Whereas it is the reader’s choice to make fantasy literature the gateway to dream or escape, the limits of the genre limit choices, unless the reader insists on a perverse tyranny over the written work, insisting on reading-in allegory, for example, where there is none, or literalness where the text is metaphorical, or worse. I don't think this is what you mean; rather, an interaction between reader and written work.
Still, it seems to me that fantasy literature in particular lends itself to Escape and Dream, unlike the mimetic novel. And this, to answer Squatter of Amon Rudh, is the difference I see between Fantasy and other Fiction: it is the difference between poesis and mimesis. Mimesis, which obtains to a large degree in the modern novel, presents reality in terms of accurate description. Poesis, the realm of myth and fantasy, by contrast, “captures the essence of reality”. (for this I am indebted to Sara Upstone in “Applicability and Truth in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion: Readers, Fantasy, and Canonicity (Mythlore Magazine issue 90)
This capturing of the essence of reality is what I see so beautifully described in this and other threads when we describe the effect LotR has had on us, and what it means to us.
Secondary Belief is necessary to fully appreciate one’s reading of LotR and any fantasy, as Tolkien says. The mere Willing Suspension of Disbelief will not do, because more is being asked of the reader in poeic Fantasy than in mimetic Fiction.
Dreaming is like this in that when we dream, we believe what is happening is real. Just so, while we read the fantasy, we participate in Secondary Belief, not merely the willing suspension of disbelief, but living the reality within the pages. Thus, reading Fantasy is very much akin to Dreaming.
Why is this not so in Mimetic fiction? Because in reading such works, our critical apparatus is active. If our critical apparatus remains active while reading Fantasy, we will not fully appreciate the fantasy because we refuse to live it as Dream while we read.
The kind of Escape readers practice, and Tolkien intended in the Lord of the Rings, could stand some clarification. In On Faerie Stories he said that Escape in Faerie Stories is not the flight of the deserter, but the escape of the prisoner. What is the prison? I think someone has said it already: flattened perception. Therefore we Escape to Fantasy in order to Recover a clear view, using Tolkien's own words. To quote Sara Upstone again, "As psychologist David Myers epigrammatically puts it, one of the keys to happiness 'isn't getting what we want, it's wanting what you have'." The Recovered clear view aids us to see what we do have, and to rediscover that it is indeed good, even a blessing.
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