Imagination is not Fantasy
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The concept of genre is often a nightmare for the writer of fiction. Publishers love to classify their authors, the public even more so. Nowhere is this mania more rife than in the world of Fantasy. From Willkie Collins to Tolkien, the book trade has a habit of randomly assigning works to this category. Many living writers vociferously object to this typecasting, and promoting a writer’s work as being in the style of another is a ploy too often in evidence. ‘If you’ve enjoyed the well-known X... you’ll really love newcomer Y...’
It is as well to understand the difference between ‘fantasy’ and ‘imagination’. If an idea is ‘fantastic’ (in the original sense) it is unlikely to exist in any kind of ordinary reality. For many people a desire to win the lottery dominates their thoughts - that is a fantasy. To believe that unearned wealth will suddenly manifest itself, or some other equally impossible event will take place, is the emptiness at the heart of fantasy.
Imagination is creative - it produces results. Leonardo, Brunel, Churchill, Beethoven, Shakespeare, all possessed a vision which they transposed into reality. Imagination prompts venturing into the unknown, exploring unchartered territory where even the sky has no limit.
The great musicians attempted the impossible and broke all the rules, striving to discover new ways of hearing, as artists show us new ways of seeing. The imaginative artist is bold, courageous and risking all, even ridicule, to find new horizons that will enchant us.
Original and inventive writers such as Kurt Vonnegut or Terry Pratchett should not suffer the ignominy of sharing a shelf with the latest cyber punk farrago. What next? Will Joyce, Wodehouse or Waugh be condemned to reside there also?
~o00o~