I had someone (@AEMarling) ask me on Twitter yesterday, "What about fantasy most speaks to you?" Of course I took that as an invitation to reveal my inner cave man -- or cave woman in this case -- and replied, "All the cool stuff you can do!"
In fairness to me, I've been re-reading Jim Butcher's excellent Dresden Files series and what I like the most about Harry is his smart-aleck kick-butt ways combined with his, at times, irrational refusal to be bullied even if it means certain death. I then asked Marling how he would answer the question. He came back with:
Fantasy unhinges confining reality, manifesting age-old human dreams and desires. The early Homo sapiens might have paused in crushing each other’s skulls (30% of adults died of homicide back then OUCH!) and seen birds flying and imagined taking wing themselves, and this desire to fantasize, to daydream impossibilities may be written in our DNA. I suggest this tendency to entertain the absurd is our greatest adaptation. Without it, I do not for a moment believe we would have achieved air flight, learned how to restart a stopped heart, or cooked the Oreo pizza. (The last one proves fantasy can be used for evil…delicious, delicious evil.)I'd been owned. I had to laugh. That's a way better answer. Here's another one:
[Read the rest of the article here.]
Fantasy of any kind tells us that the world we know is not the only one, nor the most enduring — and that truth can be anything but an escape or comfort.That quotation was from David Orr. In that spirit, Lev Grossman has given us 10 fantasy novels that he says everyone should read. The first one is The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, one of my personal favorites. Click here for the others.
