Quote:
Originally Posted by QuantumIguana
It has retained its popularity despite being sneered for decades, and is becoming more recognized as serious literature.
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I don't get why so many people "sneer" at Fantasy. Is it because it's all made up? Is it because it's "childish", with its Elves and Dwarves? I don't know. Yeah, there is enough bad, superficial, commercial Fantasy out there (about 90% of all Forgotten Realms novels for example), but there is also good stuff to be found.
Why must "literature", at least for some people, be stuff that's almost unreadable, using words that 9.5 out of 10 people will never encounter outside of that specific book, and so deep that you can't even see the end of it even if you reach the last page, and always be "socio-" this or "socio-" that?
(I actually remember a movie about a young writer who said almost the same to his Professor when in university, getting a 4 out of 10 for his latest work, but having it published in the hundreds of thousands a few weeks later, becoming an instant classic. What was the name of that movie....)
Some Fantasy stuff such as Lord of the Rings is well thought out, has a huge world to explore; not only through Lord of the Rings, but also The Silmariollion, his other works such as Lost Tales and Unfinished Tales, and even the "History of Middle Earth" if you want to.
For my part, LotR is as literary as Shakespeare, Chaucer or Nietzsche. And who is to judge that I am wrong?