we despair, we are the dead dreams

Children's fantasy has a very specific flavour to it: it's fundamentally innocent, prone to sharp edges and clear-cut dilemmas even when it's thoughtful and slightly gritty. Narnia and Hogwarts and even Earthsea are very deliberately unreal worlds even if some of the issues faced by their protagonists are not. This is possibly one of the reasons why so many adults who read fantasy also read children's fantasy, out of nostalgia for a milieu which is simple and innocent even in the middle of battle, injury and death. When done well, this is enormously consoling and surprisingly relevant, giving us things like The Dark is Rising and A Wizard of Earthsea. When it's done badly, it's trite and twee and really rather dreadful, giving us things like the more hamfisted bits of Narnia and Harry Potter. Regardless of whether it's done well or badly, it's not real, and that's why we have Lev Grossman. ( Review to follow. Please imagine this said in the weird mechanical voice of the speaking clock lady. )

This was in some ways an angry, despairing and rather bitter book: I admire it tremendously and think it did good and necessary and extremely intelligent things, but I can't really say I enjoyed it. I'll read it again, someday, when I've summoned the gumption all over again. But I'm very glad it exists. Somebody had to do it, and they did it well.