Escape Through Fantasy
Chris Elbing
ENGL 1100.47

Life is boring. Well, for a lot of people, anyway. Of course, there are moments of excitement, but does it really happen that often? There is school, homework, and, for music majors, like me, plenty of practicing. Let me not forget to mention the fact that I stay in the city of Greenville, North Carolina –- which, I think, happens to be a very subdued area with almost nothing happening (with the exceptions of college parties and downtown weekends). I have always felt bored in this place and I am always looking for something to keep me occupied. I have not realized until just recently, however, that this escape from the boundaries of "normal" extends into the literary world. Perhaps I was just being naïve, but I will gladly take this opportunity to do a little psychoanalysis on myself through my accounts of reading.

I remember reading the Goosebumps book series by R.L Stine around second and third grades. Those books used to be really popular back then, and I had a whole collection. The stories were usually scary stories (or at least scary for an 8-year-old, like myself) and dealt with a lot of bizarre incidents. One that I can remember dealt with a boy who encountered the superhero and villain of the comics he read. Another dealt with a girl who put on a mask that would not come back off. I guess I was into these stories because they were interesting and far from ordinary. I was also probably into these books because every kid has his moment of believing in ghosts and monsters.

I never wanted any of these stories to come true, for they were really freaky. There were other stories of monsters in the woods at camp, a librarian monster, and a picture that predicted bad things before they happened. All of these things would have been terrifying in real life, but in the books they provided an alternate reality of weird stories. It was something different from the usual stories of the day.

I also remember having read Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in fifth grade. It was not required and I was just curious about what it was about, so I checked it out from the library. I believe that I probably had a general idea of what the story was about from one of the movies. I loved this book because it amazed me how a stranded guy on a desolate island could manage to support himself and survive for so many years. There are cool moments in which the title character struggles to survive, but then uses his resources to save him. It made me question myself about what I would do in a situation like that, but I never reenacted the story. I just took the time to reflect upon what I would do. The book really was an excellent imaginative adventure.

Later on, in my middle school years, I encountered even more entrances into the creative, exotic worlds of fantasy. I read J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbit. This is the story of a short man-like creature who joins a wizard and a group of dwarfs in a quest to steal the treasures of a powerful dragon. Yes, it is some pretty far out stuff, but it is so beautifully written that it just drew me into its rich world of magic and mythical creatures. This book fascinated me because I enjoyed the creative aspects of its wonderful, imaginative world. It was far from the boring world of my early teen years. Thus, this was a welcoming change. As I look back now, I realize that the appeal to dragons, dwarves, elves, and all these other characters entertained my "inner child," who loved the ideas of these mythical creatures. It was this child who played with medieval-era style Legos characters at the age of three and four. I never did reread the book, although I had contemplated it, just to see if I could reproduce any of those past feelings of wonder and excitement.

I followed The Hobbit up with the sequels, The Lord of the Rings trilogy. These are also great books, expanding even more the world that Tolkien creates in his first story. There are so many characters, yet each has its own personality so adequately exposed that they all grew on me easily. This is the basic story of hobbits, humans, elves, dwarves, a wizard, and other creatures uniting to stop the ultimate bad guy, Sauron, and his legion of horrible warriors and monsters. It revolves around the possession of a powerful and evil ring, which Sauron is trying to regain, and the process of which the hobbit Frodo goes through in order to destroy it to save the world of Middle-Earth. It is simply said, but this statement lacks the true emotional impact of the full ride of reading these books. Once again, I was drawn in by the hopes of exploring an interesting world of magic and adventure, and I was excited to hear that Lord of the Rings was being made into a series of movies about two years before they came out. I was a little worried that it was going to be corny, but after having seen the movies, now I can honestly say that they are about as faithful to the book as possible, for a movie. Watching the movies helped bring back a lot of the sense of adventure that I had while reading the books. It was a more a visual thing with great designs that did not disappoint me.

