99 Questions to ask you grandparents #53

53. Which piece of media do you feel most represented or “seen” in: a timely play, an old-school movie, a thoughtful poem?

It is hard if not impossible to pinpoint down one book, play, or movie that most represents me, as I can find myself in almost everything I read or watch, if I look for it and the author does their work well. A good piece of art (whether play, movie, or poem) has a character (or characters) who the viewer or reader can identify with. Maybe not entirely but at least some, enough to relate to what the protagonist is going through. We feel this could be us, or maybe part of us we don’t like and thank goodness it isn’t us. I am nearly done reading ‘War and Peace’ (!) and for two-thirds of the book I couldn’t relate to any of the characters, until war comes along and complacent lives are altered from outside forces. That I can relate to. I recently saw a play I found boring that I wasn’t connecting with any of the characters until the end when the one who had the happy ending we were told she would soon loose all through a sudden change of health. I can relate to that as well.

I hope I don’t bore the Spo-fans when I bring up (again) Milo the boy protagonist from ‘The phantom tollbooth’. He is about as spot-on as I can find myself in a book. A lad who is disenchanted with the world stumbles into a land of fantastic beings. He is transformed into a life-long learner. Afterwards Milo doesn’t need to return to The Lands Beyond; there is infinite wonder all around him to last a lifetime.

‘The never-ending story’ has a similar lad Bastian who like Milo longs to escape the world and he does so through a magical book to visit Fantastica. There he meets and saves The Childlike Empress to recreate Fantastica in his own image.* From a Jungian point of view Male and Female merge, as well as Reality with Fantasy to transform the boy into a better being.

What these two stories have in common is The Hero’s Journey, the story of transformation through Journey. And these two boys do through Fantasy.

Any media that has this in it is likely to hit home for Urs Truly.

What book or movie or TV program captures your essence?

*In the second part of the book, the protagonist hears of others who have come to Fantastica and have grown for it, a young lad with the name like Shaxpeere. The line is easy to miss but incredibly noteworthy.