Song of Songs 2:1, 2

"Blood red rose:
What a mysterious display
Of beauty and pain,
Of blood spilt glory,
Of sin split blades
That spiked the rose of heaven
To wooden bark of death.
And the red rose bled,
And there was beauty in pain.

"Light white lily:
What a beautiful display
Of desolation and glory.
Beauty in the pits of the world;
Glory in the midst of thorns
That cannot pluck it asunder
From the ashes of wooden death.
And the red rose to white
And all whithering to life."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2008

A Comment to Madam Firefly

In regards to American usefulness:

The problem with America today is that in trying to be productive, we have become absolutely useless. I say "absolutely" because in an immediate sense we are not useless; but ultimately, we are. We will not outlive our rate of production; once we stop delivering the goods, we become a liability on the world's radar. Poetry, literature, wrestlings with the infinite, things that can perpetuate a nation, people, and civilization beyond its own finite existence are generally wasted in America. We have no time for them, as they are not immediately useful. Perhaps America will fulfill T.S. Elliot's prophecy of the "Hollow Men": we end, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

On Good and Bad Literature: An Introduction

It should be the goal of every writer (especially a Christian writer) to be able to distinguish good literature from bad literature; it can help tremendously in your quest to become a good writer. Of course, exactly what constitutes good literature and how its constitution contrasts with bad literature often requires much studies; it has taken me four years of undergrad literature work just to scratch the surface of the issue, and I'm sure my graduate work will take me deeper still. Therefore, any findings I have are, at best, ultimately lacking in the end. However, regardless of how little I know, I think it still beneficial (for me as well as you) to write them down and give some concretion to my thoughts. I hereby propose to argue for at least one finding of mine: bad literature is more often than not an imitation of good literature. For this argument, I offer four proofs (a nowhere near exhaustive list, I assure you).
First of all, good literature is tradition bound, while bad literature is merely genre bound. By "tradition bound," I mean literature that has its roots firmly entrenched in a tradition of writing that gives it focus and structure beyond mere formality. By "genre bound," I mean literature that has the form of a tradition, and no more. For example: in a book bound to the tradition of science fiction and a book bound to the genre of science fiction, your will find them both utilizing similar forms: future settings (post-apocalyptic, alien, utopic, dystopic, etc.) and future elements (robots, spaceships, lasers, aliens, etc.). The similarities, however, end there; for you see, in the genre bound book, these elements are mere plot devices, i.e., things that move along the succession of events. To the tradition bound book, however, these elements are more than plot devices; they are carriers of the theme(s) of that tradition.
An example is needed: in the tradition of science fiction, the questions have often been asked and explored of whether or not man has the means to save himself and what are those means; to the genre of science fiction, however, such questions are irrelevant. Therefore, a genre bound science fiction book will have a war between humans and a race of aliens that use robots as weapons, and no more; but a tradition bound book will go further. For example, it may have the aliens telling humanity that its robot army was invented to destroy all weaponry, and thus the aliens found peace; they now demand that we surrender ourselves to this same peace. Now we are stuck with larger issues than merely winning a war: what is peace? is it the absence of conflict? the absence of weapons? is the absence of anything? have the aliens really done away with weaponry (for are not the robots their weapons now)? which aliens control the robots? do not they have the power now? have the aliens created universal peace or a new form of tyranny? To the tradition bound science fiction book, these questions are paramount; to the genre bound book, however, they are superfluous, and merely distract from the plot. Thus is the case with all traditions and genres; the former treats its tradition as fundamental, and the latter as superficial, which leads me to my second proof.
Good literature is thematic, while bad literature is merely formal. By "thematic," I mean driven by a theme; by "formal," I mean driven by the plot. As stated above, good literature typically concerns itself with deeper issues and ideas that permeate its entire composition, while bad literature deems such issues and ideas as irrelevant. To bad literature, only the plot is supreme (what is happening); to good literature, only the underlying ideal is supreme (why is this all happening). When a book is thematic, all the elements of that book serve to stress the theme; when it is merely formal, all the elements only serve to form and advance the plot, which leads me to my third proof.
Good literature has unified elements, while bad literature has wasted elements. By "unified elements," I mean all the elements of a book are bound up in the theme and are therefore necessary. By "wasted elements," I mean all the elements of a book are bound up in the plot and may as well have not been there as been there. For example: to the good science fiction book, all the elements are crucial; even the very color, shape, and movement of the alien robot army says something to the theme of the book. To the bad science fiction book, however, all the elements are expendable; the robots may as well have one color, shape, and movement as well as another. The elements in a good book are not there just to be there, for they serve a higher purpose (i.e., reflect the theme); the elements of a bad book, however, are just there, for they merely serve a mechanical purpose (i.e., advance the plot). That, at last, leads me to my fourth and final proof.
Good literature is presenced, while bad literature is hollow. By "presenced," I mean possessed by the theme. By "hollow," I mean empty of a theme. When the elements of a book are bound up in a theme, there is a certain life to them all; they are not mere cardboard cutouts dancing on an imagined stage. They become real people, with real issues, facing real evil, and real monsters. When the elements are bound to a plot, however, there is deadness; they are merely cardboard cutouts dancing on an imagined stage. They are no more real to you than before you even read about them. Good literature, because it is presenced, cannot leave you untouched in some way (even if you can't quite describe how); bad literature, however, can.
I conclude that bad literature is constituted as that which imitates good literature because it has merely the form of a tradition without the tradition, which results in hollow formalism with wasted elements. Thus concludes my argument (so far).

