attenuated

As an English teacher, one of the most difficult changes I've made in my personality is learning to tolerate fiction that used to nauseate me. I'm talking about fantasy, its cousins anime and manga, and all the fanfic they generate.

Four years ago, if you approached me bearing The Dragonriders of Pern, I'd launch into an Emily Rose spasm, flailing, screaming, knocking over furniture. One mention of wizards or warlocks would make me reach for a straightjacket--the one I keep in a closet in my classroom, just in case. If you drew cat-eyed females with raccoon tails, I'd channel Barney Fife.

What's changed in four years?

First, I actually read a fantasy book, and found that it passed through my system without so much as a hiccup. That was two summers ago, when I sat down and devoured The Lord of the Rings in two days. Enough fantasy, really, for a lifetime.

Second, I discovered that my most prolific student writers are fantasy nuts. They publish their own websites. They read a book a week, a series a year. They fill their journals with page after page describing characters, changing endings to established stories, or writing their own fantasy novels.

What's worse--better, I mean--is that they beg for criticism, continually pestering me about sentence structure, plot suggestions, word choices, spelling, and anything else they're working on. I've even had one student request that I announce his project to all my classes, in hopes that he can get someone to coauthor a novel about a kingdom in his head.

So, what's an English teacher to do? I hold my nose and read about Voltar and Zinfis and their troubles, the good dragons Mukto and Sree, the bad dragon Mnemoh, the lush land of Lurnifia and the glistening swords and lustrous helms of all the mighty warriors in the twelve villages, and offer better ways to recount the mythic history of the Bnan.

And I keep thinking, someday you'll grow out of this and tire of the genre. Because hope springs eternal from the Fount of Falafel.