Secret Garden novels

[rachelmanija]

Prompted by my last post, I've decided to write an article about secret garden novels and their relationship to fantasy. Those are books about a kid or kids (or occasionally a teen or adult) finding a private space for him or herself. And sorry, Mia, Green Man can't have this one: this one I want to sell.

I want to discuss, among others, one example of a "garden of the mind"-- a novel in which the private space is not primarily spatial but mental. I'm talking about something like VERY FAR AWAY FROM ANYWHERE ELSE or, if I recall correctly, BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA, where the protagonists create a fantasy world for themselves but the novel itself is not a fantasy. I would prefer not to use the former because I think I want to get in-depth with another Le Guin novel, THE BEGINNING PLACE, in the section on secret garden fantasies.

And on that note, what are some fantasies in which a) modern people travel to a fantasyland, and b) that land is in some sense specially created by or for them? (This isn't so much a matter of strict causality, but of a feeling that the land is somewhat solipsistic or not as "real" as, say, Middle Earth.) Offhand I'm only coming up with THE BEGINNING PLACE, Narnia, CORALINE, Margaret Mahy's DANGEROUS SPACES, and THE SECRET COUNTRY, but I'm sure there are more. And please don't say Thomas Covenant, because I cannot read one more word about that insufferable leper.

Comments

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Well, there's The Land of Laughs, although it probably only sort of meets your definitions, and I can't remember who the author is.

Various Charles de Lint?

I can't figure out why I'm blanking on this, since it's precisely the sort of book that feels like it ought to be a dime a dozen.

Oh, I'm sure Andre Norton's done at least six.

That seems to be everything I can think of at the moment, oddly enough.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

LAND OF LAUGHS is by Jonathan Carroll. I think I should re-read it, actually, because I think it might be "secret garden as horror," which would be interesting to reference.

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Sounds fascinating, and I'll look forward to reading it. Besides, you don't give me half of what I want...*g*

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

The Changeling, by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Two misfit girls create a world in the woods between their houses, which is actually the world Keatley Snyder created in her fantasy Greensky trilogy.

Um... I'm also feeling like there should be more, but I'm blanking, unless you want to count any of Anne Shirley/the Blythe children's fantasy worlds. :)

.m

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH?

For the general garden of the mind, you need THE EGYPT GAME.

[oyceter]

DWJ's Hexwood is an interesting take on the Secret Garden book (I like that term, much better than ordinary-people-in-fantasyland ^_~). The Five Children and It, very borderline, given that the children actually do create various worlds/scenarios for themselves. Peter Pan (not modern).

Other than that, I'm totally blanking. Don't know if Fionavar counts for you, given that Fionavar feels very "real" and our world is the one that feels (and is) less permanent/lesser.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Really? Huh. I felt Fionavar was extremely unconvincing as a "one true world" à la Zelazny's Amber (Which is another kettle of fish anyway).

Let's see...isn't there the subsubgenre of people explicitly doing roleplaying games, complete with dice, and ending up in that world? Joel Rosenberg's GUARDIANS OF THE FLAME (The Sleeping Dragon, etc.) come to mind. I won't call them high literature, but I enjoyed them a fair bit.

Didn't one of Holy Lisle's books fall into this category? It's not one I've actually read, only read about, so I'm blanking on a title.

Wasn't there also some Philip José Farmer novel in which a psychologist deliberately uses one of the sf worlds as a roleplaying setup for a child? This may not be what you're looking for either, but I remember reading an Analog review of it.

There's also Beth Hilgartner's Colors in the Dreamweaver's Loom and (I think) Feast of the Trickster, which I adored in middle school--YA fantasy. It's been so long, though, that I'm not sure it fits quite into your category.

There was also some dreadful Christian retake on The Secret Garden I picked up in (where else) a Christian bookstore to which my aunt took me, only set in England. I don't recall title or author, thankfully, and the magicalness of the other-place got analogized away into the Kingdom of Heaven, etc. I may be a Christian, but it really was a dreadful retake.

[oyceter]

Well, Fionavar didn't feel much like "one true world," but GGK was so skimpy on the scenes and details from our world that Fionavar felt more real in the narrative..

[janni.livejournal.com]

I like the term "Secret Garden books" for this sort of thing.

The Secret Country novels play and expand on the whole Secret Garden notion in interesting ways.

Do you count Walter Mitty and its ilk as Secret Garden stories? (This is the sort of subgenre that the Tiernay West novel I sold falls into--though in that case the invented world is more of an adventurerland than a fantasyland, and Walter-Mitty-style, has ever-changing boundaries.)

It's been a while since I've read Kit's Wilderness, but it might fit, if I'm remembering it correctly.

