Why Books Are Good

[alanajoli]

frost_light mentioned the other day that not all books are everyone's cup of tea. Taste is, in all things, subjective, so it's impossible to come up with that universal formula that everyone will appreciate. That got me thinking about why I like the books I like, so I thought I'd muse about it here.

I'll start with something that I don't actively look for, but am always wonderfully pleased to find. I love finding a novel that looks into issues of faith and spirituality without a) marketing itself as a faith-based book, b) making the analogies so obvious that the story hinges on them, and c) makes faith complicated. C. S. Lewis, while I enjoy his fiction, loses out on point B very dramatically. I know going in that I'm going to get smacked about the head, and that's fine.

Charles Williams, on the other hand, of whom Lewis was a great admirer, couches his discussions of faith just a bit. It's still quite obvious, and sometimes not as complicated as I'd like (conversion seems a feat of logic for many of his characters--they simply decide to have faith, and then they do). But Williams applies ideas of spirituality and his understanding of Christianity to things like tarot cards, artifacts like the philosopher's stone, and etc. These mystery/adventure novels are what I was hoping to get out of the Da Vinci Code when it came so highly recommended; I've found that I prefer Williams.

Really, though, I love the authors who sneak up on you with the discussion of faith, making it a vital part of a character study, but not whacking their readers with symbolism and propaganda. In the Claws of the Tiger by James Wyatt and Flight of the Dying Sun by Rich Wulf, both shared-world novels published by Wizards of the Coast, use fantasy religions to delve into real issues. What is it like to find your faith, or recover from its loss? How far can you push the boundaries of your religious code and still believe? People uninterested in the faith angle might gloss over these ideas completely, or dismiss them as not related to real life. But I, astonished to find these issues dealt with so smoothly in a genre most people don't consider "serious," was tickled at the depth I found and the resonance I experienced.

Faith comes up in Stephenie Meyer's novels as well (something I discussed with caitrin yesterday), in part as a reflection of Meyer's own moral beliefs, and in part because, when dealing with Vampires, suddenly, the soul becomes an interesting topic of conversation. She doesn't dig very deeply (at least in the first two books; she has plenty of time), but the surface that she scratches is one that compares faith and hope, giving them a nice parallel that leaves room to explore faith from that angle.

Comments

[dmoonfire.livejournal.com]

*grin* I'm another one who never got it. I never even picked up a hint of the religious overtones when I read the series from cover to cover as a child. Heck, I didn't even get it when I did it every couple of years. It wasn't until my mate told me about it that I went "really!?"

I do agree with the pushing the religion. I notice a lot of the Wiccan references in books, some of them basically hit you over the head with a 2x4 while others are much more subtle. I like the subtle ones so much more than the 2x4. "Witches good, Christians bad!" is one of those themes I'm really, really not fond of.