Protecting One's Self

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

There is no other Tolkien and if you look for "fantasy" when what you really mean is "Tolkien," then you'll ALWAYS be disappointed.

Ironically, it's just this hunger for "something like Tolkien" or "more like Tolkien" which created the market for what the Encyclopedia of Fantasy calls genre fantasy: a genre of fiction using external trappings and storytelling templates derived from Tolkien, but lacking the spirit, scope and imaginative power of his work:

Originally Posted by John Grant in Encyclopedia of Fantasy(1997)

In short, GF is not at heart fantasy at all, but a comforting revisitation of cosy venues, creating an effect that is almost anti-fantasy. An allied point is that GFs cater in large part for unimaginative readers who, through the reading of a GF, can feel themselves to be, as it were, vicariously imaginative. This goes exactly counter to the purpose of the full fantasy, which is to release or even to catapult the reader into new areas of the imagination.

(If you think this is too uncharitable a view, go read the whole article, it's actually quite balanced.)

In other words, "something like Tolkien" may perhaps be more readily found in works that don't outwardly resemble Tolkien's at all.

I think it's useful to distinguish, following Clute & Grant in the EoF, between fantasy as a genre of fiction (generally set in a faux-medieval or otherwise pre-modern secondary world, populated by [some variation of] elves, dwarves, dragons, wizards, and often including a conflict of good vs evil, order vs chaos, or the like) and fantasy as a mode of fiction, which can be anything dealing with creatures, concepts or other elements not found in contemporary consensus reality to startle, amaze, delight or disturb the reader. These days I wouldn't call myself (or think of myself as) a fantasy fan in the first sense (although I used to, and I still hope GRRM will live long enough to give ASoIaF a proper ending!), but fantasy in the second sense will always be dear to my heart.

As for being a fan of anything and fandom in general, I get being a fan of a band or a football club, but I don't think fandom is a useful approach to literary works, or cultural phenomena in general. Fans tend to be over-protective not so much of themselves (although that probably too, in an indirect way) than of the things they're fans of, and prone to knee-jerk reactions when the object of fandom is criticised. It happens to the best of us, even on these Downs.

Then again... Like Mithadan, I grew up at a time and in a place where other Tolkien readers (let alone as avid ones as myself) were few and far between, and by the time I went to university in the '80s Tolkien, and fantasy in general, was still very much A Secret Vice (TM), so being able to come out of the closet as a fan and confess to myself and a digital world of kindred spirits 'Hey, I really dig this stuff!' was actually quite liberating. Thank you all, and TBW Himself, for that!