A Kernel of Truth at the Heart of a Story

“My job as a writer is to whittle my story down to the bare truth at its heart and then build around it the best illusions I can muster, illusions that support and even illuminate without distracting. The failure to understand this is precisely why so many films fall flat—the storyteller is enraptured by his own illusion and forgets to paint the truth. If there’s not a kernel of truth at the heart of the story, then all the action sequences, precise prose, and emotionally manipulative music on earth can’t save it.”

—Pete Peterson, The Rabbit Room, Truth in the Guise of Illusion

The Art of Play

Jennifer Trafton is an author of children’s fiction. Her book, The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic, was read aloud by yours truly across many evenings with the Abell six. We laughed and enjoyed this unpredictable book, squealing with its silliness. She recently wrote an essay for The Rabbit Room, titled “The Art of Play,” which is worth a read...

That is what I mean by a holy silliness. Yes, there is a profound need for art that plumbs the depths of human depravity and suffering and shows that redemption is possible within that darkness. But there is also a profound need for art that creates spaces of innocence—innocent play, innocent joy, innocent beauty—in a world where innocence is violently stripped away from even the youngest children, and where adults have spent so long choking in the smog of corruption that they have forgotten what it is like to breathe pure fresh air. 

I will defend and defend the belief that the deepest reality of human life that we must impress upon children is not that life is hard and death is inevitable and they need to get used to sadness and darkness and make the best of it. The deepest reality is joy. The prize hidden under the scratch-and-win card of life is a beauty so big that no happy ending in a story can even come close to approximating it. War is a horrific stain on the floor of an extravagant ballroom. Tears are temporary; laughter is eternal.

Read the whole thing.

Go and Read: The Dragon's Tooth

Five of the Abell six have now completed N. D. Wilson’s latest fictional creation, The Dragon’s Tooth. Unanimous consensus is that this book is simply fantastic. Nate wrote, upon request from Amazon, a brief letter to potential readers. I suggest you read the whole thing, but here is a great paragraph:

Escapism in fiction can be a beautiful thing. But that’s not the only thing I hope to create. If kids around the world pass through The Dragon’s Tooth and become friends with Cyrus and Antigone Smith and form clubs and sit in circles to role-play with dice and wish they had more interesting lives, then I will have failed. But if they dream of learning to sail, to swim, to fly, if they dream of running faster than they’ve ever run and studying Latin (or Greek or Persian or Creole), if they walk outside and realize that their world is more wonderful, more surprising, more dangerous, and more exciting than anything I could ever create, if they discover that they themselves could become more interesting than any character I could ever shape, then I will have succeeded.

One of my daughters said that “Cyrus Smith, if he were real, was the kind of boy you could fall in love with...”

I love being a dad that gets to read the same great stuff his kids are reading. I love the excitement and fun we have discussing plots and characters and story lines. I love being a dad to my four and the head of the Abell six.

Slay the Dragon

“G.K. Chesterton said somewhere that if a book does not have a wicked character in it, then it is a wicked book. One of the most pernicious errors that has gotten abroad in the Christian community is the error of sentimentalism—the view that evil is to be evaded, rather than the more robust Christian view that evil is to be conquered. The Christian believes that evil is there to be fought, the dragon is there to be slain. The sentimentalist believes that evil is to be resented.”

—Douglas Wilson, “Forward”, Omnibus IV, page IX.

Fantastic Sentence

“Stanley Yelnats was the only passenger on the bus, not counting the driver or the guard.”

—Louis Sachar, Holes, pg. 6

The Dragon’s Tooth

This book arrives at theAbellsix doorstep today. We can’t wait. Wendy and I listened as the author read the first chapter to us back in June and are so excited to read the rest. My kids have been fighting over who gets to read it first for months. First to the door wins!



From the RabbitRoom review...

Which brings us to choices. Cyrus and Antigone face the age-old choice of doing what is easy versus doing what is right. Turning away from the Order of Brendan would allow them to grieve for their family, remain safe, and stay together. But Dan has been given the Dragon’s Tooth, the Reaper’s Blade, with the power of death. Immortals can die and the dead can be raised with the tooth’s power. Enemies want it and will kill to get it. At one point Cyrus is offered his family in return for the tooth. Give the tooth (and all personal risk and responsibility) and save his family. Or keep the tooth (and the risk and responsibility toward a greater good) and possibly lose his loved ones. Easy? Or right?

Read the whole thing.

A Hero Among Dragons

“This is also why the new novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure for ever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not central. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately, and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world.”

