This is a very painful thing to write. When I was young, I lived in the world of books. The world around me had difficulties into which I shall not go, but it was made up for by the great assortment of friends I met in books. I read a great deal. I loved to read, and some of the books I read had a tremendous influence upon my life.
Sorry to hit you with all the comments at once, but I've been at work all day and ideas kept hitting me.
I thought of another observation Dave "The Distributist" Green made in his vid "The Kid who Reads": he was praised by his left-wing teachers and librarians for reading books they approved of...then he read Atlas Shrugged.
Suddenly the same teachers who were praising him for reading Watership Down thought he was stupid for reading a THOUSAND PAGE book that refers to Aristotle?
Ayn Rand certainly had her issues, and he didn't end up believing her philosophy, but at the same time he couldn't help but notice Atlas Shrugged brought up questions these supposedly open-minded seekers of knowledge didn't have ready answers for, and didn't even want to consider.
It started him on the road to thinking something wasn't right, and maybe he wasn't as smart and his range of reading wasn't so complete as he'd thought.
I haven't seen that video but someone did mention it to me when I first brought up this topic, so was in the back of my mind when I read this post.
I didn't have that experience. Back when I was young, the liberals were a lot more sincere ,and they really did want you to read almost anything.
But, yeah, it's become a kind of self-referencing experience.
I remember when I realized that all the books they had us read in school were just the books that had been popular when they started the public school system. They didn't have any more merit than the ones that came before or after.
This reminds me of the naive faith in the power of "education" that was ubiquitous as recently as a century ago. In retrospect people should have been paying more attention to what was actually being taught.
Chesterton was one of the first people to notice this problem and point out the impossibility of a "value-free" education.
I suspect it might be a vicious cycle: people don't read because books that appeal to them aren't being printed, and look at some of the people who DO read!
Particularly look at BookTube and how the YA market has been taken over by the worst of the worst.
Better yet, don't look.
So since these are the only types of people who read, more books that appeal to them get produced.
I'm reminded of Screwtape's toast: Since no matter what I do, I'll be thought by the neighbors to be a witch or a communist agent, might as well be hung for a sheep as lamb and become one. So we get an intelligentsia that's small, but devoted to the cause of the enemy.
And yet, those of us who are still telling real stories find over and over that people compliment us on, "oh I haven't read anything I enjoyed so much in years."
If we can only make it clear to them that there's a whole group of us, we might have a lot of people reading again.
“I prefer even the prejudices of those who live life from the inside to the theories of those who look at it from the outside” - GK Chesterton.
Which, of course, I only know about because I like to read.
The balance I’ve always wanted to strike is the one portrayed in “Swallows and Amazons”. Obviously those kids have read plenty of books, but it doesn’t (to put it mildly) stop them from doing other things. And they don’t need to be “Secret Kings”, or if they do, then they are all in it together.
Plus it’s not reading vs “living life”. When I was a kid it was reading vs watching an average of seven hours of vapid TV shows. Now it’s more likely to…be…burying your head in social media……….
Very true about watching...whether watching falls into the same category as writing--for the purposes of this one issue--I don't know. I guess it would depend on which shows you watch. Not all shows use alienation to gain sympathy.
But I know from my sons that they treat videos much as we treated books--as far as their relationship to stories and such.
I think, really, all that may be needed is just to warn children of the spiritual trap of thinking of themselves as "secret kings." If one is aware of such a thing, one is much more likely to be able to enjoy the books without being as taken in as I was.
(My own character is extremely guilty of this very kind of spiritual sin. Some of which is not at all her fault, and some of which is. Maybe she will discover this before the end of her journey.)
I guess I meant I wasn’t tempted to think “I’m better than those people who work, play, and socialize all day” but “I’m better than those people who watch Beverly Hills 90210 et al for 5 hours a day” (dating myself).
