Author: leeduigon(patty)

Laura Andrews, a frequent visitor to this site, has on her own blog an essay, “Realistic Fantasy?” (see http://lauraeandrews.blogspot.com/ ), posted Feb. 5, which raises an interesting question–

How “realistic,” or how “fantastic,” ought a fantasy to be?

Personal taste will provide the answer for the reader; but for the writer, the question is not so easy. Hey, you can only get so “realistic” before your fantasy isn’t a fantasy anymore. Or you can be so “fantastic” that you wind up being the only one who knows what you’re talking about.

Fantasy can be written to show what the writer thinks ought to be: hence knights in shining armor, kings who rule righteously over people who love and respect them, and so on. Or you can be “realistic” (sometimes for humorous effect), and write about cowardly knights who aren’t worth much, corrupt kings, swinish peasants, etc.

At this point I open the forum for discussion.

I bear it in mind, when I write, that heroes don’t always look like heroes; wisdom may look like foolishness; and the light of goodness may shine most brightly in the dark. So to that extent, my own fantasy stories are “realistic”–because sometimes a dark background is the best way to show off the light.

One of the articles on this blog previewed the cover art for my book, The Thunder King. On my site stats page are listed “Search Engine Terms” that tell me how some readers wind up visiting my blog.

I was surprised today to find the term, “Gutter King Cover.” This means some poor guy was trying to buy a cover for his gutter and the computer sent him to my book instead. I would like to think he appreciated the serendipity of it all, and bought my book; but that won’t keep dead leaves from clogging up his gutter. It’ll just give him something nice to read while he’s waiting for someone to come and clean out his gutter.

I hope the man who needed a gutter cover wasn’t so put out that he didn’t buy the book. You know, folks, it’s getting harder and harder to write fantasy, these days. Fantasy was never meant for people who are already delusional. But I turn on the radio, and there’s some 30-year-old college student telling Congress–that’s the United States Congress–that her sex life is so bodacious, she can’t keep up with the cost of contraceptives, and she wants the government to force the university to pay for her birth control pills. How the dickens am I going to write a fantasy for her? She’s already in one!

My stories are written for sane people. I hope that’s not a shrinking demographic.

Some Christian readers don’t like C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia because certain characters in the stories use magic. For these readers, “magic” is the same as “witchcraft,” a practice strongly condemned in the Bible: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (Exodus 22:18).

I don’t think we need to spend any time defending C.S. Lewis against a charge of promoting the use of witchcraft. Even so, he might have been well-advised to be more careful.

Dr. Cornelius, a dwarf, has “some small magic” which includes a sleeping spell. The magician Coriakin has a book of spells which apparently anyone can open and use (kind of like leaving a loaded gun lying around the house). Uncle Andrew makes a great deal of trouble for himself by fooling around with magic that he doesn’t understand. And there are a werewolf and a hag who intend to use magic to call up the White Witch from the dead, but are killed before they can do it.

Continue Reading “Was C.S. Lewis Wrong to Allow Magic in Narnia?” →