Ventriloquy and Belief

pinterest: tempus regina

I finished a book the other day.  (Surprise!)  The Daughter of Time was one of those books that crept up on my consciousness for several months before I got around to actually buying it, and from buying it to reading it.  I don't think I had heard about it before this year, but I understand it is a pretty popular and famous work: a landmark book in the mystery genre, in fact. It is, I think, either the last or the second-to-last book in her Inspector Alan Grant series, the most celebrated, and takes place entirely within the walls of a hospital room.  (Which, by the by, gets quite old.)

The main character is a Scotland Yard Inspector, laid up for several weeks after an injury incurred on the job.  To keep him engaged while he's lying on his back staring at the ceiling, a friend brings him a collection of portraits from historical cold cases - everyone from Mary, Queen of Scots to Louis XVII, the boy-king.  Only one of them, however, catches Grant's eye: a painting of Richard III.  Intrigued by the story of how the wicked uncle murdered his innocent nephews, Grant begins to conduct a police investigation from his hospital bed.  An acquaintance assists by conducting all the research, and the story progresses methodically through back-and-forth conversation between the two men.

Unsurprisingly, this also gets old.  It would be bound to get old in any story that takes place within the same four walls with - let me think - one main character and only about five other people who regularly drift through to talk.  But I realized not far into the book that part of the oldness had to do less with those factors and more with the story not actually being a story.  It is a vindication of Richard III, plain and very simple.  Now, I happen to take an interest in Richard and could follow Tey's arguments with relative equanimity; but even agreeing, I was extraordinarily peeved by the authoress' tactic.  Because it becomes apparent as soon as Richard III's portrait shows up that what you, reader, are getting is Tey's opinion en toto, as articulated by Character 1 and Character 2 with occasional prompting from Random Other Peoples.  It isn't a novel, it's just, well, historical preachiness.

The Daughter of Time is an extreme case, and I would go so far as to wager that Tey intended for it to be.  The trouble, however - the trouble of an invasive author, if I could put it that way - is one that crops up and should crop up before every writer.  We've all heard books described as "too preachy."  It's usually applied to Christian fiction, and it is all too easy to stick our noses in the air and determine that people only say that because there is no longer a belief in objective truth.  Which is very probably the case, but does nothing to alleviate the issue as far as good writing is concerned.

We all have, or ought to have, core beliefs.  If we think we don't, it is only that we don't know what those core beliefs are; and at that point we had either better not write, or better keep our writing private, for the world doesn't need anymore hem-hah-ing and prevaricating.  So I'll start with the statement that we all have beliefs, and that on some level, we desire our writing to reflect that.  We hardly want readers thinking we condone abortion, or adultery, or marriage between believers and unbelievers, when we think just the opposite.  And oftentimes we not only don't want readers getting the wrong impression, but we also have an overdeveloped desire for them to get the right one.  As in, I-must-cram-the-Gospel-Jesus-and-the-Bible-in-if-I-want-to-honor-God-SOHELPME.

It is not a wholly unreasonable wish, and I am not here to tell writers exactly what balance to strike.  But if we desire to write a good story (which, I believe, is just as God-honoring and perhaps even more so than working in the Gospel inappropriately), we must be more attune to the characters themselves and not so quick to override their individual personalities.  We must let them be who they are.  Sayers mentioned this several times in regard to her famous character Lord Peter Wimsey, whom her Christian readers badgered her to "save" - and she ignored them, because it was not part of the character.  In a lesser sense, this is also true whenever a character of ours begins talking, especially about anything theological or philosophical.  Obviously we don't want to be seen as wrong ourselves, or propagate wrong-thinking, so we are more likely to switch into the mode of writing exactly what we believe to be truth in as clear a way as possible.  We do a little ventriloquy act through our characters, and an astute reader can tell.

Too often we think that in our writing we've got to try to evangelize not just the characters, but the readers - even though it is biblically clear that God ordained that work to be done through His Word preached, not through fiction.  Our business is to craft a good story, to let the characters think and say what they would think and say "if free-moving and placed within the literary field."  If that means that they think and say something wrong, well, then they shall.  It is my opinion that our core beliefs will show through the story in some manner; it just shouldn't be through ventriloquy.

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.”

g. k. chesterton

A Faultless Felon

Two weeks ago when Anna came to visit us she brought her copy of G.K. Chesterton's Four Faultless Felons, a short book that I proceeded to borrow and read over about a week-long period. It was my first Chesterton book, and while I am not sure I agree with everything in the four short stories, the major point that he was driving home made me think. Each of the characters had done something or appeared to do something that in the eyes of those around them was illegal, earning themselves the titles "felons." Yet their actions were in fact not felony at all; each man was faultless when his motives and real actions were taken into account.

One of the points of Four Faultless Felons is that genuinely good actions are so confounding to the world that if they were practiced more often, they would be mistaken for felony. How can evil understand Good? How can darkness understand Light? Can the things of the flesh understand the things of the Spirit? Another point is that we ought not do good in order to be seen as Good People by those around us, and that when the world starts calling us Good, we should stop and examine ourselves very closely. The people did not call Jesus "good," and when one man did, Jesus turned it back in his face with the reply, "Why do you call me good? There is none good but God alone." It isn't about appearing to be good; it is about being holy.

Yesterday I was working on my author website, getting it set up to launch, which involves doing summaries for my novels and all that good stuff. I had done The Soldier's Cross and Wordcrafter and was working on The White Sail's Shaking, mulling over some of the themes that have come to play in it - friendship, courage, mercy, and true honor. Only, I hadn't really thought about the last one very much. Tip is driven by a need to prove himself, to show his family that he is something more than mediocre and to show his fellow officers that, unlike his relations, he is not a Loyalist. I already knew that that would be a point of the story; I knew subconsciously that Tip was facing a decision - whether to seek honor or to do right - but until yesterday I hadn't come to the foundation of the choice.

It isn't about whether to choose honor or righteousness; the question boils down to what honor is. Honor is doing right, or at least it ought to be, and as Chesterton points out, it often comes out looking very dishonorable to everyone else. Tip is hunting glory, not honor, and though the two words are used synonymously, in this fallen world they are very often opposites. What is our conception of glory but greatness? And what, after all, do we really know of greatness? When we say a man has won glory, we mean he has won the people over into considering him great, which is not at all the same as the man really being great. Again, Chesterton's point is a good one: if true greatness were seen among fallen man, it would be considered base. When a great Man did come, what did the world do but ridicule Him and mock Him and put Him to death?

And so it is that when real honor is seen, it is usually misunderstood. To seek real honor is to seek something very low in the eyes of the world, and it is a great deal harder than winning glory. Any scum of a man can set himself up as something great, but it takes a different kind of man to be a faultless felon.