Yeah. No Duh.

I saw on one of my various social media feeds an article in The Guardian by Francis Spufford, admitting what few literary fiction writers ever would - they find comfort and value in fantasy.

You can read the full thing here. I recommend it, if you have the time. But for posterity's sake, they write:

"None of what I’m about to say is going to strike my fellow lovers of the genre as even slightly necessary... But for anyone else, here’s a case for fantasy rehearsed from scratch. Fantasy, in the first place, is true to the experience of the human psyche... it isn’t just the wonder-book of our impulses, or an organised nostalgia for a more romantic world. Here it exists because it is (paradoxically) a kind of necessary realism, arising in response to qualities of the contemporary world that we couldn’t properly attend to, couldn’t narrate, any other way."

Well, yeah. No duh.

Fantasy writers and readers have been shouting this from the rooftops since I can remember. Hell, I have written countless articles about it across various platforms. It's nice to see it recognised in a large publication like The Guardian, I suppose. And it's nice to have someone in the literary fiction field admit it publicly. I'm so used to have folks in that scene ubiquitously look down their noses at other genres.

As the writer noted, nothing about what they wrote was news to those who read/write fantasy (or science fiction, for that matter), and while I'm mildly glad to see someone from outside the usual suspects admitting the value of the genres I read and write, I'm a little annoyed that this still needs to happen.

Surely, surely in the year of Grandfather Tolkien 2025 we are all past this nonsense? Surely we can all admit that all kinds of books have value, even if we don't particularly like or read a genre? What is this elitist nonsense that people are still engaging with?

Good grief!

I'm very annoyed that the author of the piece admitting to liking fantasy as a genre is even having to say that "they are beyond embarrassment" about the fact that they like fantasy. Why is that necessary? Why do (some) folks still believe that we ought to be embarrassed by liking that particular genre?

Really? Really? What gives?

Ugh. I'm so done with this kind of thinking.

The author very patiently explained their position. But we've been very patiently doing that for years and years and years. It's largely fallen on deaf ears or, perhaps more accurately, on ears that refuse to listen because it might undermine their (needed) feelings of superiority.

I'm not in the mood to follow that example. I've been patient. I'm just so sick of it all, and I'm planting my flag. I'm about ready to throw down.

For what likely will not be the last damned time:

ALL genres have value. All of them. Even the badly-written ones. Even the ones with dragons in them. Or fairies. Or magic schools. Or whatever.

It's all good. It all has value. What value it has is probably largely dependent on what you need in the moment, but that is true of any art.

Can we please, for the love of all things good and green, just drop all this ivory tower pretentious bullshit and just let people enjoy things. Why do (some) people feel the need to tear others down in order to elevate themselves?

What piddling, over-compensating, fragile little egos those folks must have.

I told you I'm ready to throw down. I meant it.

I'm so irritated about it all. It's all so stupid.

*deep breath*

Alright, I'm done ranting.

The tl;dr is that a literary fiction writer admitted that fantasy has value as a genre, and it really got under my skin because yeah. No duh.

Slán go foill!