Ik ben over het algemeen niet echt te spreken over de fantasy-smaak van de Nederlandse markt,
Feist en Eddings zijn ronduit slecht geschreven. De vertaling van Robert Jordan is ook belabberd.
Als je echte kwaliteit Fantasy wilt lezen, dan zou ik in de eerste plaats beginnen met Michael Scott Rohan, "The Winter of the World" trilogy. Daarnaast zijn David Farland en Jennifer Roberson erg goed.
Wat meer mainstream, George RR Martin is ook best te lezen, en Robert Jordan is geweldig, als je de symboliek en de bijbelse parallellen er uit weet te vissen -maar zoals eerder gezegd, na deel 5 wordt ie een beetje langdradig.
In het onderstaande stuk quote ik een stukje uit mijn afstudeerscriptie over de definitie van Fantasy literatuur, misschien helpt het om een wat beter zicht op het genre te krijgen.
quote:
§5.1 Meaning and origin of Fantasy
Fantasy is derived from the Greek "phantasia" which refers to the faculty of imagination. In a broad sense all fiction is fantasy in that it is drawn from the imagination. But in the genre the word is given a special meaning. It is not the plot that makes a writing fantasy, however imaginative that plot might be. It is the background against which the plot is set.
"If the nonexistent background is one that might conceivably exist someday, given appropriate changes in the level of science and technology, or given certain assumptions that do not conflict with science and technology as we know it today, then we have science fiction.
If the nonexistent background cannot ever exist no matter what reasonable changes or assumptions we postulate, then it is fantasy."
"The Epic of Gilgamesh, written by nameless Sumerians about 2700 B.C., is, I believe, the oldest surviving work of fiction, and it contains elements of fantasy gods, monsters, plants that confer immortality, and so on. The Iliad and the Odyssey, are to some extent fantasies, especially the latter. The tales of Polyphemus the Cyclops and of Circe the Witch remain, to this day, among the most popular fantasies in existence."
§5.2 Varieties of Fantasy
But then again, there are all kinds of fantasy. There is Heroic Fantasy, in which characters have become larger than life. In that case the outsize nature of the characters may be so enormous as to the verge on the grotesque (e.g., Superman), or it may be so human in many ways that we find ourselves accepting them as real (e.g., the Elves in Tolkien).
A sub division of Heroic Fantasy is the Sword and Sorcery tale, of which Robert E. Howard's Conan saga is the progenitor.
Then there is Legendary Fantasy, which deliberately mimics the myth-making activities of an earlier age. We can have either modern retellings of the Trojan War, or the voyage of the Argonouts, or one of the many retellings of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
There is Children's Fantasy, of which the well-known 'Fairy Tales' are the best example though these were definitely adult folk tales to begin with. Modern examples are, for instance, Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland.
There is Horror Fantasy, in which tales of ghosts and malign beings such as devils, ghouls and monsters are used to thrill and frighten us (e.g., King Kong, Godzilla, Frankenstein). And there is Satirical Fantasy, such as John Collier's The Devil, George, and Rosie.
There may well be many other types, subdivisions and overlaps, and in fact, a totally different system of classification altogether can be constructed. The salient fact however is that Fantasy is a very broad and heterogeneous field of literature
§5.3 Summary
Fantasy literature in its narrowest sense is writing that is set against a background that logically could never exist in our own world. The many subdivisions closely connect to the varieties in Folk Tales (i.e. Myth, Legend and Fairy Tales). For instance the talking dragons from Tolkien and the Minotaurs from Weiss and Hickman could well fit the description of Animal Tales. Many fantasy novels are dealing with a form of Heroic fantasy, set against the background of Legendary fantasy.