I have the feeling there ought to be more others, too. I can think of a couple of gamers-wind-up-in-the-game-world books, but those aren't YA. (One by Joel Rosenberg, I think, whose title I forget; one by Dennis McKiernan, though I believe the other world is a computer simulation there.)

[larryhammer]

Shetterly's The Tangled Lands turns the world of his Cats Have No Lord into a computer game.

---L.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Would Alan Garner's Elidor count?

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Prompted by my last post, I've decided to write an article about secret garden novels and their relationship to fantasy. Those are books about a kid or kids (or occasionally a teen or adult) finding a private space for him or herself.

I don't know if it fits re genre concerns, but there's a wonderful book called The Windmill Summer about a young girl who creates her own space in an abandoned windmill and basically leaves her family to live in it one summer. No fantasy, but some great descriptions of animals and the natural world -- it's sort of like a teenage girl Walden. There's an encounter with a raccoon that is truly striking.

One other non-genre book that comes to mind is I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (no gardens, apart from the title) -- diagnosis of schizophrenia a little dated, but v much about someone retreating into a private world and deciding whether or not to share it with other people.

A sort of grown-up version is A.S. Byatt's The Game, where a game two sisters played in childhood overwhelms their adult lives.

Dammit, why can't I think of any genre books wrt this topic? I know I've read at least half a dozen....Oh, there's The Secret Language of Goldfish, where a miniature island in a garden becomes the symbol of a girl's inner life.

This is now going to drive me bats. As a compensation for my sudden block on genre books, what about including the garden in Alice in Wonderland -- a great deal of her time is spent on wanting to get there, or trying to figure out how to get there, and when she finally does shrink herself to do so it's a big moment. That's also mirrored by the talking sardonic flowers in the second book....

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

You really need to look at Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden, which is a fascinating book – it is, on one level, a kind of ghost story, in which Tom travels back in time in the house where he lives, to play with a little girl called Hattie; on another, I think there could be a certain amount of debate about how 'real' the haunting is, and how much he is driven by the unstimulating circumstances in which he finds himself to create an imaginary world.

If you cannot locate it in the US, I'd be glad to find a copy for you here. It is highly pertinent to what you're proposing (which sounds fascinating ... I really want to read the final piece, and know several other people who would also be keen).

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Gael Baudino's Dragonsword trilogy.

Tangent: Roger Zelazny's Amber books. What is it with those shadow worlds, anyway?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

It's been long enough since I've read them that I can't say for sure if they fit, but I *think* so -- Julie Andrews (yes, *that* Julie Andrews, though perhaps writing as Julie Edwards) -- Mandy, about a girl at an orphanage who periodically climbs the walls and escapes to a small cottage she's found, where she plays house and works in the garden. Also, her The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, about a group of kids entering into a fantasy world.

I used to adore modern-people-go-into-fantasy-world books before I got burned out on them. I'll think and see if I remember more.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh - Possibly Grimbold's Other World. by ... er... I've forgotten temporarily. Nicholas Stuart Gray? Something like that. Grimbold is a black cat who takes a boy with him into another world, but again it's been so long since I read it that I don't remember much. *makes note to reread soon*

And *possibly* The River of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston - the supernatural events of the other books in the Green Knowe series seem solidly a part of our world, but the kids in River have several strange adventures that might be them telling stories to each other, might be them visiting a more mythic world, and the events aren't like the other books. But it doesn't obviously fit your criteria, so it might not be what you're looking for.

Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence, again might not quite fit - I can't remember the details of the other world.

Pat O'Shea's The Hounds of the Morrigan - two Irish kids go into and out of a mythic world where the gods and legends of Ireland dwell.

And, as always, Michael Ende's The Neverending Story.

(telophase again, but LJ's being bitchy and not letting me post as myself at the moment)

[(Anonymous)]

Would some of Edward Eager's books count? I'm sneaking LJ time at work right now, so I can't look them up and refresh my memory, but if nobody refutes me, I'll do so when I get home.

And I may have to post on find_a_book, if I got the name and tag right (find_a_book), a new community dedicated to, well, finding books, about an Eager-type book I read many years ago where children staying in a Victorian house could visit strange lands by getting into a swing in a gazebo, swinging high, and jumping off through one of the several arches in it.

--telophase

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Had another thought - Astrid Lindgren's The Brothers Lionheart is another possibility -- in this one, when the brothers die at the beginning of the book they go to a fantasy world. Not sure how well it fits your requirements, though, but it's similar to the last Narnia book, in that sense.

[larryhammer]

Moonwise, Greer Ilene Gilman

The Zimiamvia books of E.R. Eddison, for a godgame version of created worlds

Hawk in Silver, Mary Gnetle (at least if I'm remembering it correctly)

---L.

[kate_nepveu]

_The Interior Life_, though "travel" isn't strictly accurate?