The Art of Good Fiction
One
Fiction can be beauty
When one part of our mind or emotions is tired, what should we do?
It’s so tempting to just veg out with entertainment. But that won’t feed our soul with what it needs. It usually leaves me empty and even more tired. When one part of our mind or emotions is tired, switch to another part and try another variety of truth and beauty that will really feed your soul. If you're just too tired, then go to sleep!
What are we reading? Is it good stuff, or is it junk?
Fiction can be beautiful, it can be really good for us.
Fiction is storytelling about what’s never technically happened. Of all the fine arts, this is the art form Jesus used when He walked among us as a man. He didn’t write music or paint pictures or design buildings. He told stories. He told parables. And in doing so He showed us that stories, even if they aren’t historical, have the power to convey images of profound truth like no other medium.
Have there ever been stories with the power and profundity of the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son?
So when we look to fiction for recreation, are we looking for fiction that gives us new insights? Are we looking for stories about what never happened, but stories that give us new insight into the reality that is happening right now, all around us?
Two
Fiction and meaning
St. Thomas Aquinas once said that God writes the world the way human beings write stories. That means that if we’re reading good stories, it should give us a deeper sense of the way God has made the world.
Now, there are a lot of stories out there that don’t do that. There are novels where the characters are miserable, and nothing really good ever happens, and nothing ever makes sense and then the story is over. That fiction isn’t true. It’s not right. So it’s not beauty.
We’ve said before that Beauty is a combination of order and surprise. And God has made a beautiful world, orderly surprising. His providential plan for the whole human race is also beautiful, meaning it’s also orderly and surprising.
So at the very least, your fiction should remind you of that in the end, everything will make sense, the truth will be known, evil will be unmasked, and the good will triumph over the wicked.
Whatever you read, it should remind you that at the end of all things, all the plot lines of human life will be resolved in a brilliant and clever way, and that we will live happily ever after in Heaven. And those truths should inform the way you think and live now.
If fiction helps you see order and surprise and, at the end of the day, if it shows you some small glimmer of joy – then it is helping you to respond rightly to the way this world has been made by that Perfect Author who is God.
Three
Great Fiction
If you’re ready to really invest in great fiction, then try The Count of Monte Christo by Alexander Dumas, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, or The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky.
There are great Christian authors. You might try Manalive or The Ball and the Cross by G.K. Chesterton or Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson. Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather is another Catholic favorite. There’s also The Sword of Honor Trilogy by Evelyn Waugh or The End of the Affair by Graham Greene.
Or just great fiction where God’s worldview permeates the story like The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hopkins and the sequel Rupert of Hentzau.
And here’s a suggestion, don’t read these books alone! Get at least two copies, and give one to your spouse, or to a good friend, and read them together. Then you can share your experience of truth, goodness, and beauty which is the basis for the very highest degree of friendship.
Four
Starting to look for good fiction
If you don’t know how to find good things to read and you’d like to start, here’s a tip: don’t be ashamed to start with kids’ books.
Children’s literature often has more insight and a lot less filth than other books that go by the name of “classics.”
Read C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. Read Tolkein’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Read The Tale of Despereaux which powerfully impresses upon us the need to overcome darkness by seeking the light, that faithfulness, not matter what the cost, conquers infidelity, that cowardice is ugly and bravery beautiful, that the only way to defeat resentment is with forgiveness, and that friendship is the greatest thing in life.
Read The BFG by Roald Dahl, which causes us to desire friendshipand courage and instills the truth that even the smallest person can make a big difference.
And don’t just read them, read them out loud to your kids and grandkids. See the common bond that can form in your family, a bond built of good insights and good delights, drawn from a shared experience of good stories.
Five
Considering possibility and celebrating reality
Fiction shows us worlds of possibility. People and places and events that might have happened but didn’t. And in these possibilities we feel a sense of order, of surprise, of goodness and potential that makes us excited about what is possible, and what is already true, about the great story that God is writing and that we are living.
But it should also give us a sense of inestimable gratitude. Because, of course, these characters don’t exist and we do!
God could have made a world full of elves and unicorns and dragons but instead He made a world with elephants and giraffes and bald eagles. He could have made a world with Ebenezer Scrooge or Sherlock Holmes but instead He made a world with our kids, and our friends, and ourselves. In His mysterious generosity, God let us be characters in the only true story there is.
As St. Alphonsus Liguori says, God has “selected you from among so many men whom he could have created in place of you; but he has left them in their nothingness, and has brought you into existence, and placed you in the world.”
So when we put down our books, our stories, our novels, let’s remember to appreciate the incredible fact that we are real. And let’s use whatever insights we gain from literature to make the most of the time we have left until this chapter of our story ends.