An addendum is necessary: these proofs, though I believe true, are nevertheless blanket statements that must be taken with a slight grain of salt. It is possible for a book that fits my scheme for "bad" to momentarily touches upon a theme of its tradition that moves you slightly in mysterious ways; it is possible for a book that fits my scheme for "good" to momentarily be hollow and plot driven. Not every book perfectly fits the "bad" scheme; no book (though arguments could be made) perfectly fits the "good"scheme (except for the Bible). Regardless, I still offer my argument and its proofs as at least guidelines, if not actually rules.

Echoes of Heaven: Let My Bones Burn

"Let my bones burn whenever they see
Another pretty face, or a fragile flower,
Or the cold mountains in the blaze of dawn.
Let the restless rattling rage, lest they rest without You.

"Let my bones burn as I fumble about
This sensuous curtain, bumbling about
Like a blind man in a fog, double blind,
Unable to even see shadows as they are.

"Let my bones burn until I tell
All that there is to tell in this tale that
I find half-told and unfinished, with an end
I shall never know, until I am known.

"Let my bones burn to a crisp
If I foolishly fall into fakes and forgeries
And dare say that this is Thou.
This is Thou; yet this is not Thou.

"Seeing many, may I see One.
Of a sea of faces, burn One into me.
Let it burn, lest I forget it; let it burn,
So I know that I am known.
Let it burn in my bones forever."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2008

There and Back Again

When you stand on the frontier of yet another writing endeavor, you should pause to consider the past. Though you see nothing ahead of you, you can indeed see for miles when you look over your shoulder. Before you lies a wilderness of blank pages; behind you lies a wonderland of freshly written words and writings. At your feet lies paths untrodden; behind you lies the well-trodden paths across familiar lands. Before you lies discoveries unknown; behind you lies a wealth of treasures already dug up. Before you lies new lands and oceans to cross; behind you, with you, all around you, is the God that has led you thus far, and He will lead you further up and further in.
Never once think that you can ever plumb the full depths that is the well of God (Romans 11:33). You can never search across all His lands and find nothing new under the sun. Every new poem, story, journal, or post started, every new journey begun, stand as defiant testimonies before all the world that the God you serve and know has no end in sight, that He is indeed the perpetual mystery, the eternal adventure, the everlasting undiscovered country. As you step out once again, let Him keep your feet, and you will be swept off into Him.

Writer's Prayer

"Now I set my pen to write,
I pray the Lord, my light, my life:
Even if I die before I wake,
This journey shall have no end..."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2008

Some Questions (a slight doxology)

"Can it be that sweat drops of blood
Can pierce the armor of Sin and shame
Greater than swords of steel and iron?

"Can it be that the power of Sin,
Which stood like a rock undaunted,
Now withers before the meekness of Heaven?

"To fathom the strength that is the Cross,
Salvation won through suffering shame.
Can my mind come near to grasping the whole of it?"

