Personal Musings: Fantine

So I’ve been reading Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, and when you get past the overly detailed writing, it’s a wonderful and powerful story.  Grace, forgiveness, redemption, transformation, love, attention to the struggles of our fellow humans, and other such beautiful themes pervade the story.  Furthermore, each of these themes is approached with maturity.  Mature.  I want to dwell on that word a bit.  In today’s culture, what is meant by the word “mature” with regards to stories?

In my experience, “mature” stories, or stories containing “mature content” most often mean “stories that include explicit sex scenes, graphic violence, and/or a large amount of swearing”.  However, if we really consider the term “mature”, how often do we really use that word in connection to such content?  When we say someone is “mature for his age”, we usually mean the opposite of what we mean in regards to “mature content”, such as that he is tact and treats people well and with consideration, that he is wise and doesn’t give in as quickly to emotional urges.  The very list above, or at least a tendency to unnecessary or frequent swearing and easily roused to violence, is, in common society, regarded as immature or childish.  So why is it that “mature” in the literary sense carries with it a stigma for pornographic scenes, constant swearing, and scenes that make you think blood will start dripping off the pages rather than wise and edifying?  Unfortunately, I can’t answer that question.  Instead, I wish to use Hugo’s story, Les Mis, in order to illustrate true maturity in literature, and for that purpose, let’s look at one character who, perhaps more than any other in all of literature, has stimulated my thoughts time and again: Fantine.

Who is Fantine?  Within Hugo’s story, Fantine is a young girl near the beginning of the story who falls in love with a playboy and then is abandoned not long before giving birth to his child.  Afterwards, in order to raise the child, Cosette, she returns to her hometown to earn money, leaving Cosette with a pair of innkeepers because she knows that if anyone finds out about the illegitimate child it would cause trouble.  In the end, Fantine is found out, ostracized, and slowly declines in health and social standing as she does everything she can to pay the innkeepers (who are conning her in order to raise their fees) for caring for Cosette.  Eventually, after resorting to prostitution, the insensitive prank of a young man causes her body to succumb to illness, and she dies.

So why does the tragic Fantine fascinate me so?  Quite simply, it’s Hugo’s ability to write such a sympathetic character with maturity.  First of all, Hugo doesn’t feel the need to give detail in places most authors would in today’s literature.  Fantine’s intimacy with her lover, her time as a prostitute, the violence regarding some of her struggles, Hugo mentions them but does not give more detail than necessary.  He doesn’t describe sexual scenes in order to “prove” Fantine’s love; when Fantine’s two front teeth are pulled to be sold, he does not go into the bloody details, nor is either one necessary.  Hugo did not seek out shock value or detailed realism or sexual arousal.  But yet he did not shy away from such heavy topics, either.

The other sign I see of maturity in Fantine’s story is how Hugo turns Fantine into a sympathetic character without denying her sin.  As Hugo writes of Fantine “After recklessness comes trouble” (Hugo 148).  Fantine foolishly gives her all to a man who doesn’t truly love her, who isn’t a husband committed to her.  Intoxicated with love, she neglects work and, once abandoned, cannot support herself.  She has acted without wisdom, and Hugo does not let her off for it.  She suffers for her folly, but she doesn’t let herself stay there.  She, who possessed an honest and innocent heart from the start, takes responsibility and commits herself to working hard for the sake of her child.  In doing so, she displays herself to be more than one sin.

And so the audience is distraught at what happens to her.  No, Hugo didn’t leave her wrongs without consequence, nor is the reader to pity Fantine for her foolishness; rather, the tragedy comes from the treatment she receives by others.  Abandoning responsibility, deceit in order to obtain more money from her, taking pleasure from ruining the life of another, not being able to see the person trying to change her life beyond a social stigma, judging based on social status, oh the hypocrisy!  The lack of mercy and grace of the supposedly morally superior!

