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| Galadriel and her Mirror. Source. |
Read: Part One
Read: Part Two
"For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean..."
Galadriel
The Fellowship of the Ring
- DEFINITION: A master of his craft not only in skill, knowledge, and understanding but also in experience. He understands that he knows only what he knows -- humbling thought.
- PURPOSE: To go beyond merely reading fantastic literature as a favorite genre, consuming the next installment of whatever best seller...but to be able to discern good fantasy from bad fantasy. And I do believe that a case can be made for good and bad fiction. Understanding that the reader becomes what he reads, one must harness this power of ink becoming blood. Words crafted in an author's mind can become another's existence.
- CURRICULUM: I have listed the books from the Novice and Journeyman along with the new curriculum. Context is everything. The more I consider the books I read at a younger age, the more I realize the depths and subtleties that eluded me then.
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| Odin gives up his eye to drink from the well of wisdom. Source. |
Novice Curriculum
Lang's Fairy Tales
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Aesop's Fables
Popular Tales from the West Highlands
Bulfinch’s Mythology - Thomas
Bulfinch’s Mythology - Thomas
Nordic Gods and Heroes - Padraic ColumFairy Tales -
e. e. cummings
The Gray Wolf - George MacDonald
The Wise Woman - George MacDonald
Undine - Friedrich
de La Motte-Fouqué
Goblin Market - Rossetti
The Princess and the
Goblin - George MacDonald
The Golden Key - George MacDonald
The Folk Keeper - Franny
Billingsley
The Narnian Chronicles - C. S. Lewis
Journeyman Curriculum
George MacDonald
The Princess and Curdie
Phantastes
Lilith
At The Back of the North Wind
The Light Princess
The Gifts of the Child Christ
The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris
The Princess and Curdie
Phantastes
Lilith
At The Back of the North Wind
The Light Princess
The Gifts of the Child Christ
The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris
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| The princess, Irene, and the miner's son, Curdie steal the stone shoe from the sleeping Goblin Queen to reveal her six horrid toes. Source. |
Lord Dunsany
The Book of Wonder
The King of Elfland's Daughter
Time of the Gods
The Charwoman's Shadow
The Hashish Man
The Book of Wonder
The King of Elfland's Daughter
Time of the Gods
The Charwoman's Shadow
The Hashish Man
Lud- in-the-Mist
William Morris
The House of the
Wolfings
The Roots of the
Mountains
The Wood Beyond The World
C. S. Lewis
Till We Have Faces
Out Of The Silent
Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength
J. R. R. Tolkien
Smith of Wooton Major
Roverandom
Leaf by Niggle
Leaf by Niggle
The
Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
The Children of Hurin
The Children of Hurin
Collected Poetry
The Lays of Beleriand
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| Source W. H. Auden |
Sage Curriculum
On Fairy Tales - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Monsters and the Critics - J. R. R. Tolkien
Beowulf
Orthodoxy - G. K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday - G. K. Chesterton
Manalive - G. K. Chesterton
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
1984 - George Orwell
Of Other Worlds - C. S. Lewis
On Stories - C. S. Lewis
The Weight of Glory - C. S. Lewis
The Mind of the Maker - Dorothy L. Sayers
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Poetry of W. H. Auden
Poetry of T. S. Eliot
Poetry of E. E. Cummings
Poetry of Billy Collins
Collected Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor
Comments and Observations
Yes, I know, the list under "sage" doesn't seem to have much fiction but that's my point. As hinted at before, fiction is "the plunge into reality" (O'Connor). The more we understand this fact the better off we'll be in our choices of reading, in understanding taste and discernment. What better tool for this process then to read books about books?
Those four mighty cornerstones of fantasy authors have made themselves only too evident in these lists: MacDonald, Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton. And, to my chagrin, those are perhaps the least read authors of my generation...so, if you're reading this, go and double check your reading list. Are they on it?
Poetry is perhaps the most neglected by the average reader. From own shallow experiences, I think of poetry as occupying that unique place between fiction and non-fiction. "A poet is a maker of verbal objects," says Auden. His poetry always leave me speechless, numb; shocked that verse says so well what I've thought impossible to say or, perhaps, only capable of being expressed in music.
Flannery O'Connor's fiction and The Wind in the Willows are perhaps the strangest choices. O'Connor's short stories are not fantasy, but are so startling and fantastical that I've found myself tricked by them over and over again. That is, they function as fantasy effectively revealing to the reader what he was once blind to, or shattering his assumptions...restoring the things of reality back to what they are. We simply forget.
Kenneth Grahame's beautiful contribution to children's literature is undefinable. It isn't an animal story, yet it is. It isn't an adventure, yet it is. It isn't a morality tale, and yet...such a display of radical, real, sweet friendship makes it an essential book for everyone. I have found too few books that have such a sincere sweetness about them...it seems we've lost that particular finesse, or maybe we simply aren't sincere anymore. Instead our relationships are trite and silly.
And (this made me smile) I've included Ray Bradbury's masterpiece. If fiction strives to keep our humanity, then how fitting that we should end with a book where humanity strives to keep fiction. I hope you've found my rough, and often meandering, outline of fantastic literature interesting...it's been enlightening for me.
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| Source. |
Are there any fantasy works you think are essential to these lists?
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