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Podcast: Exploring Tolkien
Episode: Kids Ruin Everything! Why fantasy is FOR adults - On Fairy Stories, Part 3
Description: This week we discussed “Children” from the “On Fairy Stories” by Tolkien. He pushes back against the coupling of fairy-stories and children, making the point that, “If fairy-story as a kind is worth reading at all it is worthy to be written for and read by adults.”
We talk about:
Suspension of Disbelief vs Literary Belief
How fairy-stories are not to be relegated to nurseries
How children ruin everything (even fairy-stories) if we leave it alone with them
The “covert sniggering” that happens when adults write stories FOR children
Is the Hobbit too “silly” for Middle-earth
Then in our members...