" in which there was an old lady who had the cheerful attitude and open mind that children have and often lose—the kind that allows them to never stop learning"
"Know all the questions but not the answers
Look for the Different instead of the Same
Never walk where there's room for running
And don't do anything that can't be a game."
It's the Changeling. And it was a good pledge.
"In retrospect, it’s kind of odd to believe people who are out living their lives experienced less of life than someone who was just reading about living."
I am thinking of how American stories changed from not having any reference to Christ in them around the 1890s or so, to not having any God in them (unless it was one of the heathen gods, and then falsely portrayed) around the 1960s or so, to now where anything to do with Christianity is clearly marked out as the enemy of the Secret Kings.
I think back to those stories during the time when Christendom changed, and recall how Sara Crew understood the relative value of book-reading, or how Mary needed a young man like Colin and a robin and a gardener to escape her Secret Kingdom of self-regard.
I need to think about this some more, because I am re-reading the Screwtape Letters again (and the Old Tempter says their most useful trick is keeping things out - "what I was not thinking was...". A very useful post, this.
Yes! It wasThe Changeling. I almost mentioned that.
And you bring up a very good point about the progression of the removal of God. That might be worthy of an article in and of itself.
Was trying to remember whether earlier books had as much of this type of thinking I was talking about as later ones. I'm not sure. Also might be worth investigating.
I knew exactly what book that was too! I don't know how many times I read "The Changeling," it was one of my favorites. I also admired the artist lady. I was always sad that Ivy didn't come back, but as an adult I think that was the best way for that story to end. Martha had to figure out her life, and (it's implied) Ivy did too.
"In “Time Enough at Last,” the Burgess’ character seems to be punished for his devotion to reading, while in “Obsolete Man,” the protagonist is virtually sainted for the same reason."
While we're sympathetic to Burgess' character in "Time Enough at Last," particularly considering the downright relish other characters take in destroying his books or hearing about his inability to find time to read, on rewatching you can't help but realize he doesn't seem to care WHAT he reads - books, newspapers, even voter's badges - there's no discernment at all. And for all the great stories he's read, he hasn't seemed to have gotten anything out of them.
Contrast that to the character in The Obsolete Man, who very clearly gained something from all his reading and was able to die more courageously than such a small man would be expected.
I'm reminded of another who claimed he was reading Tolkien at young age, but was consuming modern stuff like the Rings of Power with the same fervor just because it's new and out there. He was simply - if you'll excuse the reference to vulgarity - a consoomer.
Another YouTuber observed it was almost impressive the man had read Tolkien's books without absorbing any of the virtues in them.
I do wonder though if some people watch Rings of Power out of a hope and nostalgia. Not because of what's in them but because of what they wish was in them.
Sometimes you are so happy to see your old literary friends that takes you a little while to realize how empty they are.
I remember that was some of the Star Wars movies.
Both Phantomenace and The Foece a
Awakens I watched with great joy, only seeing their limitations later.
I wonder how many of those who watch Rings of Power will wake up, a month or year, or a decade later, and see their emptiness.
I don't think so in this case. I'd rather not name names, but looking at the YouTuber in question's life in general it's clear he hadn't learned anything from the stories he read, watched and played and wanted to live in.
You can gain a lot from reading, but maybe you should ask yourself what you AREN'T getting that the jocks are.
A recovering leftist nerd on YouTube observed once that the jocks had two great advantages over the nerds who continually sought out imaginary achievements and experiences, whether in books, games or other stories.
The jocks had the ability to be present in the moment, and they knew how to lose.
The existance of Tim Tebow was a huge eye opener for me.
I slowly began to realize that anything can be done for the glory of God. Even sports.
It's funny how we learn to be tolerant for those things that we're told people object to, but we don't even notice the things we're actually intolerant against.
There were and are a lot of contests for “nerds” where you learn some of the same things.
Plus, contrary to 80’s stereotypes, I never really thought of my adversaries as “the jocks”. For better or for worse the athletes simply weren’t that crowd. I called them “the popular people” or “the in crowd”. Only much later did I grasp that they were, in fact, the rich.
