I have mentioned in my previous scribbles that I read a lot of fantasy literature in my adolescence. I was reminded of this time in my life when a friend of mine asked if he could borrow my copy of the first entry in the Wheel of Time series. Funnily enough, even though I own the book, I have never actually read it. I bought it in the twilight period of my fantasy-reading phase and never got around to reading it before I ran out of enthusiasm. Why did this happen, I wonder. I rarely read fantasy nowadays; the last book I read that comes even close to the fantasy genre was Piranesi and even that is arguable.

The thing about the fantasy genre, though, is that it’s very broad. The aforementioned Piranesi, The Lord of the Rings and the expanded universe Star Wars books all qualify as fantasy even though they have very different settings, themes and atmospheres. When I was reading fantasy I was mainly interested in the subgenre of fantasy that most people think of when the subject is mentioned; medieval Europe-ish setting, swords, dragons, magic, the lot. Think something along the lines of The Witcher, The Chronicles of Narnia or Tales from Earthsea. All of which I’ve read, by the way. Then there are the outliers such as Harry Potter or Discworld, which do not tick all the boxes in terms of traditional fantasy settings or themes, but still cannot be classified as anything else.

It is very difficult determining all the subgenres and subclasses of fantasy. Most people do separate the genre into two main categories, however, them being the low fantasy and high fantasy genres. Now, even the people who divide fantasy into those two categories argue where the line exactly goes and what the dividing factors are, but I believe most people agree that the factors lie within the epicness and scale of a story. Epic, grim stories featuring humane characters and intricate built fantasy worlds such as A Song of Ice and Fire are usually classified as high fantasy, whereas less intricate stories with more mundane worlds such as the aforementioned Harry Potter are classified as low fantasy.

To return to my earlier question why I ditched the fantasy genre and never got back to it, I believe I might have simply gotten the fantasy fatigue. See, I read a lot of high fantasy, the subgenre with intricately woven worlds and plotlines. A well-written high fantasy story is like an expensive wedding cake; layers upon layers of detailed flavors, all designed to work together in harmony to bring you the best possible experience. But you really have to savor all the bites you take to get the best experience out of it, and if you miss something, the harmony is broken. A good low fantasy story, on the other hand, is to me more like a well-made sandwich. It’s not as classy as a wedding cake and maybe there wasn’t a lot of thought put into the flavors, but a well-made sandwich nevertheless leaves you satisfied and content.

Maybe I got tired of consuming entire wedding cakes one after the other. Reading The Lord of the Rings is a feat in itself; you need a breather after finishing such a literary classic. After reading so many stories with carefully constructed worlds and carefully planned intriguing plotlines, I just had enough. I got burned out by high fantasy and haven’t looked back since.

But how about low fantasy? Did wedding cakes ruin sandwiches for me too?

As I said, I have read Piranesi which would qualify as low fantasy, I suppose. It doesn’t have magical creatures and dark, brooding characters like The Witcher or political intrigue like A Song of Ice and Fire, but it does have fantasy as a background element, an atmosphere of sorts. Now, I’ll probably talk about Piranesi in more detail in the future as part of my Mind, Body and Soul series, but the gist of it is that the main character explores a seemingly never-ending maze-like building and keeps records of his exploration. The exploration in itself is very fantasy-like, as the character comes across statues of people and mythological creatures and different ecological environments within the building. It’s very fantasy-like in its setting and I enjoyed it a lot.

So it cannot be that I’ve been burned out by the fantasy genre completely; I just happen to enjoy the lighter side of it now that I’m older. I’m less interested in dragons now and more interested in the mood of it all.

There was one fantasy series that I wanted to bring up as an example of a series that I think strikes a good balance between high and low fantasy that I’ve been meaning to get back to. When I was younger, I used to be quite into the Redwall series, and as it happens, it might be my favorite fantasy series altogether. See, it does feature a setting akin to medieval England with meadows, sword fights and the occasional gruesome death, but it also features fuzzy animals, weirdly detailed descriptions of delicious meals and worldbuilding that is only as intricate as it needs to be.

Redwall is a series of books that center around a monastery inhabited by anthropomorphic animals named titularly Redwall Abbey. Every book in the series is a self-contained story and only a few entries in the series share characters between them. There is a chronological order to the stories which does not follow the publishing order of the books, but there is so little continuous story between the books that you could just read them in the order they were written.

A common story in the Redwall series centers around some of the animals living in the abbey when a disaster strikes, usually in the form of a marauding group of vermin who pose a threat to the existence of Redwall Abbey. The hero or heroine then must go through a series of trials, usually manifesting as a series of riddles, to fetch a mcguffin that would supposedly help with dealing with the threat while also enjoying vast amounts of meals that the author is very keen on describing in much detail.

Take the first book in the series, which incidentally is also my favorite one, simply titled Redwall. The story follows the mouse Matthias, as the abbey gets sieged by a rat warlord Cluny the Scourge. Matthias then has to solve a series of riddles to find a sword belonging to the legendary Martin the Warrior to defeat Cluny and his army of vermin. Adventures in the English countryside ensue.

Yeah, not a story that would make for an award-winning Scorcese adaptation, but there lies the beauty of it. I say adventures in the English countryside ensue, but it’s never really clear where Redwall Abbey is located or what the world is like apart from the locations the story takes the reader to, but the story doesn’t really need that. I believe Portugal is mentioned in the first book but as far as I know that is the only real world place that gets name dropped in the series.

Yes, all the characters are either good or bad; good characters being charismatic farmyard animals such as mice, moles and rabbits and bad characters being disgusting vermin like rats and stoats. Not very subtle but I think subtlety is sometimes overrated in literature. Sometimes I want things spelled out for me so I can focus on just the adventures and not the duality of the human-animal psyche. I can just relax and let the story take me and not worry about complex characters or geopolitical plotlines. 

Redwall as a series is a well-made sandwich that doesn’t have the subtle flavors of a wedding cake fantasy story, but I’d take a well-made sandwich over a wedding cake any day. These days I enjoy the lowest of the low fantasy that barely qualifies; the lower the better, until the story reaches wine cellar levels of low. I’ve been meaning to tip my toes into the mid-low levels of fantasy by picking up one of the Redwall books again to see if I can manage to get through one of them. If I am, maybe I’d even give The Winds of Winter a try when it’s published as I hit retirement age.