14 May 2009
Romance
Posted by Greg under: Writing .
I think really what you’re talking about is romances and books that aren’t romances—“romances” in the definition of Northrop Frye: those entertainments that go back to ancient times. The Odyssey is a romance. Books about quests, and mysteries to be solved, and journeys undertaken to solve mysteries, lovers who are divided and reunited in the end, treasures that are found and lost again—all that kind of material as well as talking animals and ghosts and ancient evils and trips to the underworld to learn wisdom and come back again—all that romance material, it persists in literature to a greater and lesser extent. I mean, it can be found in realistic novels too—disguised and displaced in various ways.
-John Crowley at The Believer.
I totally now want to write a book with a quest, a mystery to be solved, journeys to be undertaken to solve mysteries, lovers who are divided an reunited in the end, treasures that are found and lost, talking animals, ghosts, ancient evils and trips to the underworld. All in the one book.