Gary Wassner
March 23rd, 2005, 09:31 AM
There is no theme to this thread. I just had some things to say so I figured I would say them here.
I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why I write fantasy and why I read it as well. I think many of us here do the same thing, as evidenced by so many of the threads that deal with this subject. This morning, as usual, while I was at my gym running my ass off to catch up with time, or some such esoteric nonsense, I was also reading. I was reading something terribly profound and totally inspired. I was reading a work of genius, and with all works of genius, it has quickly taken on a life of its own for me. It no longer belongs to its author, but to all of us who learn from it and respect it and take joy in its creation. In any case, I realized while reading that what makes me go back to Epic Fantasy over and over again is that when it's good it is rather like religion. It lifts me out of this world spiritually and it empowers me. It makes me hopefull in all its gloom and tragedy because it fulfills my otherworldly yearning, my desire to believe that there is more to life than the mundane, more than the little world I live in. When it's great, it is religion. It humbles me and makes me ashamed of my own efforts at expressing my feelings through my own books. It reminds me that there is so much I cannot do and so much I still have to learn....and it teaches. Relentlessly, it teaches. First it makes the world appear so complicated, and then it simplifies it in the same instance. It makes it all seem so clear, regardless of the darkness and the doubt, because a great piece of Epic Fantasy is like a guidebook for the mind, much in the manner of a great work of philosophy.
And for those of us who are not pious, who don't find solace in the words of Jesus or Mohammed or Abraham, but do instead in our own convoluted fashion in Nietzsche or James Joyce or maybe even Leonard Cohen, and who still have this yearning to understand and to transcend our daily grind, to find our own religion so to speak, fantasy can guide us. Brilliant fantasy can almost provide us with that experience, it can steer us and teach us and make tangible the ideas that we previously merely intuited or simply could never put into words so beautifully and succinctly ourselves.
Enjoyment comes in many forms and guises, as does satisfaction. The quest for meaning reaches in a myriad of directions. The reasons I write and read Fantasy are strikingly similar to those that send my best friend to Church every Sunday morning and my mother-in-law to the graveside of her husband as often as possible. And it takes something as good as Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series to remind me of why I continually look to this particular fountain to quench my thirst.
I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why I write fantasy and why I read it as well. I think many of us here do the same thing, as evidenced by so many of the threads that deal with this subject. This morning, as usual, while I was at my gym running my ass off to catch up with time, or some such esoteric nonsense, I was also reading. I was reading something terribly profound and totally inspired. I was reading a work of genius, and with all works of genius, it has quickly taken on a life of its own for me. It no longer belongs to its author, but to all of us who learn from it and respect it and take joy in its creation. In any case, I realized while reading that what makes me go back to Epic Fantasy over and over again is that when it's good it is rather like religion. It lifts me out of this world spiritually and it empowers me. It makes me hopefull in all its gloom and tragedy because it fulfills my otherworldly yearning, my desire to believe that there is more to life than the mundane, more than the little world I live in. When it's great, it is religion. It humbles me and makes me ashamed of my own efforts at expressing my feelings through my own books. It reminds me that there is so much I cannot do and so much I still have to learn....and it teaches. Relentlessly, it teaches. First it makes the world appear so complicated, and then it simplifies it in the same instance. It makes it all seem so clear, regardless of the darkness and the doubt, because a great piece of Epic Fantasy is like a guidebook for the mind, much in the manner of a great work of philosophy.
And for those of us who are not pious, who don't find solace in the words of Jesus or Mohammed or Abraham, but do instead in our own convoluted fashion in Nietzsche or James Joyce or maybe even Leonard Cohen, and who still have this yearning to understand and to transcend our daily grind, to find our own religion so to speak, fantasy can guide us. Brilliant fantasy can almost provide us with that experience, it can steer us and teach us and make tangible the ideas that we previously merely intuited or simply could never put into words so beautifully and succinctly ourselves.
Enjoyment comes in many forms and guises, as does satisfaction. The quest for meaning reaches in a myriad of directions. The reasons I write and read Fantasy are strikingly similar to those that send my best friend to Church every Sunday morning and my mother-in-law to the graveside of her husband as often as possible. And it takes something as good as Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series to remind me of why I continually look to this particular fountain to quench my thirst.