May 2·edited May 2Liked by L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright
My original D&D crew, fellow readers and academic peers were all jocks. My father, who ended up becoming a nuclear engineer was a popular Q-B in high school, and not rich.
I submit that the 80s stereotypes were less than generally relevant to reality, and more relevant to a small subset of rhetorically clever, envious, and resentful storytellers.
The problem I have is what to say about the absolutely routine scenario (well, it was routine in the 80’s) where a bunch of kids surround another one and berate him about his fashion faux pas, such as insufficiently tight bellbottoms.
I promise you whether I’m the target or a bystander I’m thinking “could you people care about anything dumber or less significant?” If that’s being a “secret king” then what ARE you supposed to think?
Lol You are entirely right. I don't think there's anything wrong with dismissing that kind of behavior. Or even thinking we are thinking about more important things.
But the next step, which is to look down on or despise these kids...maybe there's a more Christian response?
May 3·edited May 3Liked by L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright
If you are referring to the movies & TV shows, it is bad storytelling.
In real life, teenagers in the public school settings are constantly needling and pushing each other for dominance positions at the 2nd from top and all the way to absolute bottom.
Clothing, hairstyles are obvious and easy, and the ones doing the berating are unsophisticated and immature by definition.
Get them in a group where more is known and (just one recent example) it will be about cars.
The question that pops up is why then aren't groups for book-choice berating on offer. And maybe never were?
(The poor soul getting teased for reading anything is either like the chick with the red spot or the Becky a callow Tom Sawyer is pestering. The book is merely a handy opportunity)
Ironically I'm putting the final touches on an article that hits this same issue from the other direction, but in answer to your final rhetorical question, I can venture the following:
The things which make us need to hide in books are those things which make life not work. That they cannot provide the entire healthy solution/diet is not a reason to discount their life-giving and life-saving properties. The access they provide to sense-making space gets people like you were, and like I was, through difficulties that can not easily be gotten through without massive self-destruction. Sometimes, life is just so difficult as to not afford a *good* solution--we must settle for *good enough.*
I am less convinced, even though everything you said in the article was completely cogent.
Nonetheless, I don't worry much about being "on guard" with fiction, for this perhaps-unusual reason:
While we all remember those books that catalyzed us (for good or ill) at the right moments, the great value in books is not in their content per se, but in the delivery mechanism. Just as standing up and crawling are training the equilibrium and muscles of a child to walk, so too the practice of dreaming a story from words on a page is fundamentally a training program for spiritual reasoning (I have no other word for it, though I am absolutely not a believer). The practice of walking in the dreamscape shows us how to navigate the world, reason analogically, and how to understand--not because of the content, message, morals, or modeling involved in any of the stories we read, but because of the integrity of the stories themselves.
Bad ideas can be got from anywhere.
Practice in sensemaking-through-dreaming comes only by narrative.
And yet, if we discovered, while crawling or walking (barefoot) that a certain patch of ground was covered with broken shards of glass, we would be wise to warn each other to look out for it, even as we praised exercise in general.
As someone else suggested, it might be a great topic for a podcast or a Con panel....the good and bad sides of reading and stories. (Or even Is There a Bad Side to Reading and Stories? ;-)
Perhaps this is something that you were prone to and that's why you were drawn to those characters and interpretations. When I think of Harry Potter the parts of the "chosen boy" story that stand out to me are that he needed his friends and connections with adults (including his dead parents) to withstand his privations, and it was unknown (to him) Christian principles that saved him. The person who nursed his differences and thought he was superior was Snape, and the disaster of how that turned out led to his life-long secret repentance. Bookish Sarah Crewe was one of my childhood favorites, but she didn't think she was better than everyone else (though she WAS, ha ha). That said... the "huffy reader who is superior to everyone" seems to be a MUCH bigger trope, and a much more arrogant one, now than when we were young, so this is probably a great thing for parents of young readers to keep in mind!!!
