However effective that use of imagination was in preserving the health of those children, what I remember most vividly is what happened afterward. Our game suffused the whole of our walk, and we began to hunt for treasure. The littlest ones scavenged the brightest leaves off the ground and put them in my hands as if they were rubies; they seized acorns like compact jewels and walnuts like nuggets of gold. Meanwhile, the bigger children came back waving curious branches that looked like the staffs of kings or yelled their discovery of the moss that clung to the trees like emerald velvet. Very quickly we forgot we were pretending. The world opened itself to us, a realm of actual treasure and real adventure that we had the chance to uncover. I remember the joy I felt in seeing afresh the autumn world in its splendor, the quickened delight of the children as the earth came into their hands as a gift. My silly little story shifted our sight, and in that moment, we experienced what C. S. Lewis calls “a dipping in myth” (or imagination). “By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.”[1]
That’s what works of imagination do for us every day. What we rediscover in reading them is the extraordinary nature of real life. What we reclaim is a view of the world as charged with meaning, as shot through with the truth, beauty, and wisdom that we were created to find. From the disenchantment of a materialistic or simply bored viewpoint, in which things like trees and babies, music and story have lost their power to amaze or shape us by their truth, we are startled back into a wondering engagement with reality in its fullness. Sometimes this comes to us as worship, a renewed capacity to perceive that creation isn’t just matter or atoms but a gift crafted of love. Sometimes it comes to us as hope, a quickened ability to glimpse beauty and wholeness beyond our current moment of doubt.
Always, it comes to us with the power to show us the world “in a new and strange light”[2] that cleans away the grime of cynicism or boredom and invites us to treasure our existence as a gift. The authors that follow include many of my favorites—C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Malcolm Guite—each of whom has argued for imagination as a “truth-bearing faculty,”[3] one we desperately need to cultivate in our busy, materialistic age, one that is crucial to our capacity for faith, for joy in existence, for hope.
Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning by Owen Barfield
Barfield, close friend and interlocutor of C. S. Lewis, wrote this classic exploration of the way imaginative language (the kind we use in poetry or story) can help a reader to experience—actually experience—the world in a different way. With Lewis, he believed that the modern world needs to have its vision reenchanted from the dulling effects of materialism. In this book, he shows us how imaginative language specifically works to kindle and quicken both mind and vision.
Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in The Lord of the Rings by Matthew Dickerson
An invigorating and revelatory exploration of Tolkien’s work from a philosophical perspective. Dickerson’s lively book makes clear that the runaway success of The Lord of the Rings has deep roots in the redemptive philosophy it communicates.
Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen
Esolen is often grumpy and frequently repetitive in this slightly sarcastic but eloquent book on the ways we increasingly stunt childhood imagination. In the role of devil’s advocate, Esolen exposes the danger of such modern trends as dismissing the skill of memorization, keeping children indoors, and denying the transcendent. But he also offers a vision of the opposite kind of life—of children exposed to beauty, allowed to wonder, steeped in ancient words—a recipe for restored imagination that is always available to those who would choose it.
Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination by Malcolm Guite
Reading this book was a watershed moment in my life, the point at which I finally felt I understood historically why the status of imagination as “a truth-bearing faculty” has to be defended and must be reembraced. Tracing the history by which the language of imagination, story, and even parable was forced out by scientific precision, Guite advocates for a revival of imagination, specifically through poetry, and for the importance of the imagination to our faith. In eight themed chapters, he surveys the work of poets from Shakespeare to Heaney whose works of poetic imagination bear spiritual truth to the world in a powerful way.
On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature by C. S. Lewis
This themed collection of Lewis’s essays on imaginative fiction brings together some of his best ideas about the power of atmosphere in story, the qualities that make for excellent storytelling, and the transcendent beauty evoked by works of imagination. It includes classics such as “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” and “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said,” essays that articulate his understanding of imagination and story as some of the best ways we understand the ultimate truths about ourselves and the world.
The Renaissance of Wonder: The Fantasy Worlds of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, George MacDonald, E. Nesbit, and Others by Marion Lochhead
A PhD thesis that turned into an exploration of the great fantastical books of the twentieth century, this book first looks in depth at the work of writers such as E. Nesbit, Tolkien, Lewis, and MacDonald before surveying the greatest fantastical works for children at the time of publication. I’m still trying to get to all the titles so beautifully described in this celebration of fantastical children’s literature.
A Landscape with Dragons: The Battle for Your Child’s Mind by Michael D. O’Brien
This is a book I recommend with caveats. On the one hand, I highly value O’Brien’s perspective on the way fantasy and fairy tale shape a child’s inward and spiritual realities. I prize his affirmation of good fantasy to aid a healthy development of courage and virtue, the qualities needed in a real-world resistance of evil. But I disagree with his conclusions deeming the work of J. K. Rowling and Madeleine L’Engle harmful. I think they are rather the opposite. So I would advise you to take this book with a grain of salt. It’s excellent in many aspects and flawed in some, but eminently worth the read.