—G. K. Chesteron, Orthodoxy, The Project Gutenberg eBook, Apple iPod Touch, pp. 45–46 of 838.

The Best of All Fairy Tales

This quote is from a blog post advertising a Christian artist conference, and furthermore, from The Jesus Storybook Bible, but it is a great quote nonetheless:

“The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne - everything - to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!”

I love good fairy tales.

Crawling Around the Cathedral Floor

“I am convinced that poets are toddlers in a cathedral, slobbering on wooden blocks and piling them up in the light of the stained glass. We can hardly make anything beautiful that wasn’t beautiful in the first place. We aren’t writers, but gleeful rearrangers of words whose meanings we can’t begin to know. When we manage to make something pretty, it’s only so because we are ourselves a flourish on a greater canvas. That means there’s no end to the discovery. We may crawl around the cathedral floor for ages before we grow up enough to reach the doorknob and walk outside into a garden of delights. Beyond that, the city, then the rolling hills, then the sea. And when the world of every cell has been limned and painted and sung, we lie back on the grass, satisfied that our work is done. Then, of course, the sun sets and we see above us the dark dome of glittering stars.”

—Andrew Peterson, read his whole post here.

Rabbit Trail

Following a rabbit trail turning off of the previous post….

In 1997, when the Bible suddenly became real to me in a new way, I swept my bookshelves clean of all fiction collected since 1984 and started to refill them with theology, Christian living, and other Bible related books. Almost my entire reading life began to revolve around nonfiction religious works. I looked contemptuously on my previous love of fiction, and determined that all that reading was a waste of life. After all, my hero wrote a book called Don’t Waste Your Life.

Now, however, having home-schooled four children for seven years following the classical education model—as well as my insufferable love of being lost in a fantastical world, which I remembered in August 2008 when I dug out my tattered copy of The Chronicles of Amber—the importance of literature and fiction has resurrected itself in my life.

Somewhere in 2002, I read Douglas Wilson’s Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, which has changed our entire view of education and caused us to embark on a homeschooling voyage that neither Wendy or I could have ever envisioned. Once our children hit seventh grade, they begin the Omnibus program, which is a curriculum combining theology, history, and literature. Three years into this program, our shelves are filled with classic Western literature. Our family is a reading machine. Every one of us consumes books. We read the hard stuff for school and the lighter stuff for fun. Rarely are our kids without a book.

As a family we have read aloud Huckleberry Finn, The Lord of the Rings, the Wingfeather Saga, and the entire 13-volumes of Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Obviously, my earlier knee jerk reaction about fiction has changed. The main reason for the change is that we know inherently it isn’t wrong to read stories. It helps, though, to find others who agree and argue for us.

Peter Leithart recently did this for us very well. Read his short essay series on Why Read? here and here. He begins his Why Read? essay...

For Christians, the question at a certain level answers itself. We read because we are people of the book, the people of Moses, David, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Matthew, Paul, and John. We read because in reading we encounter the God who is Word. Christians extend this argument easily to “edifying” reading. If we must read the Bible, then we also, it seems, have all good reason to read theology, church history, lives of the saints, devotional guides, Bunyan, always Bunyan. No one raises a protest when a Christian sits down with a serious tome (and, frankly, are tomes ever frivolous?).

It’s sometimes a different story when the question “Why read?” means “Why should we read poetry, or fiction, or drama, or screenplays?” Ask that question, and you may get, at best, a blank stare, and at worst a harangue on the dangers of imagination. The more orthodox your interlocutor, the more likely you’ll get the harangue rather than the stare.

Please read it all (here and here) and help me think through why we should not feel guilty reading fiction.

The Chestnut King

I just finished N. D. Wilson’s latest book, The Chestnut King. Wow. It was fantastic. The Chestnut King was the third and final installment in the 100 Cupboards series of children’s books; however, they are not your mother’s children’s books. There is magic, suspense, swords, good, evil, love, and baseball—all of which you would expect. But the evil is really evil, and the blood is spilt blood, and the hero—a twelve year old boy—does some of the spilling. Don’t let that stop you from reading. Instead, remember what C. S. Lewis said about that.

One of the things—in my world anyway—which signals that a story, whether book or movie, was good is how long it sticks with me after it is over. If I am still thinking about it two days after it is over, then it was good. I think this is going to be that kind of book. I had an emotional bond with Henry York Maccabee and his family. I feel a loss having finished the book. I want to know more. I don’t want it to be over.

