Fairy Tales and All Things Fantastic

As promised, a new short story is up. You can find it by clicking here or on the "Fairy Story" link to the right. It is a bit of a quirky piece that is, in many ways, my ode to the fairy tale. It arose from a challenge to write a children's story without a happy ending.

Originally, I had intended to post a completely different piece - a chick lit story I had already shared once on Facebook. I was planning on saving Fairy Story for the off chance that I found an appropriate venue for it. When I realized what topic I wanted to talk about today I felt it really was much more appropriate to share it here, alongside this post.

Because I want to talk about how important fairy tales are.

A beautiful quote from Neil Gaiman is being shared around Facebook:

Image credit: www.weareteachers.com

This comes from a lecture Neil gave about "Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming." I highly recommend reading the lecture in its entirety, but in a nutshell, he talks about how we need to let our children read what they enjoy and why fiction, in particular, is crucial. Everything that humans have ever created began in someone's imagination and therefore the imagination is paramount to our continued existence as human beings.

I want to talk about a certain branch of fiction in particular - speculative fiction - and my frustration at its frequent dismissal as a legitimate and significant aspect of literature.

First of all - what is speculative fiction? It is a broad term to describe genres with a speculative element including various types of fantasy, science fiction and horror. The fairy tale would be a type of speculative fiction.

Let me clarify that I find almost all genres to be fascinating and valuable in our quest to better understand human existence. However, speculative fiction has always had a special allure for me. Whether it was a type of escapism or just an exciting way to exercise my imagination, I constantly immersed myself in the fantastic and the supernatural. From Chronicles of Narnia to The Vampire Chronicles to Star Trek to Vision of Escaflowne. These stories will always resonate with me in a way no others do.

I understand and respect that not all people have the same tastes. While I don't mind romance in my stories, I am not overly fond of purely romantic fiction. Just as some people don't understand the appeal behind stories about spaceships or dragons. I do have a problem when people try to control the genre intake of their children based on their own interests - whether overtly by withholding it or unconsciously by saying things like "that kind of stuff is stupid". I also hate the hierarchy of books that exists in our culture that holds literature as a golden standard and genre literature (particularly young adult) as low or common.

A few years ago, when I worked at EB Games, a mom and her son came in to buy a game. He was probably around ten years old and very badly wanted to play shooters - Call of Duty or Halo - with his friends. Since both of these games have a Mature rating (17+), the mother asked us for advice. It's something that was asked of us frequently and we gave her the usual overview. Call of Duty is exactly what it appears - a war game where humans kill humans. In Halo, humans kill aliens; many parents opt for Halo feeling that having their child shoot aliens is less violent than witnessing the death of other human beings. We also gave her the age-appropriate suggestion of Ratchet and Clank - a kids' sci-fi adventure game with humor akin to Looney Toons.

Ratchet and Clank (Sony Computer Entertainment)

Image source: http://www.technobuffalo.com

She was appalled at the latter two options. She told me that she would much much rather he play a game where he kill other human beings than one that had anything make-believe. As a simple sales associate I wasn't in a position to ask her why make-believe was so offensive, but it has irked me to this day. What part of an imaginary world is worse than immersing yourself in a world of war and violence? In what way does culling the imagination benefit a child?

Whatever she felt, I think G.K. Chesterton counters it best in his defense of the value of fairy tales for children:

"Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon. Exactly what the fairy tale does is this: it accustoms him for a series of clear pictures to the idea that these limitless terrors had a limit, that these shapeless enemies have enemies in the knights of God, that there is something in the universe more mystical than darkness, and stronger than strong fear."

Imagination helps us overcome our fears. It allows for empathy and creativity. It is at the heart of problem-solving and, as Neil Gaiman points out, helps drive the desire to make the world a better place. Encouraging and feeding that imagination with content, especially content that relies on experiencing a world fundamentally different than the one surrounding us, only helps children to grow this amazing human ability.

Once again - I understand that not everyone will find spec fic appealing. Or they may only find very specific genres to their liking. But it is very tiring to be constantly faced with the reality that your interests are viewed as sub-par. As this article from Slate explains, you should feel guilty for reading literature intended for young adults. Especially ridiculous made-up things like the Hunger Games. You should be busy reading "real" literature.

Seriously though, why expect your kids to be literate when you shame them for enjoying reading? The same goes for adults. If you are engaging with characters and can find some meaning that helps you better relate to the relationships and challenges in your own life, who cares whether it is classic lit, graphic novel, chick lit, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, young adult or erotica? If it is a story with relatable characters and an engrossing and meaningful plot, what does it matter whether the protagonist is a two-toed sloth and the setting is Pluto? If people think that content beyond the real is limiting, they are the ones who are limited. Because if I can empathize with Jerry the sloth, think about how much easier it is to relate to other human beings. Last I checked, empathy was something the world could use more of.

Unfortunately, the biases that exist in our culture also influence publishing and financial decisions. Since I started researching Canadian science fiction and fantasy magazines, I've found some disturbing trends: there really aren't that many and they could really use some funding. One magazine in particular has been warned on several occasions that they will lose their government funding if they don't start publishing more "lit" and less "genre fiction". This is despite the fact that they are very clearly a spec fic market. I've also had a hard time finding any publications sold retail stores or loaned out at the library aside from your average lit quarterly that clearly states "no genre fiction" in their submissions guidelines.

I think we've forgotten how important the fairy tale is. I think we've become so fixated on "real" life - whatever that means - that many of us are dismissing the fantastic, the imaginative, the strange. I think that many of us adults have forgotten the amazing worlds that drew us to reading in the first place and have lost the ability to understand their appeal to our children. I'm not saying you have to love fantasy or science fiction. I'm not even saying you have to like them. Please, just don't dismiss them and don't discourage others from enjoying whatever they want to read.

If you feel like it - let me know what genres you enjoy in the comments and the stories that drew you to them in the first place!