The best fantasy stories take us to a place that, at face value, seems completely unlike our own, and then create just enough parallels to allow us to pause and reflect on the world we live in. Kristin Cashore’s books, Graceling (published last fall) and Fire (published this fall) do just that.
We are heading into the holidays, so let’s emphasize the escape and adventure qualities of the reading experience. A rugged and mountainous landscape policed by monsters. A beautiful heroine who wants to use her talents (to read minds and change them) in the service of a greater cause. An on-again-off-again romance and the possibility of something more lasting. But, for more analytical teens, there’s also a view of what it means to strike out on their own, the responsibility that comes with that, and the realization that you must make your own choices and live with the outcome.
Think of 1984 or C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books or Watership Down. Or, more recently, Feed, So Yesterday, The Giver, and The House of the Scorpion. All fantasies, all with universal themes that allow us to examine our present society and individual situations with a new perspective from a safe distance. Okay, so this is a favorite riff of mine, that ultimately literature teaches us about ourselves. But I have watched young people describe their “aha!” moment, and even liken a situation they recognize in their own lives to one that a character from a favorite book has experienced. It is a gift to be able to try on someone else’s life without having to live through it ourselves. Maybe those characters take a wrong path so we don’t have to. Maybe they figure out a solution we hadn’t thought of. Or maybe they just allow us to escape our own anxieties for awhile and travel somewhere else.
Yes. Maybe they just let us truly enjoy a vacation from our daily lives.
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I read GRACELING over Thanksgiving (posted on it Monday). WATERSHIP DOWN, THE GIVER, Narnia, and 1984 have always been special favorites.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of 1984, CANDOR is an interesting new YA to read with this book in mind.
Stop by sometime today. I've left you a little something on my blog...
ReplyDeleteHi! I stopped by, via Caroline's blog, and enjoyed your post! I write science fiction, not fantasy, but I think all that you've written above holds true for the best of science fiction as well. Although some admire SF for the tech aspects (and as a scientist, I must admit to the attraction as well), the best SF has always been, to me, ultimately about what it means to be human.
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