Not that these books should not be read, but that we might let readers gently know to be aware of the spiritual trap.
I cannot think of any character who is more caught up in the alienation of her situation than Rachel Griffin...I wonder if, by the end of her journey, maybe Rachel can come to realize that while some of her alienation was entirely not her fault ("tell anyone and the world falls apart" can be hard on a child) perhaps some of it was, and she can figure out how to see things in a less alienated fashion. :-)
I understand where you're coming from, but offer a different angle. While I always longed for the adventures I'd find in books where one could actually Face an enemy and maybe even overcome it, I never looked at the characters as some Secret Kings. Many of the books I read when I was young, and the ones I still read, are those that show people Dealing with their problems on whatever level that may be, warts and all, often supported by faith in one larger than themselves, even in a SciFi/Fantasy setting. In my own worlds, my characters have some serious challenges, but they aren't alone. They aren't the only ones in the struggle and in the end there Is a higher power they call on.
A good book, at least to me, shows the characters overcoming - their past, their doubts and fears, the outside things that may threaten, with both courage and grace.
I don't think it's at all bad that children get a glimpse of someone overcoming trials. I read a book, in fact, bought it for my grandson, but didn't give it to him, because instead of showing the child figuring out the solution and that it Had been an inspiration in answer to prayer, the author ruined it by having the Parents explain that. It would have been a hundred times better if the child had come to this conclusion on his own. Children can - and should!
We each read different books. The ones I read as a child reinforced this idea of a reading elite, but.they also inspired many good ideas as well. Other books did not cover such issues.
My own character is definitely in the alone and alienates category. Some.of it is not her fault in the slightest.
But other things...well, maube by the end she will discover that she need not have been quite so alone. :-)
I disagree on this point - we ARE secret kings. Are we reborn of God's lineage and DNA or are we not? Is there something wrong with realizing we ARE set apart and will always experience the world (and books) differently than those who are not? Me being a secret king in my own battles does not keep YOU from being a secret king in your stories.
I guess I can’t see wishing this about Anne: “Maybe if I were less caught up in something she doesn’t care about—like my ow imagination—I could be more friendly to her. “
That seems like a bridge too far. I can’t wish that Anne’s imagination was less important to her.
In the 70’s kids apparently cared deeply about bellbottoms. I can see “I should be more charitable and not assume this other kid only cares about bellbottoms”; I can’t see “I should stop being a secret king and realize that bellbottoms matter and Thorin Oakenshield doesn’t.” I have to get off the bus before that point.
It wouldn't let me go back and correct anything... Even before I hit send. It just if I go beyond a certain point my phone won't let me see what I wrote.
Sorry to hit you with all the comments at once, but I've been at work all day and ideas kept hitting me.
I thought of another observation Dave "The Distributist" Green made in his vid "The Kid who Reads": he was praised by his left-wing teachers and librarians for reading books they approved of...then he read Atlas Shrugged.
Suddenly the same teachers who were praising him for reading Watership Down thought he was stupid for reading a THOUSAND PAGE book that refers to Aristotle?
Ayn Rand certainly had her issues, and he didn't end up believing her philosophy, but at the same time he couldn't help but notice Atlas Shrugged brought up questions these supposedly open-minded seekers of knowledge didn't have ready answers for, and didn't even want to consider.
It started him on the road to thinking something wasn't right, and maybe he wasn't as smart and his range of reading wasn't so complete as he'd thought.
I haven't seen that video but someone did mention it to me when I first brought up this topic, so was in the back of my mind when I read this post.
I didn't have that experience. Back when I was young, the liberals were a lot more sincere ,and they really did want you to read almost anything.
But, yeah, it's become a kind of self-referencing experience.
I remember when I realized that all the books they had us read in school were just the books that had been popular when they started the public school system. They didn't have any more merit than the ones that came before or after.
This reminds me of the naive faith in the power of "education" that was ubiquitous as recently as a century ago. In retrospect people should have been paying more attention to what was actually being taught.
