Roots and Parallels

Henry Jenkins, a professor from MIT, has written extensively on fan fiction since the early 1990s, and finds many parallels between fanfic and oral traditions, such as folktales. I find this comparison to be particularly useful in conceptualizing both the nature of fanfic, as well as the differences between oral and textual cultures. As I write, I'm reminded of a book I recently read by Neil Gaiman, titled Anansi Boys, a story about Gods, trickster spiders, embittered lions, and the quotidian mask that overlays the extraordinary. One of the central tropes is how the trickster spider stole, or rather outwitted, the lion from his place as master storyteller and forever changed how others understood the world around them. In many ways, authors of fanfic are the trickster spider creating an entirely new capacity for understanding and interpretation but, unlike the lion's stories, the original author's text remains intact and runs parallel, or perhaps sometimes perpendicular to the work of fanfic.