From archive (archive)
From: ansley@sunybcs.uucp (William Ansley)
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Subject: Re: Kurtz Recommendation & Question (Was Re: Fantasy books)
Date: 7 Jan 88 22:31:26 GMT





In article <526@gethen.UUCP> farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) writes:
>In article <1229@cg-atla.UUCP> granger@cg-atla.UUCP (Peter Granger ) writes:
>>douglis@ginger.Berkeley.EDU (Fred Douglis) writes:
>>>the Deryni books, by Katherine Kurtz.
>>
>>Yes, by all means, read them. They are (to abuse the language) fantastic
>>fantasies, in both senses of fantastic.
>
>For an extremely well-reasoned rebuttal of this statement, I recommend
>(very, very highly) Ursula LeGuin's essay "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie",
>reprinted in the collection "Languages of the Night".  Reading this
>essay let me identify, for the first time, exactly why I am so dissatisfied
>with much of the stuff being billed as fantasy these days.
[...]

I second this recommendation, equally highly.  Another collection that
contains this essay is _Fantasists on Fantasy_ edited by Robert H. Boyer and
Kenneth J. Zahorski (Avon/Discus/86553/$3.95; ISBN 0-380-86553-X).  This is a
very nice collection of essays from the people who brought you _The Fantastic
Imagination_ and _The Fantastic Imagination II_.  It has essays by George
MacDonald, G. K. Chesterton, H. P. Lovecraft, Sir Herbert Read, James Thurber,
J. R. R. Tolkien, August Derleth, C. S. Lewis, Felix Marti-Ibanez, Peter S.
Beagle, Lloyd Alexander, Andre Norton, Jane Langton, Ursula K. LeGuin, Molly
Hunter, Katherine Kurtz, Michael Moorcock and Susan Cooper.

Some of these authors are represented more than once.  Both of LeGuin's essays
are reprinted from _The Language of the Night_.  Tolkien's essays are an
excerpt from "On Fairy-Stories" and another from a letter to W. H. Auden (from
his collected letters).  Lovecraft's essay is his introduction to his work
"Supernatural Horror in Literature".  But although some of these works may be
familiar or available elsewhere, many are not and all of them have the
wonderful biographical introductions that the editors always provide.  If
nothing else, this book provides pointers to a great deal of fantasy that you
may never see referred to elsewhere; the only problem is finding it.

I mention this book because it may be easier to find than _TLotN_.  I got my
copy just before Christmas at the local University Bookstore.


William H. Ansley, Computer Science Graduate Student   
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