Long piece by Jan Dalley, literary editor of the Financial Times, which concludes:
[Fantasy] cannot, however, engage with our social world - that is what it is escaping. It cannot tackle the full complexities of real relationships within that social world. It can be skittish with stereotypes, but since it depends on them so heavily it cannot question them with any subtlety or seriousness. And for those reasons, it cannot teach us much. It can address, if not actually fulfil, the dream therapist's "collective hunger for an image of renewal and hope", yes - but what kind of renewal, what kind of hope is this, if it consists of magic and otherworldly elements that by their nature are impossible in our world?
A child's mind can be fully absorbed by the impossible, because childhood is that protected time of exploring and learning. To an adult whose mind is satisfied by the impossible, I am tempted to say: grow up
I bet this guy doesn't like metaphors, either. It doesn't bother me that fantasy doesn't work for everyone; but it does bother me that people for whom it doesn't work assume that they understand how it works. Don't tell me fantasy doesn't engage with my social world. From the writing end, and the reading end, and the role-playing games in the middle, the range of engagement is slightly broader than it is with realistic fiction. This business of going around telling other people that their experience is somehow inauthetic or inferior is just rude.