Secret Garden novels
Prompted by my last post, I've decided to write an article about secret garden novels and their relationship to fantasy. Those are books about a kid or kids (or occasionally a teen or adult) finding a private space for him or herself. And sorry, Mia, Green Man can't have this one: this one I want to sell.
I want to discuss, among others, one example of a "garden of the mind"-- a novel in which the private space is not primarily spatial but mental. I'm talking about something like VERY FAR AWAY FROM ANYWHERE ELSE or, if I recall correctly, BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA, where the protagonists create a fantasy world for themselves but the novel itself is not a fantasy. I would prefer not to use the former because I think I want to get in-depth with another Le Guin novel, THE BEGINNING PLACE, in the section on secret garden fantasies.
And on that note, what are some fantasies in which a) modern people travel to a fantasyland, and b) that land is in some sense specially created by or for them? (This isn't so much a matter of strict causality, but of a feeling that the land is somewhat solipsistic or not as "real" as, say, Middle Earth.) Offhand I'm only coming up with THE BEGINNING PLACE, Narnia, CORALINE, Margaret Mahy's DANGEROUS SPACES, and THE SECRET COUNTRY, but I'm sure there are more. And please don't say Thomas Covenant, because I cannot read one more word about that insufferable leper.
I want to discuss, among others, one example of a "garden of the mind"-- a novel in which the private space is not primarily spatial but mental. I'm talking about something like VERY FAR AWAY FROM ANYWHERE ELSE or, if I recall correctly, BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA, where the protagonists create a fantasy world for themselves but the novel itself is not a fantasy. I would prefer not to use the former because I think I want to get in-depth with another Le Guin novel, THE BEGINNING PLACE, in the section on secret garden fantasies.
And on that note, what are some fantasies in which a) modern people travel to a fantasyland, and b) that land is in some sense specially created by or for them? (This isn't so much a matter of strict causality, but of a feeling that the land is somewhat solipsistic or not as "real" as, say, Middle Earth.) Offhand I'm only coming up with THE BEGINNING PLACE, Narnia, CORALINE, Margaret Mahy's DANGEROUS SPACES, and THE SECRET COUNTRY, but I'm sure there are more. And please don't say Thomas Covenant, because I cannot read one more word about that insufferable leper.