Idle thoughts in IKEA...

[steepholm]

I was following the path of floor arrows faithfully, being tempted neither by beech-effect CD racks to my left nor feldspar dinner plates to my right, but keeping the road faithfully to the hall of clipframes, when it popped into my head that The Wizard of Oz bears much the same relation of secular ironization to The Pilgrim’s Progress that A Connecticut Yankee bears to Malory. Is this a critical commonplace, I wonder – or was my brain throwing up random hypotheses for want of stimulation?

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. But then I reckon Pilgrim's Progress is the archetype of the quest fantasy

[elen-sentier.livejournal.com]

Yup! That has to be IKEA ... LOL

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

except for that whole didactic intent of PP -- to me that makes it stand apart -- or maybe it's better to say I see the difference in form, but not function/meaning/intent?

Hmmmm ... it is fair to say that going through IKEA does tend to have the attention-grabbing effect of poppies and the irritation factor of munchkins... definitely makes me want to send out the winged monkeys.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm ... it is fair to say that going through IKEA does tend to have the attention-grabbing effect of poppies and the irritation factor of munchkins... definitely makes me want to send out the winged monkeys.

True: and there's a touch of Bunyan about it, too:

"They contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein, should be sold all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long."

I do make an exception for the BILLY bookcases, though - they're really useful.