Did not Jesus himself show mercy unto the woman caught in adultery?  “I do not condemn you.  Go.  From now on sin no more” (New American Standard John 8:11)  Did not Paul, a “pharisee among pharisees” take with him Timothy, a child who at the least was born to a forbidden marriage but may have even been a bastard son between a Jew and a Greek?  “To Timothy my true child in the faith…” (1 Tim 1:2).  “To Timothy, my beloved son…” (2 Tim 1:2)  Was is not to the supposedly moral giants that Christ had his harshest condemnation?  “Woe to you, teachers of the law… you hypocrites!  You are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful but inside… are full of dead men’s bones… you serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?” (Mat 23:27, 33).  Was it not Christ Himself who sought out sinners and tax collectors, who welcomed the least and the outcast, who healed the sick, who, knowing we are all sinners and deserve death, came unto us and showed us mercy?  And are not we also called to be like Him?

And yet.  And yet why is it that the one who extends a hand to this woman, shivering with illness and overcome with despair, who had stood up with the resolution to “Go and sin no more”, rather than the “upright” who have never been charged with a crime, rather than those who supposedly clothe themselves in justice, why is it the ex-convict, the thief, the supposed blight upon society, why is he the one to show her mercy?  Because he knew what it meant to be redeemed by grace.

Why do I love Fantine?  Why does her story so move me?  Because I am the overseer, rejecting her when I learn of her misdeeds.  Because I am the man who decided the prostitute on the street was so below humans I could treat her as sport.  Because I am Javert, too quick to seek justice when I am also called to be merciful.

What Fantine did was wrong.  Hugo knew it and acknowledged it.  As did Fantine.  But what was worse, far more wicked than a heart led astray by desire, was the heart led astray by self-righteousness.  We are all sinners.  We all deserve death.  But we have been forgiven.  “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Eph 4: 32).  When you look down upon other people, do so only as you stretch out your hand to pull them up because guess what, the ground is a thin mirror of ice.  And none of us can swim.  When you look down upon the sinner, in truth you are merely looking at yourself.  The “you” before that Divine Hand, that Divine Christ, dove into the mud and mire to pull you above the surface.  If not for Him, you would have drowned.  I would have drowned.

When I began this post, I lamented the use of the word “mature” in connection with such content as pornography.  Such a use is like labeling poke berries as grapes.  A “mature” story should be one like aged wine, or finely crafted bread.  Nourishing.  Yes, there are stories where graphic violence is necessary.  Yes, there are stories in which swearing is fitting.  But these don’t necessarily make a story mature any more than cinnamon necessarily makes bread delicious.  Such ingredients should not be used lightly.

What is a mature story?  A mature story is nourishing.  And mature story has enough maturity to know what content, what ingredients, what conditions and length of storage, to employ in order to give its reader the best it can.  It doesn’t matter if it’s about a little girl opening a wardrobe into a magical land or a side-character’s tragedy in the face of merciless self-righteousness, if a story is not these, it is no more than childish.



Hugo, Victor.  Les Miserables.  Trans. Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee.  New York: Signet Classics, 1987.  Print.

The New Inductive Study Bible.  Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2000.  Print.

Reviews and Recommendations: Book Girl by Mizuki Nomura

Mine had been a life of shame.

I’m like the one black sheep born into a pure white flock.  Unable to enjoy the things my peers enjoyed, unable to grieve the things they grieved, unable to eat the things they ate-- being born an ignoble black sheep, I didn’t understand the things my friends found pleasent, such as love, kindness, and sympathy.  I simply dusted my dark wool in white powder and pretended I was a white sheep, too.

I’m still wearing my mask, still acting in this farce (Nomura 1).

For those who have read some of my other posts, perhaps you remember this quote from my post on quotes which have influenced me personally.  The words open the first of an eight-volume Book Girl series by Japanese author Mizuki Nomura and illustrated by my favorite colorist, Miho Takeoka.

Book Girl follows the events in the life of Konoha Inoue, a high school student who, in his second year of middle school, won a national writing contest and became an overnight sensation.  However, the stress of the circumstances and events that followed threw him into depression, during which he vowed to never write another novel again.  Come high school, though, he find himself caught by a book loving, book eating upperclassman, Tohko Amano, who ropes him into joining the literature club.  Now, as a high school junior, this duo’s literary adventures are about to begin.

