Escape Into Fantasy Books

I grabbed John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things on a whim. I was in a mall, I knew I’d be getting my car fixed later, and I needed something to read to pass the time. Rather than run for the comfort of the shelves that hold all my favorite authors, the tried-and-true ones whose works I can name by heart, I instead walked the row in the hope that something would catch my attention. Its red cover caught my eye, and the title was intriguing. Below the title, a silhouette of a person is falling, holding a book. The fact that John Connolly is a best selling author didn’t matter that much to me. I picked it up and, after checking the back to be certain this was something I would be interested in, purchased it.

The description of the book was what turned me on to it. It sounded very similar in concept to one of my favorite films, Pan’s Labyrinth, from director Guillermo del Toro. Both deal with young children during World War II. Both of these children love fairy tales and fantasy. And both find themselves in worlds different from their own, ambiguous worlds that could be from their own imaginations, or from something far deeper and darker than they could guess.

There is something profound about the fantastic. I’ll readily admit that I’m not a connoisseur of fantasy novels. I’ve read only a small handful and have never found them as gripping as their legions of fans do. But this sort of fantasy, this fantasy-overwhelming-reality, is something I find very appealing. And I think it speaks to something that is fundamentally human. We seek out stories. We are creative creatures. We can exist in our world, and be genuinely happy (or, in the cases of our two protagonists, terribly sad), but we still seek out other realms.

David, the little boy in Lost Things, has lost his mother to a sickness. His mother was a great friend to him, and now, not only is he dealing with her loss, but also with his father’s new wife, a woman named Rose. Rose and David’s father have a son together that they name Georgie. David believes he is mattering less and less as the days go by. One night, he hears his mother calling from the garden outside their home. As he sneaks out to investigate, he is transported into another realm, just as a German bomber comes crashing down after him. In this new world, David is helped by a Woodsman and a Knight to find the old king, who has a mysterious tome called the Book of Lost Things. The king, David is told, should be able to help him find his way home. But all the while, David is pursued by the Crooked Man, a wily and evil creature who proposes a trade with David – a trade that could solve all of his problems back home. But David must decide if he is willing to pay the price.

Ofelia, the little girl in Pan’s Labyrinth, has lost her father. Her mother has remarried to Captain Vidal, a psychopathic leader against the Spanish resistance movement. They move into an old mill. Her mother is pregnant with a little boy, her half-brother, the son of her evil stepfather. One day, while exploring an old stone labyrinth, Ofelia meets a faun. Fauns are mythical creatures that shouldn’t exist, and yet here is one now. He tells Ofelia that she is a princess, the reincarnated Princess of the Underworld. But before she can reclaim her throne, she must complete three tasks to prove her blood has not been tainted. These tasks are supremely dangerous. And in the end, she must also make a decision, one where the stakes are high and the wrong move could lead her to lose everything.

These characters are very similar, and their paths lead them to similar places. But what else do they have in common? Most importantly, for the sake of this discussion, they have a love of fantasy and fairy tales. David’s room is full of books, and he reads and reads them, filling his mind with all manner of different stories. Ofelia, too, reads her fairy tales, though she is often chided by her mother for doing so, as such things are considered appropriate only for little children. Whether or not their fantasy worlds are real is something that is left up to the viewer to interpret. I have my own idea, which I won’t share, for risk of spoiling the fun. But regardless, it’s safe to say that these children, just like you and I, find happiness in escaping to other worlds. Even though dangers may lurk there, too, in these other worlds we can be heroes. We can slay dragons and monsters and rescues damsels in distress and be heralded by villagers. We live today in a world that is constantly being upended by conflict and strife. What better way to unwind, to unstress, than by finding a little comfort in fantasy?