MY REVIEW OF "BIG FISH" AND THE MYTHIC FICTION GENRE

Mythic fiction was not always known to me by its terminology as it is now, though I always loved the idea of attributing real-life science with a fantasy genre after its rebirth after Tolkein. Mending reality-reasoning and science with fantasy is actually a major part of my Senior Thesis (creature design ref sheets, my original creatures debicted in their own habitats, ect), so this is by no means a hard subject for me to graps, although it might be easy for Mythic Fiction to be confused by some to be a form of Sci-Fi (which, admittingly, it does share a lot of characteriusics). Mythic fiction, however, almost seems like a crossroads of sorts; kinda like a cement highway jutting from the dark, unspeakable bowles of a concrete city of restless and undesireble human reality that somehow slowly merges through time into a bearly beaten dirt path into a wooded area of unatural nature. At least that the vison I got when I read Big Fish.

Big Fish starts out the way a lot of Mythic Fantasy storybooks and movies start out: the characters in question as faced with some kind of impending tragedy or voidless unhappy existence brought about by the mere fact that reality is an unforgiving and unchanging thing which always seems to go against them (despite the characters usually reserving at least one small portion of their minds and hearts to the "brighter side"); through a series of events, the protagonsists begint to see (or think they are seeing) new worlds unfold before them, much like the main character as a child growing up and even as a young man felt as he listened to the wild and overblown "fish stories" his father would tell him. (302) And just as it can sometimes be in real life (outside of the books and movies), it can get hard for the characters (and even us as certain points) to tell what is real life and what is fantasy... or what is THEIR real life and what is THEIR fantasy? Which life do they want over the other? Is the fantasy life where everthing may seem perfect really what's best? Question after question to find a common link, a bridge to both sides ("Tarebithia"); in some ways the reality can be one's dream world, and the fantasy can be the nightmare if seemingly unable to control. As much as we may hate it, I feel Mythic fantasy can offer us a different side to the Logic and Reason: they are our restraints and keys.