-Jon Vowell (c) 2008

Dreamer

"You and I were always meant to wake the dreamers from the dark." -Nichole Nordeman

"I can't sleep in the bed I've made.
I can't sleep because I'm wide awake
To the rubble of my failures.
They have choked up the source of grace.

"I am awake, but it feels like falling asleep.
I wander under the sky a sleeping ghost,
Sleeping in a sick land of slick coverings and cheats
That serve to silence my quiet desperations.

"I am a dreamer desecrated by I know not what.
I hover in a hazy maze of monotonous monstrosities,
Hiding hearts and hopes; concrete pillows for broken heads
And broken souls, which lie like shards of glass
Forgotten.

"I can't sleep in the bed I've made.
If I could, I'd give it away today, forever,
And seek the dream that is awakening.
To sleep; perchance, to wake, and live."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2008

Echoes of Heaven: Old Man of the Hills

Within the fog-cloaked hills of the Appalachians, just about ten miles north of Williamsburg, Kentucky, there walks a lone old man, thin and sturdy, like a withered tree. He walks a path worn and torn by many years of his endless, relentless trodding. In his right hand he holds a sapling; in his left hand he wields a shovel. His balding head is covered by a grey fedora, his back and shoulders by a thick, grey coat, and his hands and feet smell of earth. There is a wiry smile on his face, and a slow, comfortable stride to his step, the heels and soles of his feet caressing the ground with a familiarity that has been well earned. The farther up he went, the further the fog clothed him in an odd robe of splendor, single-colored, a fitting addition to the man as the man was to it. As he walked, it was as though he slowly and silently gave himself up to the fog, to the hills, to the earth, all the while holding a tree in one hand and wielding a shovel in the other. Unperceivable to the naked eye was that strange and holy fellowship between man and nature in which all the trees are his brothers and a walk through the hills is the communion of saints.
His walks into the hills are a might matter of legend to the people of Williamsburg. Many stories hover about in regards to the secret meaning behind his monthly trek into the hills, a tree held in one hand, a shovel wielded in the other. Some said that he was merely keeping a tradition, and others said that it was in remembrance of something or someone. Others said that it was merely a cover to go into the woods and smoke or drink without his wife knowing. Still others said that there was no secret meaning to whole thing, that he was just planting trees. Others still (the occasional ignorant passerby) denied that there even was a man who climbed into the hills, a tree held in one hand, a shovel wielded in the other.
The children, however, had the most interesting stories. One boy said he buried treasure where he planted trees; he always talked about going up there and finding some of it. Another said that he buried the dead bodies of victims he had ceremoniously axed to death; he said he’d write a story about it some day. One little girl said that the man had lived forever and had planted the trees on all the hills, that he kept the hills alive. Whatever the story (or lack thereof), however, no one ever thought to simply ask the man what he was doing, or (even better) follow him up that hill, along that worn path, and see for themselves what things he hath done. That no one asks is sad; the stories are becoming fewer and fewer, the children more and more indifferent. The fog recedes higher into the hills these days; the old man must walk farther every year, but he is not weary. His stride is ever faithful, his face ever friendly, his grip ever firm as he holds a tree in one hand, and wields a shovel in the other.

The Second Fall (Or, Chesterton on the Fundamental Flaw in Modern Realism)

I know many good men and women who love Realist literature, and I can in no way blame them. To the Realist, what is real (whether it is good, bad, or ugly), is beautiful because it is true; there is no gloss or artificial layers to it. I understand the logic quite clearly, and agree with it whole-heartedly.
Still, I cannot bring myself to love the Realist tradition quite like I love the Fantasy tradition (note: I differentiate between tradition and genre). I often wondered why. There is a part of me (a spiteful, doubting, nagging part) that claims I am merely a child at heart and that I need to grow up and see the world as it really is. It says I need to put away childish things. However, there is another part of me (an enlarged, more wholesome part that is not really me) that still defiantly claims that my hesitation (and sometimes downright dislike) of Realist literature is not unfounded; on the contrary, its roots run right into the ancient core of another tradition I love, i.e., Christendom. The problem is, I could never quite articulate what it was that caused me to hesitate at the threshold of Realism; I never could say why I held it at a distance, admiring it for what it was but never embracing it as gospel. This inability to explain myself has left myself in a quandary more than once.
It was Oswald Chambers who said that the ones who affected us the most in life are not those who told us something new, but those who gave utterance to that which has been "dumbly struggling" in you for utterance. Well, Chesterton has given me utterance. From his book Heretics, in the chapter titled "On the Negative Spirit," I give my reason for why I, as a Christian writer, cannot fully embrace modern Realism (I emphasize the main point):

