Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.
This week’s prompt is:
Some people argue that fantasy isn’t worth reading because it’s not about real things. What is your response?
My response boils down to: there are so many problems with that idea that I don’t know where to start. Seriously.
Bad news for Homer, Virgil, and Dante (to name a few)
Are we talking about reading fiction at all, versus a steady diet of non-fiction? I think there’s enough research–not to mention all of Western culture (and Eastern, Global Southern, and…) that speaks to the wisdom of fiction, the benefits of it, and the way that it can tell the truth in ways that non-fiction can’t. Part of that truth is talking about “real things.”
Or is this an attempt to put Fantasy in contrast to General Fiction? Are we letting Crime Fiction into this, because the turmoils of suburbanites as well as mobsters and detectives count as “real.” Coleen Hoover, Abbi Waxman, Jennifer Weiner, Frederick Bachman, John Cheever, Richard Russo, etc. talk about “real things.” But N.K. Jemison, Alix Harrow, and Robin Sloane are stuck in “make believe.” Can we talk about some Science Fiction here as “real”? William Gibson and Neal Stephenson frequently talk about things that are real enough now, they just project a little bit–do those count as real things?
Also, there’s a hidden assumption here that there’s a “worth spending time on” standard to be met when it comes to reading. Alan Jacobs talks about this in terms of “eating your vegetables” reading. How about reading just for pleasure? Who cares if the subject matter is “real” when you’re wanting a good time?
what kind of things qualify as “real,” anyway? Sure, unicorns, dragons, and the fae aren’t real. But what about concepts like love and justice? There are plenty who would say that intangibles like that aren’t real (horse pucks, I say)–can we read about those? What about non-toxic vaccines (I shouldn’t bring this up, but I’m having trouble coming up with examples)? Are those real?? (YesTheyTotallyAreAndEveryManWomanAndChildShouldBeUpToDateOnVaccines, deep breath TalkToYourMedicalProviderAndNotSomeGuyOrGalOnline)
Lastly–and this is the big one. One of the wonderful things about speculative fiction–Horror, Steampunk, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and the rest with all their various subgenres–is that we can talk about things that are real, things of the moment, things of import–without having to talk about them directly. That way lies preaching, not storytelling. But if you can talk about something real, say discrimination, by talking about the struggles of a goblin to be taken seriously by humans (including not being made a slave, not kicking around for amusement)–it’s easier for an audience to take in without feeling attacked/critiqued personally. Ol’ J.R.R. can go on about the razing of the Shire and everyone gets behind that–if he was protesting the gutting of natural resources around him, he’d have been written of as a crank–or an academic looking down from his ivory tower. Instead, he gets his readers annoyed enough they might try to do something when their own Shires are razed.
And so on.
Fantasy isn’t real? Pfui.
Okay, I could’ve gone on for a couple of full paragraphs on every point I just made there–and should’ve. But I didn’t. Those are some beginning thoughts on my end, basically, I reject the premise(s) of the notion and would invite my interlocutor to come back with something better. Or, you know, just let people read what they want. I trust the others posting here will have better thought out things to say..
Read Irresponsibly, but please Comment Responsibly