Wednesday, April 25, 2007

a new thought

i thought i remembered andy asking us how our definitions of the fantasy genre have expanded or changed over this course. i was thinking about this and i realized one major revelation that has come about in my own definition of fantasy. i always thought of fantasy as mystical, imaginary characters and places that could never actually exist in the world today. however, i was horribly mistaken in my close-minded view of this genre. despite imaginary characters who may be witches or cats or creepy men who kill their wives, there are still very real elements to all of these tales. i can relate to most every story we have read in some way or another, and its made me like this genre of literature a lot more. i used to never pick out a fantasy book to read, and from here on out i will certainly give them a second glance.

4 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

I agree, some of the stories we've read this semester I would have NEVER categorized in the fantasy genre (some of them I still wouldn't categorize so). Especially some of the horror stories we've read. I just never considered that part of the fantasy genre, but I guess it is. These stories are sometimes indeed fantastical. Yet, other stories we've read this semester, I would have classified as fantasy right off the bat, but I would have never in a million years thought to include that type of story in my original definition of fantasy at the beginning of the year...if that makes any sense. My view of the genre has changed quite a lot since the start of this class. I will say, however, there are still some stories that we've read this year that I question their inclusion in the fantasy genre (I guess I'm not as all encompasing as Andy).

8:32 AM  
Blogger Nick Beadle said...

My own conclusion is that a lot of contemporary fantasy, aside from the "plot coupons" crowd Andy mentioned last week, seems to be a little more subtle, a little more building and less stuff like Strange and Norrell where "Magic just happens here."

I wonder how much film plays into that, since it has certainly spread the device of "normal human being drawn into a fantastical world" pretty prolifically.

9:41 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I agree with Liz. I still don't put some of the stories we've read into the fantasy genre. I think contemporary fantasy has definitely evolved from the classic "Magic just happens here" as Nick said into something, well, contemporary. I'm don't think that's really fair to the fantasy genre itself. Seems to me that the other main genres are able to stay pretty constant (srsly, how do you change the mystery novel?). But now 'fantasy' writers are stretching the bounds of fantasy genre. Totally not cool people. Show a lil respect to the classics; that's how you got here in the first place.

10:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, fantasy is following the evolutionary trends of most literature. The class is 21st Century Fantasy, and I think the post-modernisty stories of Link and Ford are appropriate. Not everyone can write high-fantasy and it doesn't interest everyone. Excluding the Kelly Links of fiction based on their not writing in the same tradition of Tolkien is more a matter of personel taste than anything. I do agree that before this class I wouldn't have exactly thought of the new post-modern (I don't know if that's the right term or not) stories as fantasy really. But then again, I really hadn't read any or given the subject much thought. One thing I will take away from this class is an much better understanding of what exactly the fantasy genere is.
One reason I've enjoyed most of the material we've read is that it incorporates subtle magic into the everyday lives of people like us. Some of the stories take unexplainable, weird event, events that are not entirely foreign to us and puts a magical twist or explanation to them. It seems like a more attainable fantasy than say LOTR or Harry Potter.

12:27 PM  

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