So I had a conversation with my mother-in-law the other day that made me really sad. Somehow we got onto the topic of allegory and she said something like this: “I never really liked C.S. Lewis or any of that allegorical stuff. I don’t like Harry Potter and I don’t understand Lord of the Rings; writing has to be realistic in order to mean anything – fantasy is just kid’s stuff and it’s not important.”
I nodded politely along then headed out to the garage so I could sit by myself with my LOTR tattoo and Neal Gaiman short story collection and wonder what’s wrong with this crazy family I married into.
My husband doesn’t read fiction, which was a hard hurdle for us to get over but which I eventually understood was related to his ADD so I see it more as a minor disability than as a personal flaw – he doesn’t read history or nonfiction either, only books about mechanics and chemical formulas, or as he puts it “Books I can use.”
My father-, brother-, and mother-in-laws don’t read fiction either, though, so I’m coming to see this as a nurture-more-than-nature issue.
When I was a kid my parents and grandparents read to and with me all the time. My grandmother would sit down and draw mermaids with my sister and I and we would make up stories about how they lived; my father read The Hobbit to me when I was only five years old and it made me look forward to bedtime every night because I wanted to see what Bilbo was up to next; my mother started a reading circle with my sister and I when I was 12, in which we would sit down and read whole novels to one another; I will admit that I can’t remember my grandfather reading me any books, but he was a magician (literally – check out http://kirkkirkham.blogspot.com/ - my dad’s blog about his dad) and so the fantastic was part of everyday life when he was around. I was raised to adore fantasy, to believe in the power of the imagination and the possibility of magic, of the strength of hope and wonder.
What happens when you take that kind of magic away? I’m not sure that it ruins people. But I don’t think that it does them any good. I get frustrated with my husband sometimes because of it; he enjoys Science Fiction occasionally, but thinks that LOTR is boring and Harry Potter is dumb, he has no patience for fairy tales and no time for whimsy. I love him, but that’s just a little sad.
I’m fairly convinced that most English majors are raised in an environment conducive to crushed dreams and heartbreaking revelations; we probably believed in Santa long after all the other kids in our class did, and played with Barbies when we were much too old for them, and still think that maybe we might someday see a fairy or a dragon. Fantasy doesn’t lead to the most realistic adults, but in this world who wants to be a realist? I’ll take the idealism, hope, magic and whimsy of fantasy with me forever and I’ll try to someday pass it on to my kids too – and no matter that he missed out on it as a child, you better believe that my husband will participate in fostering magic in the lives of his children.
So where do you stand? Fantasy or Facts? Do you still believe in Santa Claus or do you think it’s cruel to lie to children about tooth fairies and Easter bunnies? Let me know in the comments.
