But by the time we reach them, those green fields are always in decline. The spell never lasts. King Arthur is always dying, and the Elves are always shuffling off toward Valinor, where mortals cannot follow. Narnia falls into chaos, then drowns and freezes, and the survivors retreat into Aslan’s Land. We think of fantasy and modernism as worlds apart, but somehow they always end up in the same place. They are perfectly symmetrical. Fantasy is a prelude to the apocalypse. Modernism is the epilogue.

The Believer - The Death of a Civil Servant

www.believermag.com

Cambridge Secret Societies, Complicated Smells, Boot Dealers, Poetry about Fairies, Freud’s Theory of the Uncanny, Virginia Woolf, Western Lordlings, Peter Pan, Flying Ships, Death-Proof Elves, Missionary Ladies, Trotting Knights, Murdering Beethoven, The League of Nations,The Antiquarian Revival, J...