And the adventures occur thusly:

1. Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime
2. Book Girl and the Famished Spirit
3. Book Girl and the Captive Fool
4. Book Girl and the Corrupted Angel
5. Book Girl and the Wayfarer’s Lamentation
6. Book Girl and the Undine Who Bore a Moonflower
7. Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God (Part 1)
8. Book Girl and the Scribe Who Faced God (Part 2)

Okay, really quick, as a student of the Japanese language myself, I’ve got a few linguistic and translation issues with these stories (i.e. It should be “Clown” not “Mime”, Literature Girl is a more accurate translation of the Japanese series title, 文学少女, and other title-related nitpicks, “goblin” is not a good translation for the word “yokai”, it should be “Touko” not “Tohko”, a huge translation error that causes confusion and supposed plot contradiction in book 1 but that I will not list because it would be a spoiler, other clumsy translations).  However, as I understand some hardships of attempting to translate such a difficult as Japanese and the need to try and make the series more accessible to foreign audiences (hence no honorifics), I’ll leave my list of objections incomplete.

So, what about the main characters?  Well, what can I say without spoilers?  I love both Konoha and Touko (yes, I shall be writing her name like that from now on), though the book-eating monster of a girl is my favorite.  She’s amusing, kind, stubborn, a glutton, passionate, imaginative, overly curious, and openly cares for everyone around her.  Konoha, on the other hand, is serious and stand-offish, someone who used to be open and emotional and honest but, for multiple reasons, now closes himself off, only opening to Touko because of her weird, relaxing atmosphere.  Over the course of the series, you naturally see more to both of these characters, such as Konoha wrestling with who he was vs. who he has become, and seeing them unfold over the series is an emotional experience.  The relationship between the two leads is fun, but also painful, to read, tender and heartbreaking.  I can’t say too much, for spoiler reasons, but their relationship and how it influences the stories, each other, and other characters is one of my favorite parts of the series.

Speaking of other characters, there are many in this series, and almost every one of them appears in more than one story.  Main characters become side characters; side characters become main characters, and no named character is ever truly forgotten.  Some characters present in the beginning few stories even end up playing pivotal roles in the last two.  I loved seeing how Nomura constantly brought back characters, giving the series a more realistic touch.  After all, just because one story ends doesn’t mean the lives of its characters do.  Also, none of characters change immediately but over several volumes, a process often overlooked with side characters.

Another beautiful element is the writing style.  Konoha narrates the stories in an intimate, first person voice that really portrays his character and the emotions he feels throughout the story.  While the translation is a bit clumsy compared to the Japanese, the translators did an excellent job overall of capturing Nomura’s character’s voice.

Nomura also knows how to structure her stories… for the most part.  I won’t deny that the endings or solutions of some of the stories stretched my belief a bit too far, but overall she builds her stories well.  Tension mounts without breaking, except for a quick bit of humor that rarely (if ever) feels forced, and the twists she incorporates are well done.  Some twists are better built up than others, but none of them really fails, in my opinion, to have at least some impact.

So now that I’ve covered a few technical aspects of the series, I wish to spend a bit touching on my two favorite elements of these stories.  The first is Touko.  Yes, she’s my favorite character, but she’s also my favorite part of the stories, too.  I love how goofy she is, but also her intelligence, imaginative and emotional intelligence that is.  When she isn’t too distracted, Touko has excellent critical thinking skills, and the reason she is able to solve problems she encounters is due to her imaginative intelligence, using her knowledge of literature and her imagination to draw connects and lead her to truth.  As a character, Touko presents a great example of how imagination isn’t just “fancy” but can actually help one reach truth, a lesson many in our “scientific” age have forgotten.  In addition, Touko displays a strong emotional intellect.  Sure, she often gets caught up in her own desires or naivety/optimism, which usually makes her do something foolish, but she’s sensitive to other’s emotional states and displays time and again wisdom in interacting with others, even if she may not be conscious of it.  She wants what’s best for everyone, even if it might be painful.

My second favorite aspect of this series is Nomura’s handling of serious examples of brokenness and sin in the world.  And, as a warning to any potential readers, this series is dark and contains, or at least touches on, objectionable content, including but not limited to: suicide, murder, incest, abuse, divorce, prostitution, sex outside of marriage, and homosexuality.  Before you completely disregard this series because of this list, I wish to say that Nomura usually strikes a good balance on these topics, not dwelling too long on them nor taking any of them lightly.  On the other hand, some readers might be frustrated at times with Nomura’s addressing of these subjects.  Some she condemns, some she permits, and others she leaves ambiguous (though in some of the circumstances, I appreciate the abiguity rather than clumsily trying to squeeze in a speech somewhere and becoming preachy).  

