Literary Pilgrimages
The great thing about fantasy novels is just that: the fantasy. It’s the different worlds, some of which are completely different from ours, and some that are familiar but just with a little tweak here or there. The bad thing about fantasy novels is that those worlds don’t actually exist. The problem with loving fantasy – or science fiction, speculative fiction, anything with imaginary worlds – is that you can’t, you know, go there.
I know I’m not the only one who feels like this. How many of us want to just disappear into these fantastical lands, despite the fact that so many of them are in fact really dangerous, violent, and full of monsters? Who cares! That’s part of the fun! And anyway, there’s a good chance we’ll be given face-melting magic powers or at least a nice sword to help us on our way.
So what do we do? Until the future day when our AI overlords create new realities for us to live in, we’re stuck with what we’ve got. And it’s much easier to make a literary pilgrimage to the home of a 200-year-old English guy than to the current home of your favourite fantasy author, because the first one will have a nice museum, and the second an arrest warrant.
I never thought I was a literary pilgrim. I never thought I was one of those people who needs to see the places that my favourite authors lived, or where they set their stories. But when I started to really think about it, I realised I need to get over myself, because I’m totally one of those people. I’ve travelled to places exclusively because they’re the setting of some of my favourite books. I’m less likely to want to visit the actual homes of authors, but that said, if it’s nearby, I’ll head on over.
I did that with Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-on-Avon in 2019. Honestly, it wasn’t a place that I’d ordinarily make an effort to visit. I love Shakespeare’s plays, but we know so little about him, and I’m always a bit wary of him being made into some sort of idol. But I was staying in the Cotswolds, and it was just down the road, so my husband and I visited. It was worth the trip just to see a beautifully preserved sixteenth-century house and garden (the garden was gorgeous) and to get an insight into the way people lived then. I felt no connection to Shakespeare there, but I don’t know if it’d ever be possible to get close to the man. He’s so distant from us, so unknown. He can be anything we want him to be. (I prefer him in Upstart Crow, to be honest.)
I’m going to write about some other literary pilgrimages I’ve been on in future blog posts. Some of them have been absolutely worth it. And it’s all we’ve got until those aforementioned overlords create a Velaris for everyone to live in.
Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash
