30 day book meme: Day 12

[regshoe]

12. I pretend to have read it.

Was a difficult one for me to think of anything for, because I really don't do this. There are books I think I ought to have read, books I think other people might think I ought to have read, books other people might be surprised I haven't read. For a sort of fan of fantasy fiction in general, I haven't read quite a bit of the older 'classic' fantasy that you might expect—I like a few very specific and generally pretty unusual fantasy books. And there are several major Victorian authors who I haven't read much or anything from. But I don't actually say I've read them when I haven't!

Comments

[ilthit]

Have you read the Lord of the Rings, or The Wizard of Earthsea? (I have not read the latter, or if I did I forgot all about it.)

[regshoe]

Oh yes, I love Tolkien, LOTR and the Silmarillion :D What I haven't read much of is the later Tolkien-inspired fantasy—like, I know there are all these cliches about elves and dwarves and so on that came from people trying to imitate his worldbuilding, but I'd struggle to name examples.

I have read the Earthsea books, too, some years ago—I remember I thought Le Guin's writing style was lovely, very rich and evocative.

[ilthit]

I guess I haven't read a lot of that either. I read the Dragonlance series and the Belgariad and Malloreon? And Discworld, which doesn"t really count. And Narnia, which also kinda doesn't.

I think I may have read the Wizard of Earthsea, when I was young. If so, I don't remember it, except to say I didn't really like it...

[regshoe]

Yeah, Discworld and Narnia are the only ones of those I've read, and I agree they don't really count, lol. In fact I think a lot of the satire in the early Discworld books went over my head because I didn't have that context for it.

[ilthit]

I didn't enjoy the first couple of Discworld novels I read as much because I didn't realize they weren't just wacky but philosophical (and satirical). Once I understood that, I understood the appeal, and really grew to love them.

They ARE fantasy, as is Narnia; they just kind of stand outside the mainstream, and while Narnia is necessarily Tolkien influenced, I don't think "Tolkien influenced" is supposed to mean "the author and Tolkien chatted about the plot in their club". XD

[regshoe]

Yeah, exactly—Tolkien and Lewis have similar philosophical underpinnings in some ways but Narnia isn't at all copying the trappings of Middle-earth. And most of the fantasy books I love 'stand outside the mainstream' in some way—JSMN certainly does!—or they're older than Tolkien and came before that LOTR-influenced fantasy tradition.