Chesterton was one of the first people to notice this problem and point out the impossibility of a "value-free" education.
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/02/gk-chesterton-meaning-education-joseph-pearce.html
I suspect it might be a vicious cycle: people don't read because books that appeal to them aren't being printed, and look at some of the people who DO read!
Particularly look at BookTube and how the YA market has been taken over by the worst of the worst.
Better yet, don't look.
So since these are the only types of people who read, more books that appeal to them get produced.
I'm reminded of Screwtape's toast: Since no matter what I do, I'll be thought by the neighbors to be a witch or a communist agent, might as well be hung for a sheep as lamb and become one. So we get an intelligentsia that's small, but devoted to the cause of the enemy.
And yet, those of us who are still telling real stories find over and over that people compliment us on, "oh I haven't read anything I enjoyed so much in years."
If we can only make it clear to them that there's a whole group of us, we might have a lot of people reading again.
“I prefer even the prejudices of those who live life from the inside to the theories of those who look at it from the outside” - GK Chesterton.
Which, of course, I only know about because I like to read.
The balance I’ve always wanted to strike is the one portrayed in “Swallows and Amazons”. Obviously those kids have read plenty of books, but it doesn’t (to put it mildly) stop them from doing other things. And they don’t need to be “Secret Kings”, or if they do, then they are all in it together.
Plus it’s not reading vs “living life”. When I was a kid it was reading vs watching an average of seven hours of vapid TV shows. Now it’s more likely to…be…burying your head in social media……….
Oh…right…
Very true about watching...whether watching falls into the same category as writing--for the purposes of this one issue--I don't know. I guess it would depend on which shows you watch. Not all shows use alienation to gain sympathy.
But I know from my sons that they treat videos much as we treated books--as far as their relationship to stories and such.
I think, really, all that may be needed is just to warn children of the spiritual trap of thinking of themselves as "secret kings." If one is aware of such a thing, one is much more likely to be able to enjoy the books without being as taken in as I was.
(My own character is extremely guilty of this very kind of spiritual sin. Some of which is not at all her fault, and some of which is. Maybe she will discover this before the end of her journey.)
I guess I meant I wasn’t tempted to think “I’m better than those people who work, play, and socialize all day” but “I’m better than those people who watch Beverly Hills 90210 et al for 5 hours a day” (dating myself).
Lol
Understood. I think I fell for that one, too.
" in which there was an old lady who had the cheerful attitude and open mind that children have and often lose—the kind that allows them to never stop learning"
"Know all the questions but not the answers
Look for the Different instead of the Same
Never walk where there's room for running
And don't do anything that can't be a game."
It's the Changeling. And it was a good pledge.
"In retrospect, it’s kind of odd to believe people who are out living their lives experienced less of life than someone who was just reading about living."
I am thinking of how American stories changed from not having any reference to Christ in them around the 1890s or so, to not having any God in them (unless it was one of the heathen gods, and then falsely portrayed) around the 1960s or so, to now where anything to do with Christianity is clearly marked out as the enemy of the Secret Kings.
I think back to those stories during the time when Christendom changed, and recall how Sara Crew understood the relative value of book-reading, or how Mary needed a young man like Colin and a robin and a gardener to escape her Secret Kingdom of self-regard.
I need to think about this some more, because I am re-reading the Screwtape Letters again (and the Old Tempter says their most useful trick is keeping things out - "what I was not thinking was...". A very useful post, this.
Yes! It wasThe Changeling. I almost mentioned that.
And you bring up a very good point about the progression of the removal of God. That might be worthy of an article in and of itself.
Was trying to remember whether earlier books had as much of this type of thinking I was talking about as later ones. I'm not sure. Also might be worth investigating.
I was trying to remember.... It wouldn't let me edit it.
I knew exactly what book that was too! I don't know how many times I read "The Changeling," it was one of my favorites. I also admired the artist lady. I was always sad that Ivy didn't come back, but as an adult I think that was the best way for that story to end. Martha had to figure out her life, and (it's implied) Ivy did too.
