culture
February 22, 2026
Myth, monsters and making sense of a disenchanted world: why everyone is reading fantasy
I have made the leap from literary fiction to fantasy – for those who think it’s mere wish-fulfilment, here’s why we need that thing with the dragons
TL;DR
- Fantasy is a dominant and pervasive cultural form, possibly the most significant in contemporary writing.
- It is more than wish-fulfillment; it reflects the wilder parts of the human psyche that are not easily expressed in the 'buffered self' of the daylight world.
- Fantasy offers a necessary 'enchantment' in a disenchanted, strictly material world, fulfilling a need for imagination and metaphor.
- The genre can be seen as a 'regulated return of the repressed,' offering a partial haunting of the modern world with older mythic structures.
- It provides a form of realism for experiences that are unearthly or overwhelmingly significant, and acknowledges humanity's metaphorical nature.
- Key authors like Tolkien, Le Guin, Jemisin, Pullman, and Roberts are mentioned in the context of fantasy's diverse genealogy and analysis.
Continue reading the original article