[on suspending your belief]

Nothing quite makes me happy the same way as finding articles about how children's fantasizing is a science (of sorts) or how Narnia is more a world than an allegory (to children)-- in other words, things that take children's faith and fantasy to be what it is, rather than inevitably filtering it through adult eyes, the adult need to make absolutely everything directly applicable and practical and (*shudder!!*) applicably realistic. (It is times like these when I remember why we all thought adults were The Enemy once upon a time, and why, exactly, adults weren't allowed in Narnia or Neverland or Wonderland... I mean, I've mostly grown out of that, but sometimes... I have to tell you... when I hear people talk about Narnia-- or HP-- in terms of 'how morally useful is this' and 'how does this directly apply to the Real World', I remember being 9 quite well, thank you. Probably -too- well for my emotional equilibrium, as the resentment of Them-- yes, Them-- still simmers, but that's neither here nor there.)
    Well, unless you can see how fantasy can be realistic and belief isn't necessarily dogmatic; in that case we understand each other quite well.

The thing that just made me inordinately happy in particular is the bit in the Narnia essay where the author quotes Lewis himself:
    "To enjoy reading about fairies—much more about giants and dragons—it is not necessary to believe in them," he wrote in another essay on children's books. "Belief is at best irrelevant; it may be a positive disadvantage."

That phrase: "belief is at best irrelevant". Adults don't really tend to understand this, do they? When they believe or don't believe, most adults are -sure-, one way or another, and they fit every belief into their overall world structure of 'this is how reality is', and if it doesn't fit then it's panic and pandemonium (and the very idea that this could bring wonder and joy would probably be alien to most). Whereas it's not that children can't tell the difference between 'real' and 'unreal', but rather that often enough, the difference is irrelevant. If you can't understand this, you probably can't still enjoy Narnia (and even Aslan) the way you did when you were a child (I'm guessing).

It's also why I like to suspend my -belief- as well as my -disbelief- when reading fanfic (even so-called shipper-fic)-- to me they're flipsides of the same coin. I want the story to convince me, to take me away, to set up a new world where only -its- rules apply and things make sense all over again in new and marvelous ways. It's not an escape; it's a remaking.