Furthermore, as Nomura doesn’t approach these topics from a Judeo-Christian worldview, her solutions to some of the problems are not always satisfactory.  For example, her *spoiler* arguments against suicide, which amount to “we’ll find some reason to live, together” and “a person is more than one moment or work”, while true statements, I thought were weak.  Unlike authors such as G. K. Chesterton, Nomura doesn’t, or in a way can’t, take the position that this world in itself is worth living for, that it is a wonderful creation worth fighting for.  She doesn’t address the selfishness and cowardice of suicide or how it’s an insult against God by purposefully marring His image and His creation while “spiritually, he destroys the world” (Chesterton 73). Obviously you don’t need to hold a Christian worldview to understand and convince others that suicide is wrong (Thank God!), and Nomura’s arguments, like I said, are true, but without a proper foundation, they can be easily ignored or topple with just a little bit of thought.  Though what can be expected from someone starting from a shaky foundation herself.

Even though I say that, and even with my frustration as Nomura’s handling of some topics, there is one thing she does for which I have no end to my appreciation: every action has a consequence.  None of the actions I described above or other poor decisions, are treated flippantly and most often causes more harm than most stories I’ve read are willing to expose.  Take, as an example, a topic often glanced over here in the west, divorce.  Nomura doesn’t take the route of “it’s fine” or “just let us grownups do what we want, you’ll get over it no problem” or any other such glaze on divorce, as if it were a perfectly normal course of events and all the kid needs is just to spend some quality time with whichever parent, or any of those sorts of things.  With divorce in this series, the emphasis is on the kid, and it is not sugar-coated at all.  All I can say is I hope the character involved is an extreme case.  Actions have consequences, and here is the West, we can often downplay or even skip over those consequences.  However, Nomura doesn’t, not with anything.  Such a consequence-heavy series, where so much of the conflict in fact revolves around consequences and poor acknowledgement of these results, was a welcome contrast to most stories I experience in the mainstream today.

And so, even with its large flaws, I love this series.  I love the characters and Nomura’s writing style and ability.  Though her lack of clarity in regards to certain sins I know to not be satisfactory, her manner of approach and refusal to brush away results and consequences makes up for it.  Dark but sweet, broken but searching for beauty and hope, I can’t recommend this series enough.

¹Nomura, Mizuki.  Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime.  New York: Yen Press.  2010.  Print.


² Chesterton, G. K.  Orthodoxy.  New York: Doubleday.  1990.  Print.

Personal Musings: Fairytale Females and Formulas

Disney got it wrong.

I wish I could just stop there, but I suppose I’ll need to explain and support my assertion, won’t I?

First, we need some clarification.  What do I mean by “Disney got it wrong”?  This question is best answered by another question: what is the stereotypical “fairytale princess” (from now on FP)?  Some of the most common descriptions I hear go along the lines of “waiting for prince charming”, “helpless”, “an accessory or prize”, “love at first sight”, “true love’s kiss”, “flawless”, and the list goes on.  A good summary of the stereotypical FP is Disney’s song from Cinderella, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”:  “No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing/  The dream that you wish will come true.” ¹ In other words, just believe and it will all work out.  This is the idea splashed upon every fairytale female (FF), whether she’s actually a princess or not.  They are then stuck into a formula of “FP is in trouble but does nothing, Prince Charming comes to the rescue, they live happily ever after despite the FP having done nothing to earn her own ending”.  Simple, right?

As I’m sure you know, starting most notably with the Disney Renaissance (though really present earlier), and continuing on till today in such films as Shrek and Frozen and so many books and games I could never count them all, the FP and this “fairytale formula” has been “subverted” and replaced by more complex stories and characters, to the praise of the people at the toppling of weak angels who need men to solve all their problems because they can’t do anything… which would be fine except for one little detail.

The stereotypes are WRONG!

