 |
| 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.