I loved that book so much.
What is funny is that I have read about older people like that in other books, too, but that one spelled it out in the best way.
And I think it is an example of where one might adopt a very good mind-set from a character.
Well that was painful to read. Like the meme says: I saw myself there, and I didn’t like it.
It was really painful to write.
Two episodes of the Twilight Zone come to mind, both starring Burgess Meredith as two different types of reader.
https://tvobsessive.com/2021/07/05/the-twilight-zone-burgess-meredith-and-the-paradox-of-reading/
"In “Time Enough at Last,” the Burgess’ character seems to be punished for his devotion to reading, while in “Obsolete Man,” the protagonist is virtually sainted for the same reason."
https://christandpopculture.com/a-tale-of-two-burgesses-on-reading-well-in-the-twilight-zone/
While we're sympathetic to Burgess' character in "Time Enough at Last," particularly considering the downright relish other characters take in destroying his books or hearing about his inability to find time to read, on rewatching you can't help but realize he doesn't seem to care WHAT he reads - books, newspapers, even voter's badges - there's no discernment at all. And for all the great stories he's read, he hasn't seemed to have gotten anything out of them.
Contrast that to the character in The Obsolete Man, who very clearly gained something from all his reading and was able to die more courageously than such a small man would be expected.
I'm reminded of another who claimed he was reading Tolkien at young age, but was consuming modern stuff like the Rings of Power with the same fervor just because it's new and out there. He was simply - if you'll excuse the reference to vulgarity - a consoomer.
Another YouTuber observed it was almost impressive the man had read Tolkien's books without absorbing any of the virtues in them.
I do wonder though if some people watch Rings of Power out of a hope and nostalgia. Not because of what's in them but because of what they wish was in them.
Sometimes you are so happy to see your old literary friends that takes you a little while to realize how empty they are.
I remember that was some of the Star Wars movies.
Both Phantomenace and The Foece a
Awakens I watched with great joy, only seeing their limitations later.
I wonder how many of those who watch Rings of Power will wake up, a month or year, or a decade later, and see their emptiness.
I don't think so in this case. I'd rather not name names, but looking at the YouTuber in question's life in general it's clear he hadn't learned anything from the stories he read, watched and played and wanted to live in.
I completely grant you there are such people.
I had the exact same experience with my college.
We were told the whole point of reading the Great Brooks was to learn to think.
So it was a shock to me when I watched so many old classmates fall for so many modern deceptions.
Like the person wondering why talking didn't make the man wiser, I didn't know why reading these things and discussing them hadn't made them wiser.
That was supposed to say:
Whey reading Tolkien didn't make rhem wiser.
It won't let me edit them properly if I make the comments too long.
You can gain a lot from reading, but maybe you should ask yourself what you AREN'T getting that the jocks are.
A recovering leftist nerd on YouTube observed once that the jocks had two great advantages over the nerds who continually sought out imaginary achievements and experiences, whether in books, games or other stories.
The jocks had the ability to be present in the moment, and they knew how to lose.
That is acery good point.
The existance of Tim Tebow was a huge eye opener for me.
I slowly began to realize that anything can be done for the glory of God. Even sports.
It's funny how we learn to be tolerant for those things that we're told people object to, but we don't even notice the things we're actually intolerant against.
There were and are a lot of contests for “nerds” where you learn some of the same things.
Plus, contrary to 80’s stereotypes, I never really thought of my adversaries as “the jocks”. For better or for worse the athletes simply weren’t that crowd. I called them “the popular people” or “the in crowd”. Only much later did I grasp that they were, in fact, the rich.
My original D&D crew, fellow readers and academic peers were all jocks. My father, who ended up becoming a nuclear engineer was a popular Q-B in high school, and not rich.
I submit that the 80s stereotypes were less than generally relevant to reality, and more relevant to a small subset of rhetorically clever, envious, and resentful storytellers.
