The earliest books I can remember were the two classics: C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. But not Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia at first, but rather his lesser-known, but still amazing Space Trilogy, which I never actually read all the way through until my freshman year of college. I found the first two books, Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, enthralling, yet the third one (That Hideous Strength) started out way too boring, and I often skipped to the last half but couldn’t understand a bit of it because of how much plot I ignored.
I’ve been coming across a lot of articles and essays lately where people either attack or defend speculative fiction for its supposed appeal only to the lesser-literary minded…junk food for the imagination, some people call it. Of no particular value to the American letters. My boiled down opinion is that it’s a sad day when the wild imagination doesn’t have a place in literature.
I discovered this article as well:
My reaction? “What if?” In touching on “escapist literature,” as it is sometimes called, I particularly enjoyed coming across this bit towards the end of the article–
Reading tales of the fantastic transforms us back into dreaming children who love without reservation and can resist the grinding banality of the bureaucratized world where all that seems to matter is paying taxes and scraping together enough money to pay taxes again next year. To change our minds into the mode of the child does not mean that we lose our adult intelligence, but that we regain our free minds.
This is one of the reasons I love writing speculative fiction as much as I do reading it. It gives me an excuse to let my mind wander wherever and whenever I want and even use a semi-professional excuse to rationalize it. I’m growing up, but bringing my childhood with me. Sadly, others may refuse to consider the genre legitimate (though I claim that proving “legitimacy” or “literary worth” isn’t the point of any genre but ones that people tack the word “literary” in front of), but they do so at their loss.
It isn’t so much that adults aren’t allowed to write or read about hippogriffs, succubi, and their kind…it’s that most of them can’t write or read about them. Their unhealthy minds cannot handle such concepts anymore. In the process of growing up in this era of rapid information exchange, ad creep, spam, and (alas) reality television, making the escape from their own minds into the worlds beyond has turned close to impossible.
That would be an awful thing, wouldn’t it? Being locked inside our own heads forever, unable to get beyond the images on our television screens or newspapers? Do yourself a favor and get in touch with your inner thirteen-year-old, except for the whole pimples and squeaky voice deal.
I see that smile.