogy of William Gibson, the father of cyberpunk, about the Anthill) ^[14]. Russian literary critic Ekaterina Viktorovna Lozovik notes that Gaiman "attracted the attention of researchers with an unexpected degree of myth-restoration, which allowed the author not only to build his own universe, but also to restore the basic principles of mythological consciousness in the text: the hero's search for himself and, as a result, the restoration of mythological consciousness" ^{[15, p. 125]}.

Science fiction writers are also united by their love for the work of Tolkien, the master of fantasy literature. Martin, in particular, admitted: "Tolkien had a huge influence on me, but after him came a dark period in the history of epic fantasy, during which there were a large number of unsuccessful attempts to imitate the writer's artistic style, and I did not want my work to be correlated with such literature, which, in my opinion, is observed imitating the worst of his work, while the best eludes" (Flood A. Interview George RR Martin: 'When I began A Game of Thrones I Thought It Might Be a Short Story // Guardian, 2018). He also wrote the following words: "I believe every modern fantasy author creates in the shadow of Tolkien, but I would never be able to recreate his voice, unique and unrepeatable. We are completely different. He was a man from a different time, with a different attitude to life from mine, and although we both turned to the Middle Ages, I have a completely different view of this time, on the topic of war and issues of sexuality. So I was just telling my story" (Flood A. Interview George RR Martin: 'When I began A Game of Thrones I Thought It Might Be a Short Story // Guardian, 2018). Thus, in his work, Martin strives to find his own voice and become unlike his teachers – Tolkien, Zelazny, Heinlein.

Some researchers, in particular, Alice Sergeevna Zagryatskaya, note that George Martin in the cycle "A Song of Ice and Fire" rejects Tolkien's ideology.: "Inheriting Tolkien in terms of the foundations of fantasy (deep detail, thoughtfulness, abundance of information about geography and peoples), he differs in terms of metaphysics" (Zagryatskaya A.S. The dead beetles of "Game of Thrones" against the light of Tolkien's hope. How the philosophy of time defines the meaning of fantasy // Knife). In turn, Gaiman admits that he discovered the first two parts of The Lord of the Rings in the school library.: "I read them and kept reading them over and over again. I would finish Two Strongholds and go back to the first book, and so on in a circle." Gaiman also wrote: "I came to the conclusion that The Lord of the Rings was probably the best work ever created, which put me in a difficult position. I dreamed of becoming a writer when I grew up (which wasn't quite true, because I already dreamed of becoming a writer back then) and I wanted to write The Lord of the Rings – the only problem was that this book had already been written."^[16]

The history of the creation of the title works of the three writers is also of interest. In Zelazny's case, the science fiction writer planned to write one book in which the accident described at the beginning of the novel would later be described from various points of view (the source of inspiration in this case was Lawrence Durrell's "Alexandria Quartet"). However, in the process, Zelazny realized that one book would not be enough and changed tactics: "Initially, I did not plan to write Nine Princes in Amber. I wasn't sure what kind of situation Corwin would be in after he woke up in the hospital. It was a good trick to get him to work with the reader to find answers to the questions he had because of his amnesia.… I knew that there would be other characters in the future, members of his family.… I tried to imagine them" (Krulic Th. A Few Words From Roger Zelazny, Part Seven: Roger’s Vision of Amber, 2016 // Reactor).

The author shared his ideas with his close friend and colleague J. Martin, as he recalls in an interview with the Russian edition of the magazine "In the World of Fiction" (Zlotnitsky D.A. "I'm not ready to share Westeros." Interview with George Martin // The World of Fiction, 2009). Probably, such an idea later became the inspiration for Martin himself during the work on the Song of Ice and Fire cycle. In an interview with The Guardian, Martin claimed that the first chapter of "Game of Thrones" appeared in his mind literally out of nowhere: "When I started, I had no idea what would come of it. I thought it would be a story. First, I wrote an excerpt in which the characters find direwolf puppies. Then I started studying families, and the world started to come alive. It was all in my head, so I couldn't help but write it" (Flood A. Interview George RR Martin: 'When I began A Game of Thrones I Thought It Might Be a Short Story // Guardian, 2018).

Gaiman, in turn, came up with the idea of creating American Gods in Iceland: "I didn't have any thoughts about a new book until I came to Reykjavik in the summer of 1998. It was there that fragments of the plot, individual images, and a general idea of the structure formed in my head. So the new book began to take shape. It was supposed to be a thriller, a detective story about a mysterious murder, in which there was supposed to be romance and travel. It was supposed to be a work about immigrants, about what people believed when they came to America, and about what happened to what they believed in" (Gayman N. How Dare You).