Helpless?  In “Rumpelstiltskin”, the girl makes a deal with the devil to get out of a life-threatening situation forced upon her by her stupid father and a not-so-charming prince and then does all she can to fight the devil himself.  And that’s only a negative example of an FF taking action.

True love’s kiss?  Almost non-existent (fyi, there isn’t a kiss in “Snow White”)

Prince Charming to the rescue?  Puh-lease!  In the few stories which actually contain him, the prince is almost always a tool.  Not to mention the numerous times it’s the girl who saves the day (“Handsel and Gretel”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “The Wild Swans”, “Rapunzel”, “The Snow Queen”, need I say more?).

Flawless?  Read “The Virgin Mary’s Child”.

Happily ever after?  “The Little Mermaid”.

I could go on, but I think it’s time to go a little deeper.  How about one of the stories Disney got mostly right and which I mentioned earlier, “Cinderella”.*

“Cinderella” has become a poster child of sorts for the anti-FP stance.  Typically, I’ve heard her described as a girl who doesn’t anything to help herself, just waiting for her fairy godmother and the prince to rescue her, and if you’ve only see Disney’s movie, with Cinderella staring at the castle, singing her “just believe” song, I can understand.  I won’t even argue against Cinderella being basically flawless and only getting out of her situation because someone else rescues her.  However, these “flaws” are either non-existent or actually positives, not problems.  What do I mean?

Let’s begin with Cinderella herself.  In the story, she is not waiting for anyone to save her.  There’s none of this “oh, just wish and believe” or “if only Prince Charming would come save me”.  No.  Cindy isn’t waiting to be rescued; it doesn’t even occur to her.  “But,” you might ask, “doesn’t this mean she’s just passively accepting her fate and not doing anything to change her situation?”  Well, yes and no.  Yes, Cinderella isn’t really doing anything to change her situation, at least not outwardly, but that doesn’t mean she’s passively resigning herself to whatever comes her way.

This brings me back to Cinderella as “flawless”.  In the story, Cinderella is a virtuous person.  Cinderella's father has died.  Her stepmother holds rightful authority but then abuses her power and treats her stepdaughter as a servant while allowing her own daughters to behave cruelly against Cinderella.  Cinderella, in contrast to our heavily individualistic, rights-driven culture, obeys her mother.  Yes, her mother is treating her horribly, though not nearly so bad as her step siblings do, but they are not threatening her life, only insulting her.  In submitting to proper authority and not repaying insult with injury, Cinderella does the right thing.

I’m sure many of you have had a bad boss.  He (or she, see stepmother above) might treat you like trash, call you names, infringe upon your “rights”, but so long as he doesn’t (a) illegitimately endanger life (which includes sexual and physical harassment) or (b) demand violation of the Moral Law, Christ made the proper response clear: “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” (NIV Mark 12: 17) and “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other also.  If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt” (Luke 6: 29).  Paul then expands on these responses in his letter to the Romans, saying, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge… for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” (Romans 12: 18-19) and “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established…. Give to everyone what you owe: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor” (Romans 13: 1, 7).  Christianity demands proper submission to authority and overcoming “evil with good” (Romans 12: 21).²

Now, clarification time for myself.  I’m not a pacifist, nor do I support letting government run rampant and destroy society.  If you are being sexually or physically harassed or threatened, defend yourself.  Paul fled from those who wished to kill him (Acts 9: 23-25), and Christ Himself used violence in response to the mistreatment of God's house (John 2:13-16).²  However, I am against rebellion or fighting unless  in extreme cases like self-defense and when other avenues have been exhausted.  Fight abuse of power, but do so through lawful means and persuasion, through virtue.  Rebellion and violence are last resorts.

Cinderella provides an example.  Her case isn’t so extreme she must fight.  Yes, she’s being mistreated and humiliated, but rather than repay evil for evil, Cindy does something unexpected and instead endures everything with grace, showing herself superior in virtue.  In other words, Cinderella symbolizes fortitude, a kind of courage that involves patient endurance.  It’s a quiet, subtle way of fighting.  Another way of putting it is Cinderella is the Martin Luther King Junior of fairytales, and we would never call him “helpless” or “lacking initiative”.