The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing by Leland Ryken
A collection exploring some of the best Christian writing on the joyous relationship between faith and literature, this volume of excellent essays could be themed in the words of Francis Schaeffer (quoted by Ryken): “The Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars.”
Tree and Leaf by J. R. R. Tolkien
Herein you will encounter Tolkien’s eloquent defense of fantastical stories as vital to the human condition. In his landmark work “On Fairy-Stories,” he identifies a threefold process through which fairy stories (and fables, myths, and fantastical tales) allow us fresh spiritual insight and a renewed interaction with reality through recovery, escape, and consolation. Here, too, you will find his description of “eucatastrophe,” the “sudden and miraculous grace” that comes to us in a happy ending and “denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world poignant as grief.” One of my favorite quotes in literature.
Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis by Michael Ward
If you love Narnia, this book will rivet you from first page to last. Ward, called the world’s foremost C. S. Lewis scholar by no one less than N. T. Wright, here makes his fascinating claim that the Chronicles of Narnia are each individually themed on a single planet in the medieval model of the cosmos. It seems a wild scheme at first glance, but Ward’s painstaking and detailed research, his appeal to the (wholly provable) evidence of Lewis’s lifelong fascination with the medieval model, and his demonstration of his thesis in a careful exploration of each book brought me to total agreement. But the reason this book is here is because Ward’s claims are based in part on his understanding o
f how Lewis viewed imagination and how he sought to imbue his novels with the person of Christ, and the chapters exploring those themes are as vital in their way as the rest of the book.
Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction by Rowan Williams
This is a dense and difficult book, the kind I wouldn’t usually include on a nonacademic list, but it helped me to think with rigor about the power of language, image, and character as employed by Dostoevsky to evoke and explain religious faith. If you want to delve into a contemporary evaluation of the way literature presents us with what could be considered incarnational opportunities and characters—when the divine breaks into the ordinary—or what it means for people to be iconic in their nature—gesturing to a larger grace—Williams’s book is well worth the struggle.
[1] C. S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature (Orlando: Harcourt Brace, 1982), 90.
[2] Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1984), 50.
[3] Malcolm Guite, Faith, Hope, and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination (Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2012), 5.
Chapter 7Books Can Foster COMMUNITY
Forming Friendships through the Pages of Good Literature
There are no faster or firmer friendships than those formed between people who love the same books.
IRVING STONE, CLARENCE DARROW FOR THE DEFENSE
IT WAS THE SUMMER after I’d turned twenty, and I was perched on one of the creaky white rocking chairs on my family’s front porch in Colorado with my “little” (both over six feet) brothers beside me. In true Clarkson tradition, we’d decided to read a novel aloud during our summer at home. But we felt a little trepidatious, the scuffles of siblinghood and competition lurking at the edges of anything we did, all complicated by the newly adult selves we had become. We felt slightly strange to each other, our emerging maturity, our growing dreams the secrets that sat on the edge of our tongues too new and dear to articulate, too strong in us for ease. But we settled in bravely, cups of hot chocolate in hand, as I began the perilous tale of Peace Like a River, a book whose pastoral title belies its drama of asthmatic boys and cowboy-poet little girls, of miracles and murder.
Day after day we returned, immersed in the story, comrades in the shared space of imagination. As we voiced the vivid characters, marveled at the word craft of the author, and laughed at the fierce loves and wild creativity of the little girl, Swede, we were set in a unique camaraderie of experience that loosened our tongues, revealing us to each other. We argued over the choices of the characters, debated the bold actions of Davy, and shared the quiet of a character’s death. In those spaces we saw one another anew, discovered one another afresh, as compelling as any characters a novel ever offered. We recognized each other as unique as the book drew out our individual ideas, and yet we were connected together as the story pulled us into a shared language of experience, a shared understanding of what is right and good as imaged in the beauty of the novel’s end. In the hush of the final word, the closed cover, with the first autumn leaves in their turn on the aspens around us, we knew ourselves woven together anew, bound as friends and siblings by the power of a shared story.
