On Fantasy…

Over the last few weeks, I’ve felt the need to comfort read. Concentrating has been challenging so I have immersed myself in an old favourite, Robin Hobb. I picked up all four volumes of The Rain Wild Chronicles in a charity shop for £1.50 each and this has been just the moment to devour them. To be honest, they’re not her best work. At times I’ve felt myself transported into a teen soap rather than a parallel world, but I suppose to some extent, that is probably the point. After all, fantasy fiction, for all the world building and the fantastical elements, is actually about real life, isn’t it? 

Margaret Atwood has defined fantasy as fiction with dragons and the like. No shortage of those in The Rain Wild Chronicles. But I think this is quite a limiting definition. My preferred Hobb novels, The Farseer, Tawny Man and Fitz and the Fool trilogies, do feature the occasional dragon, but they are not the central focus. The compelling first-person narrative from the central character encourages the reader to think about the psychology of a very human, if flawed individual, an apparently ordinary person with hidden clandestine abilities. It’s about identification with the characters as well as escapism into the fantasy world, which, however well developed, must in some way reflect our own.

What we now call fantasy has its roots in some of the oldest world literatures, intertwined as it is with other forms such as fairy tale and romance. Think Homer’s Odyssey with all its monsters, heroes and gods, or Beowulf, medieval romances, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. All build fantasy worlds of different kinds, overlapping and intersecting with the worlds of the readers. All offer us something to think about, some kind of moral underpinning as well as the comfort read that is so enticing.

Everything changed, of course, when J. R. R. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937, and then The Lord of the Rings trilogy (1950-54), although Mervin Peake’s weirdly brilliant Titus Groan pointed the way in 1946. But after the extraordinary success of Tolkien’s completely immersive works, fantasy fiction took on a life of its own and today it is surely one of the most popular genres.

I have always liked to read a complete fantasy trilogy or equivalent over the summer holidays. My escapism. I enjoy the formulas to some extent, but I also want to be surprised. The Rain Wild Chronicles has kept me busy, but it hasn’t surprised me. Now with autumn stretching ahead, I realise there is time to find something that does. There will be no new term for me in September, so this year I can just keep going, reading whatever I want for as long as I want. There will be many good things that I haven’t even heard of yet, so I would really welcome any recommendations…