Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Why I Love Fantasy

by Cynthia Light Brown

From the Master, J. R. R. Tolkien:

"When we have examined many of the elements commonly found embedded in fairy-stories … as relics of ancient customs once practiced in daily life…there remains still a point too often forgotten: that is the effect produced now by these old things in the stories as they are…They open a door on Other Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside Time itself, maybe." (“On Fairy Stories”)

Even the words, "a door on Other Time" causes my breathing to alter. The encounter with the Other.

Perhaps this could be said of all fiction?

J. R. R. Tolkien's original illustrations for the first edition of The Hobbit, 1936. 






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