Monday, August 27, 2012

Why I Like Fantasy

Gazelle by Brom
As much as I enjoy fantasy I often feel I can't admit to it without being understood. Like a forty year-old man who says he 'really likes Miley Cyrus', it's an admission that carries unfortunate implications. It's one thing to be misunderstood by those who don't have a taste for Fantasy: they assume that I am a escapist with negligible taste, when in fact I find escapism terribly dull and have never struggled to defend my preference in books.

Yet it is not the uninitiated I fear: I fear to be misunderstood by those who like fantasy. When our proverbial forty year-old tells the average person of his appreciation for Miley, they think "this man's an unabashed pedophile", but when he shares this with the like-minded, they think "This man's an unabashed pedophile just like me!" It's this misplaced camaraderie which irks me, because I don't simply like fantasy, I have a deep and abiding passion for it. I read it, I try to write it, and I've fallen into the foolish trap of feeling quite seriously about it.