Thursday, May 30, 2013

Fantasy vs. Science Fiction

"Fantasy looks at a nostalgic past, while science fiction looks at a future that could be."
--Michael Drout, "Of Sorcerers and Men" (Barnes and Noble series) 2006.

My friend Eric loves reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, loves playing World War II or Civil War games, but admits that he doesn't like science fiction. "I don't know why I don't connect with it," he says. "Science fiction can be optimistic, but a lot of what I'm familiar with is dystopian. I liked (Philip K. Dick's) Blade Runner okay, and it's not like I couldn't watch Star Trek when I was a kid (it was available, at least the original), but I've always connected with fantasy more. Even with mysteries, I'd rather read an older mystery, like a Brother Cadfael mystery or Dorothy Sayers, than a modern one."

I suggested that he liked fantasy and older war games because of their nostalgia rather than an optimistic, humanistic view of the future. "No, I don't think that's it," he said. As a kid, Eric grew up in the South side of Chicago. Out his front door was the city, but out the back was an old cemetery with flat headstones, surrounded by prairie grass and beyond that, the woods. "I would imagine that I could go out the door, walk through the grass, into the woods, and enter another world," he said. The view from the back of the house seemed like he was looking out over an English countryside. Even today, he favors English gardens as his favorite kind of landscape.

For me, my introduction to fantasy and science fiction was different. When I was in second grade, I came home from school one day to find a new copy of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on my bed. I had helped with chores around the house over the weekend, and my reward was a book. Soon I was entering the world of Narnia, like so many other young children have, and, like the wardrobe, was discovering a world that was much bigger on the inside than what first appearances led me to believe. Soon I was reading the rest of the Chronicles, and then began reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

My journey into fantasy literature continued, with Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain and later David Eddings, Piers Anthony, Terry Brooks, and others, but I also began reading science fiction, mainly Isaac Asimov (The Foundation series is still my favorite). Along the way I also read mythology (Celtic, Norse, Greek, Robin Hood, Arthurian), classics (Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, Dickens, Moby Dick), but fantasy remained my favorite.

Do I resonate with fantasy because I long for the past rather than feel optimistic about the future? Is it a reflection of my worldview, where I am prone to believe in miracles, supernatural forces, the imaginative, and to some degree, "magic"? Am I cynical about humanity, disbelieve the inevitable progress of humanity, or are my reasons something other than philosophical?

For Eric, many of his connections seemed to come from strong experiences from his childhood. For me, I could argue the same (at least the evidence seems to be there). Books were a kind of reward for work (I'm glad to this day that it wasn't a bar of chocolate on the bed). In addition, we had just moved to a small town in Indiana from a college town in Illinois. I had said goodbye to my best friend and two neighbor girls I played with, and I hadn't made many friends yet in Indiana. I was also an only child (my half brothers wouldn't be born until I was 10 and 12). In Narnia, Middle Earth, the Four Lands, Xanth, or other places, I could escape the loneliness of my childhood for a while and imagine I was being swept up in an adventure, with a group of companions, making heroic decisions that would determine the fate of the world. Pretty high stakes. Pretty significant.

So my question is this: Why do others identify with fantasy, science fiction, mystery, or history? Is it for philosophical reasons, intellectual reasons, or is it something more personal?

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