Fairytales, myths and legends no matter how fantastic feed into our need to answer the questions and examine the fears that loom largest in our culture and psyche.
If we look at the original Grimm fairytales they tell us very different resolutions to the sweetened versions we know today. Cinderella cuts off her toes, little Red Riding Hood beds the wolf. We shouldn't pretend in our tales, that the savage and macabre don't exist. Or that our fears don't need to be confronted.
I've seen an opportunity to submit my fantasy novel to a programme associated with a publishing house. I'm not saying anything will come of it, but it means I've dropped my current WIP and am back to editing.
My little editing assistant is, as ever, by my side.
Fantasy derives from our need to explore who we are and explain the unexplainable. If you take away the dwarfs, elves and trolls, fantasy is about struggle, burdens, the serious and the important.
#Fantasy can be humourous but still tackle literary themes.
@Imperor my mum use to read the Hobbit to me and my brother when we were having a bath. Only problem was that my brother then finished the chapter in bed on his own (he's two and a half years older than me). So I spent my childhood with this disjointed telling of the Hobbit. I made up for it as an adult though as I've read it multiple times. It never gets old.
I had and have a German casette version of it from the 80s or 90s. Used to listen to that on repeat.
The song of the dwarves at Bagend in that variant still gives me shivers. Sadly I never found a version of just the song or a full one. I don't think they ever made it, so all I got is the snippets interjected with the narrator.
This also has the best Gandalf to my mind. Love it.
Review: "Let me tell you I was bitterly disappointed to learn that this book is, in fact, an instructional guide to the profitable husbandry of ducks as a craft. There is not one sliver of insight about holding ducks accountable for their crimes against humanity, Earth or God."
I was literally (used properly) crying with laughter reading this. 📚