"Much has been said, and said truly, of the monkish morbidity, of the hysteria which has often gone with the visions of hermits or nuns. But let us never forget that this visionary religion is, in one sense, necessarily more wholesome than our modern and reasonable morality. It is more wholesome for this reason, that it can contemplate the idea of success or triumph in the hopeless fight towards the ethical ideal, in what Stevenson called...the 'lost fight of virtue.' A modern morality, on the other hand, can only point with absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of the law; its only certainty is ill. It can only point to imperfection. It has no perfection to point to...
"[It] is this great gap in modern ethics, the absence of vivid pictures of purity and spiritual triumph, which lies at the back of the real objection felt by so many sane men to the realistic literature of the nineteenth century...The tradition of calling a spade a spade starts very early in our literature and comes down very late. But the truth is that the ordinary honest man, whatever vague account he may have given of his feelings, was not either disgusted or even annoyed at the candor of the moderns. What disgusted him, and very justly, was not the presence of a clear realism, but the absence of a clear idealism. Strong and genuine religious sentiment has never had any objection to realism; on the contrary, religion was the realistic thing, the brutal thing, the thing that called names...But if it was a chief claim of religion that it spoke plainly about evil, it was the chief claim of all that it spoke plainly about good. The thing which it resented, and, as I think, rightly resented, in [modern realism], is that while the eye that can perceive what are the wrong things increases in an uncanny and devouring clarity, the eye which sees what things are right is growing mistier and mistier every moment, till it goes almost blind with doubt.
"If we compare, let us say, the morality of The Divine Comedy with the morality of Ibsen's Ghosts, we shall see all that modern ethics have really done. No one, I imagine, will accuse the author of the Inferno of an Early Victorian prudishness or a Podsnapian optimism. But Dante describes three moral instruments--Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, the vision of perfection, the vision of improvement, and the vision of failure. Ibsen has only one--Hell...
"All I venture to point out, with an increased firmness, is that this omission [of an enduring and positive ideal], good or bad, does leave us face to face with the problem of a human consciousness filled with very definite images of evil, and with no definite images of good. To us light must be henceforward the dark thing--the thing of which we cannot speak. To us, as to Milton's devils in Pandemonium, it is darkness that is visible. The human race, according to religion, fell once, and in falling gained knowledge of good and evil. Now we have fallen a second time, and only the knowledge of evil remains to us."

The problem with the modern mind (and a character in Pan's Labyrinth demonstrates this well) is that it thinks fantasy is merely "childish" or "blind" or "immature" because it only sees the good and ignores evil. That is an utter lie. If there is no evil in a story, no antagonist or antagonism beset against the hero(es), then there is no story. To borrow words from Dr. W, modern Realism has a whole lot of tension, but no resolution other than the realization that all is not well. Christians firmly hold that, in the real world, evil is a fact, and the good guys do not always win. However, Christians also hold that, in the real world, the Good does win in the end. In the realist fantasy (like the LOTR), it is indeed a long, dark road to get there, but we will get there.
Further comments about Christianity's stance on good and evil in regards to reality can be found in this other blog entry of mine.

The Marriage of the Living and the Dead (Or, A Reply to a Rant, and a Realization)

The Inklings (esp Tolkien and Lewis) did not see fantasy as an escape from reality, but as a way to get at Reality so that we can see reality better. Lucy and her siblings didn't stay in the wardrobe forever. They came back to war-torn England, and that is the point: not to stay in wonderland, but to come back from it and use what you learned there in the "real" world. Tolkien knew this incredibly well; that is what the whole "Scouring of the Shire" was about. What was the point of going through the salvation of Middle-earth if you can't even go back and save the Shire in the end? My final claim will always be that fantasy (insofar that it takes us to Reality) is more real than reality as it is given to us.