In middle school, I also got into J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. I was hesitant at first, feeling that the books were for little kids. However, a persistent friend of mine reassured me that once anyone read the books, they would be hooked. I read The Sorcerer’s Stone myself to see what all the hype was about, and afterwards, I could not get enough. Luckily, at that time, three of the books were already out, (the aforementioned one and its sequels The Chamber of Secrets and The Prisoner of Azkaban), so I had the privilege of reading successive stories. These stories brought me a bit more fantasy satisfaction because they were more realistic, but with imaginative aspects. Unlike the stories of Tolkien, the Potter books were based in somewhat real places (Earth and London). I also thought that these movies were good representations of the books.

In high school, at about the age of fifteen, I encountered a different brand of fantasy stories, those with more realistic settings. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. This was a great adventure yarn about the escapades of a falsely accused prisoner who ends up finding treasure and systematically planning his vengeance on all of those involved in his suffering. This story was appealing to me because I absolutely enjoyed how every act of revenge was so carefully plotted. I believe that I was interested in this book also because I liked the "dark hero" aspect which brought me back to the days in which I liked Batman a lot more than I do now. It was a great book to read and very addictive.

I also encountered through my high school career were Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and The Lost World. I simply read them because I saw the movies as a kid and I wanted to see how different the books and the movies were. They were very good books, better than I honestly thought they would be. The whole concept of real-life dinosaurs brought back memories of my early childhood when I thought dinosaurs were the coolest creatures ever. It also appealed to my interests in science and technology, as well, as I questioned if recreating dinosaurs was really possible. And if so, how would the world be? Again, it was an appeal to a thought of a more interesting world.

I am attracted to science, with all of its questions and theories, particularly biology. This is probably why I found Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein so intriguing, as well. The whole concept of bringing to life a creature from scratch was an interesting concept. The book actually had some pretty deep ideas hidden in its motifs, such as that of man playing God. It was also another escape from the confinements of the boring everyday life. How often does one meet a living, seven- foot monster made from old human parts? Hopefully that will not ever happen, but an interesting idea all the same.

The use of words as a portal to more interesting worlds was not just restricted to books for me. Video games were also good for that. Back when I was in the eighth grade, I bought a game for my Playstation called Final Fantasy VII, by Square. This was a great game that combined adventure and fantastic storytelling into one epic product. This was not the typical video game that revolved around a simple plot and was finished through means of shooting or killing the next enemy in sight (do not get me wrong, there was killing and stuff). There was also a lot of reading involved (for character dialogue, stats, etc.), as this was the means of moving the story along because there was no voice acting as there is in many games nowadays. So imagine a forty-hour plus video game in which more than a third of that time is spent reading. I did not care, though, because it had a fantastic story.

The story was about a group of rebels in a futuristic world that were trying to stop a monopolistic energy corporation from draining all of the world’s resources. There was also a second part of the story in which an alien life form from many years ago was being brought back to life. It really got complicated, but the experience was greater than that of books because it was very visual and I could more readily become immersed in it. This was a different experience from anything that I had read in books because of the visual imagery associated with the narrative. It was easier to escape into a fantasy world when I was actually interacting with it. The move to role-playing games seemed to be a trend in my later years, as I found that the stories and character developments of these games was a lot more appealing because I was the one initiating the story, something that I could not do as an observer in books.

After having talked about all of these stories, I may have given the wrong impression. I am not the one to read all of the time, especially not a lot of fantasy-oriented books. I was also never a person who would rather read than play outside either. But these books were the few exceptional ones that impacted me. Greenville is not always the most fun place to be, especially for a little kid who lives on the outskirts of the city, so there were many times when I was just bored with the place. The books and game that I have mentioned, however, helped me escape from this boredom at times, as they were welcome escapes into worlds beyond the ordinary lives of normal citizens. Everybody has an urge to escape, which is why we watch movies, play video games, and of course read. The first two are what helped me in my youth, and I am glad to have experienced them because they molded me into the creative, imaginative person that I am today, something which I can apply to my career in music, for music involves creativity, which is spawned from imagination.