“Fantasy has swords, and science fiction has lightsabers,” says my 12-year-old son. It’s trying to give me a crash course in a genre that has always left me cold, much to the dismay of my fantasy-obsessed sons. I got bored with Bilbo when I was her age, and I never understood what was so great about Gandalf.
But when I saw a major new fantasy exhibition opening at the British Library during the summer holidays, I wondered whether I should give so-called speculative fiction a second chance.
Fantasy: areas of fantasy explores how ancient stories helped shape modern fantasy epics through ancient texts such as these. Thousand and One Nights modern novels, such as N. K. Jemisin The city we have becomeThe fight against racism in America.
The path of Christopher Paolini was the gateway to other worlds for my children. Eragonabout a farm boy who finds a dragon’s egg, the first book in his The Inheritance Cycle, which my eldest son happened upon in the library of an American elementary school when we lived in Michigan. He devoured the first three before turning to Ursula K. Le Guin. A Wizard of Earthsea and, of course, J. R. R. Tolkien.
For years I left it to myself, but then Suzanne Clarke won the Women’s Prize in 2021 and I read – and loved – Piranesi, about a man adrift in a mysterious world, is a book that is the height of fantasy. Now it was my turn to tell them about a world far from ours and wonder what else I had missed.
I dug up Octavia E. Butler ConnectedIt’s about a young African-American woman time-traveling between 1970s California and a Maryland plantation in the early 19th century, partly because I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time, partly because my son, who is now back in the UK, has read it’s at home. English lessons in 9th group.
Finally a crossover of something we both loved. But despite the fact that he had spent several weeks last spring trying to follow Frodo’s search by reading Lord of the Rings Aloud before bed, I still felt the pull of real life as I leafed through stacks of books.
However, real life can be very annoying, which may explain why something new crept into what I was reading. New books by Francis Spafford, K. Pam Zhang, Sayaka Murata and Jesmyn Ward contain an element of fantasy, from counterfactual historical worlds and futuristic eco-dystopias where the rich feasted on woolly mammoths, to surreal vignettes of cannibals and the ghosts of wealth. magical realism.
It’s not that I want to equate fantasy with anything other than escapism. That would be a disservice to the genre, says Tanya Kirk, a curator who worked on the British Library exhibition.
“Consuming books or films set in another world can give people a break from life, but fantasy does so much more. It gives us the opportunity to look at our world in a new light, compare it to an alternate reality and see what we can do differently,” she says. “Imagination gives you the ability to talk about complex issues in a way that makes them easier for others to understand.”
I just read Murata Life ceremonyA collection of short stories that subvert normality and satirize the conventions that bind society. I feel ripe for turning to the work of fantasy.
Maybe I’m too late for my first Le Guin? My eldest son finds his Earthsea Quartet and I’m leaving, although I wonder if I could really be interested in a story about a young wizard. The welcome card even makes my heart skip a beat. It shows the kingdom of Ged as he fights an evil shadow he accidentally summoned.
As I later learned from the exhibition, cartography has been an important part of the imagination since the time of Thomas Moore. Utopia. “While it is an important philosophical text, it has an important connection to modern fantasy: it was the first fictional world with a map and an invented language,” Kirk says.
“We want to continue to make connections between historical forms of storytelling that people don’t necessarily think of as fantasy and how.” [the genre is] revised and used today.”
I understand that my fault is impatience: I want to continue the story, and not dwell on its origins. I have to accept the map as an entrance into Le Guin’s fictional world. “Because imagination often reimagines the world from scratch, maps provide a direct visual way to understand what the world will look like,” adds Kirk.
I continued reading and was captivated by Guesde’s humility and Le Guin’s beautiful prose. Later that morning at the exhibition, my reward arrives: two handwritten pages from Le Guin’s Early Novel. Earthsea The design, provided by the University of Oregon, was first seen in the UK.
I look at her 1967 notebook and read with joy in her beautiful handwritten letter how Ged realizes that if he wants to find peace, he must become a pursuer and confront the shadow in his own way – a lesson we should all remember from the past. Fine. real world.
As I explore the exhibition with my children, I am delighted to see a mid-18th century engraving by Giovanni Battista Piranesi of the vast imaginary prison that inspired Clark. Also on display are her own typewritten pages of a handwritten adaptation of “Part 1: Piranesi.”
The Tolkien section in particular was well received by my children, who were equally enthusiastic about the illustrations by Alan Lee, who conceptualized Peter Jackson’s film adaptations. Lord of the Rings AND Hobbitand Gandalf’s staff, borrowed from Lee himself (“Met Ian McKellen. Wow,” they whisper).
There is also a page from Tolkien to a BBC producer in which he suggests changes to the 1955 radio script for the lost recording. At the lecture in December, Lee will discuss, among other topics, the creation of fantasy worlds. I’m fascinated by Tove Jansson’s image of Gollum from the Swedish edition of the magazine. Hobbit which she illustrated in 1962: Jansson towers over Bilbo, depicting him as much larger than Tolkien intended.
The part about portals makes me realize that I was wrong when I thought I would never read or enjoy fantasy. CS Lewis! Philippa Pierce! Kirk laughs at my revelation. “You probably read it as a child, or read it or experienced it as an adult,” she says, also noting that many authors are drawn to the genre. “Even writers who can be called exclusively literary classics also thought and wrote fantasy.”
Take the Brontës: Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, created in childhood Glass City, fantasy world. Two small manuscripts are on display, although I would need a magnifying glass to read how Charlotte Zamorna, eldest son of the Duke of Wellington, had a twin brother – both apparently cursed at birth.
Since fantasy spans so many types of books, it’s no surprise that the genre is experiencing such rapid growth. According to Nielsen BookData, a total of £47.1 million was spent on science fiction and fantasy in 2022, up 62% on 2019, the latest year for which data is available. By volume, 4.3 million titles were sold, up 42 percent from 2019.
Anne Landmann, founder of CYMERA, Edinburgh’s science fiction, fantasy and horror festival, says too many people think the genre is based on stereotypes: wizards, elves, dragons and space shuttles.
“They’re just the media that tells these stories, not what the stories are about. dune [by Frank Herbert] is a coming of age story with some really twisted elements: empires, colonialism and bad parenting. At the heart of all these stories are human questions and problems. If we write about them in closed worlds, we will distance ourselves from them and make it easier to find answers.”
I’d like to add that my own fantasy quest may have only just begun, but I already feel like I’m looking at the world from a slightly different perspective. If science fiction writers can be more creative in the way they tell stories (to paraphrase my oldest son), perhaps I can be more creative in the way I deal with some of life’s stumbling blocks. And if all else fails, at least I know that I can find refuge in all the other worlds. Tombs of AtuanThe next installment in Le Guin’s Earthsea series reminds me of that—assuming I can steal our copy from one of my kids.
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