Drawing parallels between the universes of the works under consideration, it should be noted that each of the authors created a unique, inimitable world. Amazing parallel shadow worlds in Roger Zelazny's The Amber Chronicles, fictional America in Neil Gaiman's American Gods (the author has an essay on this subject titled How dare you, dedicated to how an Englishman dared to write about America, its soul and national identity; in particular, answering this question, Gaiman claimed to have created a fictional America in the spirit of a fantasy universe ^[17]) and a detailed, violent, story-filled world of Ice and Fire by George Martin ^[18] populated by an immense number of characters.

Despite the differences between these worlds, however, there are common features. Firstly, we are talking about the active exploitation of Celtic and Scandinavian myths interspersed with various mythological systems that are not typical of fantasy literature (Kabbalah and ancient myth in Zelazny, mythology of the peoples of Africa, Jamaica, Slavs in Gaiman, oriental myths in Martin). In the works of all three authors, the image of a tree occupies an important place, referring to the Scandinavian world tree Yggdrasil and the legends of Odin ^[19]. So, in Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber cycle, there is an Igg tree. The familiar abbreviation of his name demonstrates the author's obvious irony and loss of reverence towards the World Axis. In American Gods, the main character named Shadow is tied to the trunk of an ash tree – apparently also the Scandinavian Yggdrasil.

In Martin's novels, the image of a tree is interpreted in a different way. In his works, it's more like a Celtic tree. Martin's weirwood is a tree with a human face carved on its trunk and juice the color of blood. According to legend, the gods watched over the human world through him. In ancient times, there was a tradition to set up a godswood at each castle, thereby creating a place of worship for the old gods. According to Martin, Westeros is the northern land of courageous and noble people. It is there that this ancient custom has been preserved to this day. The North is a place where a close connection with nature has not been lost: the Stark children grow up with the direwolves, and the wild forest surrounding the castle is their favorite place to play. Wildlife is what shapes Northerners. The new faith of the seven gods that has come to their world is being planted by treacherous southerners who have cut down most of the godswoods. The rapid disappearance of the weirwood trees thus symbolizes the impoverishment, impoverishment and depersonalization of the world as a whole ^{[20, 21]}.

In another way, the raven is end-to-end for all three works. At the most crucial moment of Zelazny's Chronicles, when the main character must save the world of Amber, he meets two ravens – a red one (created from the hero's blood) and a black one. The latter's name is Hugi. He accompanies the hero, talking to him on philosophical topics. In Gaiman, the reader discovers a similar scene when a raven is sent by his father (Odin) to help the main character, the Shadow, with whom he enters into an absurd conversation, which ends with a harsh remark about the latter. In Martin's novels, a three-eyed raven is a person who can see through the eyes of a bird.

In addition to Odin and his associated attributes, all three novels feature the trickster–Locke persona. Zelazny's brother is the main character Brendan. Martin has a whole galaxy of them, the most prominent representative of which is the Little Finger. In Gaiman's novel, Locke himself is present, and Odin himself often acquires the features of a trickster. Secondly, it is worth noting the wealth of allusions that dot the texts of all three authors. In addition to references to classical literature and epic works, Zelazny and Gaiman can also make references to modern popular culture: the names of songs, films, and famous personalities. Thirdly, the central characters of the works of these authors undergo a kind of initiation that requires them to make a sacrifice. For Zelazny and Gaiman, such a victim is the ordeal and blood shed by the heroes. Fourthly, we are talking about original attributes, sometimes endowed with magical powers and playing a decisive role in the fate of the characters. Zelazny has the Talisman of the Law, Martin has the Iron Throne, Gaiman has magic coins designed to help Shadow in his quest.

By erasing the boundaries between formulaic literature and elite literature, between different genres within fantasy literature, in particular, between science fiction and fantasy, the humanities have significantly expanded the scope of the genre. One of the brightest representatives of the New Wave movement, Roger Zelazny, formulated in his work a number of important features of the "new" fantasy literature: the mixing of genres, the use of several layers of intertextuality, the combination of literature and psychoanalysis, the perception of a person's inner fracture as entropy. Many of these traits were adopted by the next generation of writers, Neil Gaiman and George Martin. However, it was not only the approach to creating works that became the source of inspiration for these authors. They are also united by the use of similar mythological symbols, a deep study of the characters' images, as well as an attempt to bring fantasy worlds closer to the modern reader.