However (da da dum), I have come to a realization. I discovered (just yesterday) that, in regards to literary pursuits (and not necessarily spiritual or intellectual pursuits), I am not a student of Lewis (gasp!). I am, in fact, a student of Tolkien. Here is why:
Though the closest of friends, Tolkien and Lewis fundamentally disagreed on a philosophical level that influenced their fiction. Lewis was a firm Platonist. In his mind, there is the "real" world, and then there is the Real world, a transcend realm of abstract ideals by which the "real" world has its being (insofar as it "partakes" of the Real world, i.e., a tree's "treeness" is determined by how much it "partakes" in the ideal Tree of the Real). The Real world is the "magic," and the only way to get to that world is by a transportation (or, as Lewis put it, a "transposition") into it: so the kids had to go through a wardrobe (or a train station, or a picture, etc.) to get to Narnia; so Elwin Ransom has to go to another planet in the Space Trilogy. In order to get to the Real, one had to escape to the Real. As a Platonic Christian, Lewis saw the Real as God, and one must escape to Him in order to get to Him (and, conversely, bring Him back into this world, such as in That Hideous Strength). Though the "magic" (the Real) can be brought back to this world, it is fundamentally separate from the world.
That is where the two part. Tolkien was (in contrast to Lewis) a staunch Aristotelian. To him, all things are made up of two elements: the accident and the substance, i.e., the outward manifestation and the inner disposition. It is similar to Platonism in that there is a "real" and a Real, and the "real" has its being insofar as it partakes of the Real. The difference, however, is that, in Aristotelian thought, the Real is not separate from the "real." On the contrary, it is intimately a part of its being. Everything is substanced with the Real, although its outward manifestations may differ (all trees look different, but they are still all trees). Thus, in Middle-earth, everything is substanced with the music of the Valar. The "magic" is not a fantasy world you escape to; it is in the "real" world, in the now, in varying degrees (with evil being that which completely rejects it). It is not merely abstract; it is concrete as well. That is why in the LOTR (both the books and the movies) it all seems so real. You feel like you are reading/watching ancient history (or something you wished was history), not merely a fantasy. The "magic" is (and this is the amazing thing) not seen as magical. It is just there, simply a part of reality, all reality, including the good and the bad (for the music of the Valar knows both joy and sorrow, from the majestic trumps of Manwe, to the mournful horns of Ulmo; and all are beautiful because they are of the music). Tolkien did not like that Lewis made the Real, made the "magic," something separate that you had to escape to and bring back. In his mind, the Real/"magic" is (and forever has been) in the world and a part of the world right now, as real as any river or tree, bird or beast, man or woman.

I (as I discovered yesterday) hold to the latter. Reality is not something that is completely separate from us that we have to "get at" and bring back. It is with us right now, as we speak, in this very room; Immanuel, i.e., God is with us. The Fall marred the world's ability to present it, and muddled our vision to see it; but it is not totally silent, and we are not completely blind. We catch a glimpse of glory every once and a while, a stab of joy here and there. Christianity has always believed in the sacramental, that God is enmeshed with as well as independent from creation, that the finite can (and does) contain the infinite. As a Christian (esp. as a Christian writer), I believe this wholeheartedly.
And I find this exciting, because as a writer in love with the fantastic, I find myself struggling to tell my story so that it can find relevance and be taken seriously in a world dominated by Realism (which I do not despise like I used to, but that is another story). In a unexpected move, God pointed me to someone I had set on the back burner in my mind, i.e., Tolkien. Of course, the unexpected is typically God's modus operandi.
Perhaps an argument can be made that the Inklings "copped out," that they chose to attack modernity from the outside instead of engaging it from the inside (like Elliot or O'Connor). Perhaps you can say that about them all, except for Tolkien. I here proclaim that he (as best as I understand it) was a true paradox: he was a Fantastic Realist, i.e., his Aristotelian philosophy allowed him to create a realist fantasy! He found (or was found by) the secret to bridging fantasy and realism, to the marriage of the living and the dead: sacramental theology makes the "magic" real--not idealistic, not fluffy, not abstract, not disconnected, not contrived, not naive; but actual, dense, concrete, relevant, mysterious, and ancient. The key to making a realist fantasy is, not to escape to a magical world, but to live in one.