a brief rant on fantasy and the canon

neil gaiman. stephen king. george rr martin.

all great contemporary fantasy authors with a large body of work, fantastic writing skills, loads of sold books - and serious "professional" under-appreciation.

(quick observation: huge number of books (or anything) sold clearly not equals very valuable writing (see: twilight or danielle steel) but it does indicate that the author is doing SOMETHING right.)

fantasy, as a genre, is somehow not seen as something belonging to the canon (apart from, for a certain group of people, the bible). the reasoning for it goes something like this: "many people like it, ergo it is easy to read and understand, so it clearly can't contain valuable, enriching writing". thus far, the only works of fantasy really going into literary discourse either fall more under the genre of magic realism or are from earlier periods (gothic horror is very much appreciated, king on the other hand, is somehow not, despite clearly following in the footsteps in his epic tales and supernatural horror stories) plus the lord of the rings.

yes, there might not be too much to discuss about stories involving dragons, knights in shining armour and mages throwing fireballs (unlike discussing important literary stories in which someone changes into a bug, which makes perfect sense), but fantasy is an important part of contemporary literature. check the main literary sites - song of ice and fire (martin) is consistently near the top of ratings and reviews. these are works often spanning a thousand pages, written through the course of multiple years, creating a whole new world, with new races, autonomic cultures with a language, a mythology and time-honoured tradition - to do this right, one has to be an author on the top of his job.

fantasy characters are often accused of being too simple, too black-and-white, which makes for morally less interesting stories. though this is true (although this has also been changing recently), the view disregards a very important thing: the average person's need for fairytales in which the smallest prince saves the princess and the evil overlord falls. granted, nowadays it's more likely that during the course of this, a few dozen people die, the sun is blotted out, and the princess is raped/maimed/driven insane/all of this, it's still appealing to something which was common to everyone as a child and which stays the same very often, it's simply, in some cases, repressed. one of the main points of fantasy is that it does not have to have serious meaning - it's for enjoyment and it's another goddamn world, so it does not have to reflect the problems and common features of our world.

on the other hand, there is a select part of fantasy fiction which does have important, canon-worthy themes and materials (i'm using canon-worthy as in: it could/should belong to the current canon, which is pretty much fucked up in the first place). this is where avoiding of fantasy as a whole comes into play in literary studies. i wonder if most literary theorists who refuse to read and discuss stephen king on the grounds of writing "cheap horror" and bestsellers, know that he dwelved deeply into children's psychology and their problems in a number of his works, or that he reflects on everyday social questions (race, class, gender) in all of his works; the fact that he has written several books which are allegories on alcohol abuse and the possibilities of fighting it, or that he has authored three books in which the craft of writing is meticulously explored.

george rr martin in song of ice and fire describes all the possible outcomes of a power vacuum in a given historical context, with a plot which makes richard III. look like a simple task to grab the salt instead of power. black-and-white morality is found very-very little in the series - and if it is, it quickly results in death.

and neil gaiman is neil fucking gaiman and there is no place for any questions concerning that.