I discovered afresh in that moment that a woman who reads is a woman who relates. A book girl knows that a shared book is a ground of mutual discovery, a space in which the soul and thoughts of another may open to her in a wondrous way. Just as a week’s stay with a friend can bring you closer than any number of coffee dates or run-ins, the sharing of a story accelerates the comradeship of souls. When people inhabit a realm of imagination or theology or poetry together, their own realms of soul and spirit are revealed to the others who sojourn with them in that place. Reading, when shared, begins a conversation that breaks down the barriers of isolation and connects us, one to another, as we exclaim, in C. S. Lewis’s description of friendship in his book, The Four Loves, “What! You too?”[1]
I sometimes wonder if the stock image of a reader is of an introvert curled up in a curtained window seat. There is definitely truth (and, I’d argue, delight) in that image, but one of the strongest impressions that comes to me when I reflect on what reading has created in my life is the image of fellowship and the widened horizon of relationship. This was a reality I first knew in my own family. Our sibling summer of reading as young adults was a chosen return to a pattern we had learned in childhood. My parents read to us morning and night, we read novels before bedtime, we read devotions in the morning, and we read picture books or adventure tales in the afternoon. The culture of our home was shaped in large part by the stories we shared, and my parents saw this as one of the formative ways in which they created a ground for us to know each other not just as siblings but as friends.
That pattern of shared story and relationship is one whose power I have experienced throughout my adult life; it is one of the relational tools that my introverted self knows can always create space for friendship in whatever new place I sojourn. In my time at Oxford, I’ve watched as a poetry group started by my tutor turned a group of shy theology students into talkative friends who revealed astonishing things about their own lives in their comments on the luminous poetry we read aloud together. I’ve watched a group of disparate students—young professionals, singles, and couples, all dogged by the hurried loneliness of the academic or working life—coalesce as a community over a shared weekly meal and read-aloud surprise in our home, each member taking a turn to bring something to read to the group. And let’s be honest, I knew that things with my husband-to-be might just work out when I saw books by Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Peter Kreeft, and Chaim Potok on his bachelor shelves. We had been dating only two weeks when I got the chance to peek at his books. I knew it would be telling: student rooms in Oxford are so tiny, there’s room for only a few absolute favorite or necessary titles—if, of course, you are the kind of person who loves your books enough to lug them with you all over the world. And what if Thomas wasn’t? The door opened, and my eyes shot toward the shelves. There in splendid promise stood a fat volume of The Lord of the Rings, with a slim copy of Lewis wedged close by and a bevy of other familiar titles stacked beside them. I sighed in relief. He’d passed the test—on several levels. (And our two copies of The Lord of the Rings, one in Dutch and one in English, now have pride of place on our living room bookshelves.)
While reading is something you must choose as an individual, it is also something that I hope will bring you, as a book girl, into rich community with others. This book is, itself, rooted in my own companionship with other readers, crafted by conversations, by quotes texted to me by my mom and my sister, by book lists sent by friends. My hope is that even as you begin the life of reading, you will find yourself brought into a new realm of relational possibility by the books you read and the conversations they open. Chapter 2 covers a little more about what it might look like to craft and cultivate that fellowship. At this point, though, we’ll simply explore the two ways by which the sharing of books deepens our capacity to relate: through shared consciousness and deepened compassion.
Joy Clarkson
Beloved, built-in best friend–sister who also happens to be a brilliant student of art, literature, and virtue and a reader whose insights open all sorts of worlds to me every time we talk. We text each other quotes and borrow each other’s books and revel together in the world of words. It’s sheer delight to have such a sister and to list her favorites here.
Favorite Books: One Fiction, One Spiritual, and One Nonfiction
Peace like a River by Leif Enger. This is a book that has stuck in my heart. Enger’s writing is sumptuous and delightful. Interspersed throughout the books are moments of the miraculous tucked into ordinary life. Even as the characters walk through the darkest days of their lives, there is a playfulness and a humor, all aided by the fact that the story is told from the perspective of a child. With frankness, depth, and lightness, the book swims in themes of forgiveness, love, theodicy, exile, and the mirac
ulous. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it is that gripped me about this book, but perhaps you’ll have to read it to know what I’m going on about.
Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle. This book is full of wisdom for the artist, the Christian, and anyone who lives in both of those worlds. Reading it was both inspiring for me as a creative person and as a Christian pursuing depth in my relationship with God. It pushes readers toward a greater sense of meaning and excellence in our work, showing how the creative capacity isn’t simply a rhetorical tool for conveying Christian messages but a reflection of God’s image as a Creator-God in us. I highly recommend it for the Christian and the creative.
The Abolition of Man and The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis. The Abolition of Man is a collection of Lewis’s lectures concerning education, but it touches on many other topics as well. The main thrust of the argument is that a truly educated person is not only a receptacle of knowledge but someone whose loves and desires are oriented around the good; he or she wishes that we would love our neighbor, praise beauty, and disdain evil. According to Lewis, the educator’s job is to “inculcate just sentiments.” Written for a very different audience, The Weight of Glory is a suitable companion to The Abolition of Man. Originally a sermon preached in Oxford, it speaks about heaven as the foundation of all our desires and about how we will live best if we live with heaven in mind. Lewis somehow manages to make heaven conceivable and helps the reader see the world as charged with meaning and pointing to something beyond itself. Together these reads are intellectually enlightening and imaginatively stimulating.
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