Agreed that “jock” isn’t really the issue.
The problem I have is what to say about the absolutely routine scenario (well, it was routine in the 80’s) where a bunch of kids surround another one and berate him about his fashion faux pas, such as insufficiently tight bellbottoms.
I promise you whether I’m the target or a bystander I’m thinking “could you people care about anything dumber or less significant?” If that’s being a “secret king” then what ARE you supposed to think?
I am in complete agreement with you there!
Lol You are entirely right. I don't think there's anything wrong with dismissing that kind of behavior. Or even thinking we are thinking about more important things.
But the next step, which is to look down on or despise these kids...maybe there's a more Christian response?
If you are referring to the movies & TV shows, it is bad storytelling.
In real life, teenagers in the public school settings are constantly needling and pushing each other for dominance positions at the 2nd from top and all the way to absolute bottom.
Clothing, hairstyles are obvious and easy, and the ones doing the berating are unsophisticated and immature by definition.
Get them in a group where more is known and (just one recent example) it will be about cars.
The question that pops up is why then aren't groups for book-choice berating on offer. And maybe never were?
(The poor soul getting teased for reading anything is either like the chick with the red spot or the Becky a callow Tom Sawyer is pestering. The book is merely a handy opportunity)
Right. Exactly.
Eg I played chess all through high school. Talk about being in the moment and learning to lose.
Lol
Ironically I'm putting the final touches on an article that hits this same issue from the other direction, but in answer to your final rhetorical question, I can venture the following:
The things which make us need to hide in books are those things which make life not work. That they cannot provide the entire healthy solution/diet is not a reason to discount their life-giving and life-saving properties. The access they provide to sense-making space gets people like you were, and like I was, through difficulties that can not easily be gotten through without massive self-destruction. Sometimes, life is just so difficult as to not afford a *good* solution--we must settle for *good enough.*
Submitted FWIW.
Hear, hear.
And I really think there is great good to be gotten from books...I just think we need to be a little more on our guard.
I am less convinced, even though everything you said in the article was completely cogent.
Nonetheless, I don't worry much about being "on guard" with fiction, for this perhaps-unusual reason:
While we all remember those books that catalyzed us (for good or ill) at the right moments, the great value in books is not in their content per se, but in the delivery mechanism. Just as standing up and crawling are training the equilibrium and muscles of a child to walk, so too the practice of dreaming a story from words on a page is fundamentally a training program for spiritual reasoning (I have no other word for it, though I am absolutely not a believer). The practice of walking in the dreamscape shows us how to navigate the world, reason analogically, and how to understand--not because of the content, message, morals, or modeling involved in any of the stories we read, but because of the integrity of the stories themselves.
Bad ideas can be got from anywhere.
Practice in sensemaking-through-dreaming comes only by narrative.
And yet, if we discovered, while crawling or walking (barefoot) that a certain patch of ground was covered with broken shards of glass, we would be wise to warn each other to look out for it, even as we praised exercise in general.
Which is about how I feel about it. ;-)
Fair enough. Sounds like fertile grounds for a friendly argument if we ever wind up at the same con again :-)
As someone else suggested, it might be a great topic for a podcast or a Con panel....the good and bad sides of reading and stories. (Or even Is There a Bad Side to Reading and Stories? ;-)
That does sound like fun!
Perhaps this is something that you were prone to and that's why you were drawn to those characters and interpretations. When I think of Harry Potter the parts of the "chosen boy" story that stand out to me are that he needed his friends and connections with adults (including his dead parents) to withstand his privations, and it was unknown (to him) Christian principles that saved him. The person who nursed his differences and thought he was superior was Snape, and the disaster of how that turned out led to his life-long secret repentance. Bookish Sarah Crewe was one of my childhood favorites, but she didn't think she was better than everyone else (though she WAS, ha ha). That said... the "huffy reader who is superior to everyone" seems to be a MUCH bigger trope, and a much more arrogant one, now than when we were young, so this is probably a great thing for parents of young readers to keep in mind!!!