Now, there are only a handful of people who read this blog, mostly because I put it in your RSS feed. So, you know what I mean when I say that you are all working too much and should take a little time out to read a good book, or three. If reading a children’s book sounds beneath you, then you also need to remember what C.S. Lewis said about that. Go out and read this series. Now.

To Experience That Meaning More Fully

“A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experience meaning, the purpose of making statements about the meaning of a story is only to help you to experience that meaning more fully.”

(Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners, p. 96)

HT: Nick Nowalk

An Alternative to the Flickering God

ND Wilson has become my kids’ favorite author. His latest book, The Chestnut King, moved into the top three books ever for Kenz and the top one for Kayleigh.

I began working my way through the first two in the trilogy—again—before I started this one in order to get my head on straight regarding Henry York and his fantastical story. Kenz begged me today to skip it and just read the third one. “You'll remember, Dad, just read it. I can't wait to talk about it.”

Twelve pages in and I am lost again in a fabulous world. My palms are damp and my hands are cold, which is what happens when I am gripped by this kind of story. Immediate familiarity. Immediate danger, suspense, and a constant desire to read the next line. Good and evil. And most importantly, heroes. I absolutely love stories like this.

ND Wilson posted on Credenda/Agenda about writing for kids, truth, and adultish readers, of whom I am definitely one. (You might remember what C.S. Lewis wrote here and here.) Here are some quotes from Wilson's article. It is worth reading if you enjoy stories like I do.

This first paragraph explains why Nathan writes kids’ books:

I write kids’ books because I can tell the Truth, and the Truth is that The Real is throbbingly fantastic. Ask the nearest grasshopper or rodent or turtle. Ask the nearest star (but show some respect and don’t look directly at her—she’s powerful enough to peal your nose and blind your eyes). I want to paint a picture of this world that is accurate (if impressionistic), and I don’t want a single young reader to grow up and look back on me as the peddler of sweet youthful falsehoods. I want them to get a world vision that can grow and mature and age with them until, like all exoskeletons, it must be cast aside—not as false, but as a shallow introduction to things even deeper and stranger and more wonderful (and involving more dragonflies).

This second paragraph is (partly) why I read them:

A final point, disjointed but related. Many readers of children’s books are, in fact, adults. The line at any bookstore signing can tell me this. I don’t think it’s difficult to understand. Sure, some of the adult readers focus on children’s books for the same reasons that others focus on romance—they’ve developed a particular itch and they scratch it. But others are wandering the store (pickily) looking for flavors they remember from when they were kids, looking for their young eyes again, hoping to once more see the world how they used to. They’re looking for Mom’s apple pie and Grandma’s quilt. They’re looking for a kind of truth that's hard to find up at the adult table, but a truth nonetheless. Often they’re looking for something to fill that role for their own children. And sadly, they frequently bring along a bipedal lump of flesh or two—numbed by the flickering god—hoping I might have some mental-imaginative defibrillator tucked away in my book bag. Sometimes I do (and those are good times). Sometimes I don’t.

(Final caveat: my kids are, by God's grace, not numbed by the “flickering god”; they can be found reading books on the couches any given day.)

I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?

"Yes, that's so," said Sam. "And we shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and song, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on—and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same—like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?"

—J. R. R. Tolkein, The Two Towers, p. 320

We don't see life as a story with any kind of arc

Christianity is no longer about changing the world. Christianity is no longer about facing the darkness and walking into shadow with souls full of light. We don't see evil as a thing to be conquered, we don't see life as a story with any kind of arc. We don't want our God to be the God of falcons and mole rats and skunk justice.

—N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, p. 152

It is the voicings of God

I see craft in the world. I cannot watch dust swirl on the sidewalk without seeing God drag His finger, or listen to spring rain running in the streets without hearing Him roll his Rs. For those who believe in an ex nihilo creation, the world is inevitably art, and it is inevitably art from top to bottom, in every time and in every place. The world cannot exist apart from the voice of God. It is the voicings of God.

—N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, p. 98

The best of all possible audiences

Every soul waits in the wings. Every life taken in age, tired and ready, taken in youth, in shock and sorrow, taken in pain or taken in peace, every needle now hidden in shadow waits in eager silence. I see my cousin. My nephew. Many faces, forgotten by those who followed behind, known always by the Author who needs no stone reminders. He is the best of all possible audiences, the only Audience to see every scene, the Author who became a Character and heaped every shadow on Himself.

