Hi there, just a quick quote to post that I poached from an interview I was reading with Robin Hobb, a new favorite author to me--not a new author, I've only just discovered her. If you missed my raving in the late fall, I read and loOoOoOoOoOoved her Liveship Traders trilogy (and thank you, dear husband, for finding them for me in hardcover so I can better horde them for all time). Anyway, I just read this in an interview on Tor.com from last year, and thought it was a great way of expressing something I obviously spend a lot of time with:
(Peter Orullian): ... What does fantasy do particularly well? ... Some feel it’s a good playground for safely exploring topics that are quite polarizing in our own world. Would love your thoughts.
(Robin Hobb): Fantasy allows us to drop all our baggage and look at the big questions in the world with no preconceived loyalties. If I invent a world with two battling religions and neither one is yours or your friend’s, you can look at the conflict and think about it in an unbiased way. If we look at slavery in a way that has nothing to do with race or racial guilt or U.S. history, I think we can perceive more about what it does to both a slave and the ‘owner’ of the slave and the world it creates. Sweep the stage clear and set out the conflict anew, and you may end up surprised with who you are rooting for. Sort of like taking two football teams, and stealing all their jerseys and team equipment, and sending them out to play against each other as unidentified teams. Imagine a big bowl game in which you didn’t know who was playing or who you would normally root for. That’s what fantasy does to life.
Full interview here. Tor.com's a great site, by the way. Check it out. Also, the books:
If I could freeze time right now, I'd read all her books. As it is, it will take some time, but I will do it. Greatly looking forward to it.
Cheers!
1 comment:
Hi Laini. Thought I'd drop by to say that my first encounter with 'Robin Hobb' was when she was disguised as 'Megan Lindholm'. The book in question was 'Cloven Hooves', which remains one of my all-time favourites. It's an exquisitely beautiful ... well, sort of rural as opposed to urban fantasy. I'd really, really recommend checking it out.
Incidentally, thanks for inspiring me to rediscover her books. I re-read 'Ship of Magic' after reading your November enthusings :O)
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