I think your last line is the key.
Not that these books should not be read, but that we might let readers gently know to be aware of the spiritual trap.
I cannot think of any character who is more caught up in the alienation of her situation than Rachel Griffin...I wonder if, by the end of her journey, maybe Rachel can come to realize that while some of her alienation was entirely not her fault ("tell anyone and the world falls apart" can be hard on a child) perhaps some of it was, and she can figure out how to see things in a less alienated fashion. :-)
I understand where you're coming from, but offer a different angle. While I always longed for the adventures I'd find in books where one could actually Face an enemy and maybe even overcome it, I never looked at the characters as some Secret Kings. Many of the books I read when I was young, and the ones I still read, are those that show people Dealing with their problems on whatever level that may be, warts and all, often supported by faith in one larger than themselves, even in a SciFi/Fantasy setting. In my own worlds, my characters have some serious challenges, but they aren't alone. They aren't the only ones in the struggle and in the end there Is a higher power they call on.
A good book, at least to me, shows the characters overcoming - their past, their doubts and fears, the outside things that may threaten, with both courage and grace.
I don't think it's at all bad that children get a glimpse of someone overcoming trials. I read a book, in fact, bought it for my grandson, but didn't give it to him, because instead of showing the child figuring out the solution and that it Had been an inspiration in answer to prayer, the author ruined it by having the Parents explain that. It would have been a hundred times better if the child had come to this conclusion on his own. Children can - and should!
We each read different books. The ones I read as a child reinforced this idea of a reading elite, but.they also inspired many good ideas as well. Other books did not cover such issues.
My own character is definitely in the alone and alienates category. Some.of it is not her fault in the slightest.
But other things...well, maube by the end she will discover that she need not have been quite so alone. :-)
I disagree on this point - we ARE secret kings. Are we reborn of God's lineage and DNA or are we not? Is there something wrong with realizing we ARE set apart and will always experience the world (and books) differently than those who are not? Me being a secret king in my own battles does not keep YOU from being a secret king in your stories.
If you make the argument that we are all secret kings hidden from the eyes of the world, I agree completely.
It's just the "I'm a secret king, but he's not" mentality that I think we need to be wary of.
Awesome, spot on.
Well, I thought for a while about this and basically what it leaves me wondering is: where does that leave Anne of Green Gables?
Does she perhaps start in such a state but come out of it?
It's not like being that way is bad. It is part of many people's experience. It's just that we the reader don't need to be in such a state. :-)
I guess I can’t see wishing this about Anne: “Maybe if I were less caught up in something she doesn’t care about—like my ow imagination—I could be more friendly to her. “
That seems like a bridge too far. I can’t wish that Anne’s imagination was less important to her.
In the 70’s kids apparently cared deeply about bellbottoms. I can see “I should be more charitable and not assume this other kid only cares about bellbottoms”; I can’t see “I should stop being a secret king and realize that bellbottoms matter and Thorin Oakenshield doesn’t.” I have to get off the bus before that point.
I think it's more I could have stopped feeling sorry for myself and cared about things some of the others cared about.
I don't think you can care about what everyone cares about. Bell bottoms is probably beyond me.
But one of the girls my parents used to bring me to play with played the violin. I could have been a little more interested in that.
No real disagreement. I was possibly too contrary. Made me think a lot. I probably don’t have to tell you that CS Lewis talks a lot
along these lines in Surprised By Joy.
I did have to admit, even while writing, that Anne did really want that puffed sleeve dress.
Strangely, one of the things I picked up from books was a dislike of jewerly and dresses.
Now, I wonder if that is a kind of prejudice and unfair to all the women who like dresses the way men like sports.
Maybe I was too harsh.
Bell bottoms.
It wouldn't let me go back and correct anything... Even before I hit send. It just if I go beyond a certain point my phone won't let me see what I wrote.