—N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, p. 88

The Commanches then rushed on Jedediah

Our recent drive to Washington passed through Montana. We talked a lot about what it might have been like to be the first people to walk through that area. Who found the passes through the mountains? What was life like? What did the land look like without fences and farms and McDonalds?

At a rest stop in Montana we read a monument to a man named Jedediah Smith. Wikipedia describes how he died:

According to Dale L. Morgan, Jedediah Smith's biographer, Jedediah was looking for water for the 1831 expedition when he came upon an estimated 15-20 Commanches. There was a brief face to face stand off until the Commanches scared his horse and shot him in the left shoulder. After gasping from the injury, Jedediah wielded his horse around and with one rifle shot was able to kill their chief. The Commanches then rushed on Jedediah, who did not have time to use his pistols, and stabbed him to death with lances. Austin Smith, Jedediah's brother, was able to retreive Jedediah's rifle and pistols that the Indians had taken and traded to the Spanish.

This man, who likely died fighting Commanches in a box canyon somewhere off the Santa Fe Trail, blazed trails through Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and California. He trapped fur and opened up much of the west to those who followed during the Gold Rush. He was only 32 when he died. He likely located passes through the Rockies that 18-wheelers drive today with regularity.

My soul is moved by the courage and bravery and hardiness of men like Smith. Maybe that's why I read everything Louis L'Amour wrote when I was in high school. (Don't fault my love of heroes by the quality of literature, even though I would still read L'Amour at the drop of a hat.)

The Greatest Story

I grew up escaping life into fiction. I went through a comic book phase, but mostly I read plain old escapist fiction. Starting in 3rd grade I read Narnia over and over. I read all that Jim Kjelgaard wrote in 5th and 6th grade, and The Three Investigators series in 7th and 8th grade. I read everything Louis L'Amour wrote in 9th grade, and then moved into science fiction and fantasy through 10th and 11th grade. The standout during those years were The Amber Chronicles; 1,200 pages of pure bliss (well, at least the first 600, the last half weren't quite as good). I read The Bourne Identity in my senior year, and then moved on to everything Tom Clancy. I was voracious.

My French teacher in High School was exasperated with me for reading escapist fiction rather than good literature. I was okay with that at the time, though now I am trying to catch up and read the good stuff.

I also loved movies. But not any movies, big action flicks where the hero was really good and he saved the girl in the end. My favorite all-time movie is Raiders of the Lost Ark. I have seen most every block-buster since Indianna Jones hit the big screen in 1980 (with the proud exceptions of Dances with Wolves, Forrest Gump, and Titanic).

So? I love stories. I am drawn to stories. I am addicted to stories. Why? That is a good question. I have been thinking about why I in particular, and humans in general, like stories so much. That is why there have been so many posts on literature and story lately.

Yesterday I quoted Andrew Peterson. Here is another quote that I think speaks to what I am talking about:

As I said, I grew up in the church. I went to Sunday school, VBS, church camp, Wednesday night Bible study—the whole shebang. But it wasn’t until my freshman year of Bible college, in an Old Testament survey class, that the light bulb finally went on. It was the first time I realized the Bible is telling one big story, and that story is the one God is telling with history. My love of fiction, of film, even of comic books began to make sense through that lens. What I had always loved about those stories was the Story, seen in glimpses, felt with goosebumps and lumps in the throat that I couldn’t explain. G.K. Chesterton said no man ever entered a brothel who wasn’t looking for God. Well, no one ever walked into a movie theater or read a novel who wasn’t hungry for the Gospel.

I, too, love the greatest story the most.

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

That’s hard to do with a dead imagination.

Andrew Peterson:

I remember feeling something when I was a kid. It’s this tickle behind your bellybutton, a sense that you’re brushing up against something magical. I had it all the time when I played with my G.I. Joe toys, when I read Voyage of the Dawn Treader, whenever I drew the first line of a new picture in my sketchbook, when I traipsed through the woods and came upon a rabbit or a snake in the grass. It’s the feeling that you’re being watched, the sudden, awful realization that you’re not alone. I get the feeling sometimes when I’m at Disney with my children, and when I’m at a wedding and we stand as the bride walks the aisle. Sometimes I feel it during communion. That feeling comes less and less the older you get, if you’re not careful to keep it alive. The world is full of surprises. It’s both scarier and more wonderful than you think. All these things prepare the heart for the jarring truth that there is an invisible Other, and He’s watching you. “Believe,” Jesus said, again and again, and that’s hard to do with a dead imagination.

Quoted from his interview on JT's blog.