i have fantasy street cred... which is sort of the opposite of having regular street cred, really

Today I had an interesting Literary Experience. No wait. I had a Literary Experience. The "interesting" is redundant...

But before that I took a walk. And a shower. And a nap. Those are all connected, of course. I did laundry too, but that doesn't have much to do with anything else I did today.

So I finished The Princess and the Goblin. That's right, I'm gonna talk about this obscure novel some more. After I finished it I went hopping around the interwebs to find out some stuff about George MacDonald - the author, you may recall - because I find it is often interesting to see what sort of ideals and influences on an author make it into their finished work. The thing with George MacDonald is that he's the one who did the influencing... if Tolkien was the father of modern fantasy, then MacDonald is the grandfather.

I believe I have mentioned that Tolkien and C.S. Lewis both list MacDonald as an influence. What I have not mentioned is that so does anyone else who has ever written something having to do with fantasy ever... the man got all over the place. Even Mark Twain warmed up to him, and Mark Twain didn't tend to warm up to anyone.

I picked up the book around third grade. In fourth grade I read Narnia, in 8th grade The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, not realizing how connected all these books I was enjoying were, following without knowing a path created over a hundred years ago - a path that was not comprised entirely of books. While I was reading Narnia, a band you might have heard of called Nightwish released their first album (I'm not counting the demo), entiled Angels Fall First. Included on this album is a song called "Beauty and the Beast" which includes a verse, nearly word for word, from MacDonald's The Light Princess. A decade later, all unknowing, I became a fan of Nightwish...

So basically, I've been following the trail of MacDonald's influences since third grade and have only just now realized it. The really encouraging thing is that, in becoming a fan of fantasy, I did things in chronological order, which I think Emily Ponder should get a kick out of. The upshot of all this is that Jung was right all along: everything is connected, and the realization of this fact leads to a strange sense of contentment, of being one with the world and apparantly turning into a hippy.

In other news, I only have to do laundry here three more times.

The end.