For anyone still doubting this characterization of Cinderella, consider this.  Although Cinderella allows herself to be mistreated, she never lets this treatment impact her dignity.  When the invitation comes to attend the ball, she asserts her position as a member of the family, showing she still views herself not as a servant, but as a proper member of the household.  Then, it is only when her step sisters try to strip her of her identity and dignity does the fairy godmother arrive.

Okay, let’s recap.  Cinderella as a character is not a passive do-nothing waiting for someone to come save her.  She isn’t expecting to be saved.  Instead, she exhibits fortitude, patient endurance, by properly submitting to authority and refusing to avenge herself without letting herself be degraded as a person.  Now, after her stepfamily attacks even that, a miracle happens.  Her fairy godmother arrives and offers Cinderella the chance to go to the ball (and notice, our “passive princess” doesn’t sit in her tower waiting for her prince but takes the chance when given), Cindy meets the prince, loses her slipper, is locked away when her stepmother realizes it was Cinderella at the ball, Cindy breaks out (again, active resistance when the line is crossed), the shoe fits, and that’s the end.  Right?

Not exactly.  You see, Disney can get a little… squeamish at times and reject aspects of the fairytale that might seem “too dark”, which, unfortunately, can distort the theme of the story.  This is where Disney really got “Cinderella” wrong.  See, “Cinderella” is not a story of “believe and it will all work out”.  It’s a story about perfect justice: everyone gets what they deserve.  In Cinderella’s case, she has repaid humiliation and mistreatment with virtue and is rewarded (note: the prince is a reward, not a rescuer) with stability and honor for the rest of her life.  What about her stepsisters?  Well in the original fairytale, the stepsisters are convinced by their mother to cut off parts of their feet to fit the slipper and/or get their eyes gorged out by birds…. Yeah.  In the end, everyone gets what they deserve.

Unfortunately, “Cinderella” is not the only fairytale with a weakened protagonist and/or themes.  “The Little Mermaid” is actually a cautionary tale about a foolish girl who desires a human prince so much she resorts to witchcraft.  When things don’t turn out how she wants though, she wants to return to the sea, but to do so, she must kill the prince.  Instead of murder someone to reclaim her own happiness, the little mermaid throws herself into the sea and dies.  In “Snow White”, the titular character is an innocent 6-year-old who is loved for her beauty, kindness, and innocence, the same strengths that end in her nearly being killed three times by her wicked stepmother; the story is a tale of true beauty vs. false beauty and, again, justice (the wicked stepmother is executed at the end).  “The Princess and the Frog” is a story about honesty and keeping promises, not winning a prince through a lucky draw or how what you need most is a significant other (apparently Tiana doesn't love her mom and friend?).  And I could just go on and on about fairytales that don’t really fit the “fairytale formula” in terms of message, plot execution, characters, etc.  It’s not hard at all.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I love Disney movies, and I'm not at all against adaptations or retellings.  Involving different interpretations of the characters or incorporating different themes can be fine, too.  However, when the theme is significantly weakener, or even false, because the changes made, I think we might want to take a step back and examine things a bit more.

In conclusion, the original subverters of the “fairytale formula” and the “fairytale princess” are, actually, the fairytales themselves.  Fairytales are far from the formula often attributed to them, as are their famous “princesses”.  I only wish I could cover more details on the complexity of these “simple children’s stories”: the building of plots, the happy ending, more on family dynamics and symbolism, fairytales with male leads, dangers, morals, the subtle hints at strengths and flaws of characters, and so much more.  But that’d need a book, or at least a 70-page essay; fairytales are a bit too diverse and complicated to contain within a single blog post.

For more on fairytales, I highly suggest reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s fabulous essay “On Fairy Stories”.

For an expansion of proper submission to authority and responses to ills done to us, I suggest this radio recording by Dr. Robert B. Sloan: https://hbu.edu/About-HBU/General-Information/University-Leadership/Presidents-of-HBU/Dr-Robert-B-Sloan-Jr/Sloan-Radio/A-Higher-Education-radio/March-2015/Obligations-of-Patriotism-pt-1.aspx

*Note: In this post, I describe only a common version of the tale of "Cinderella". There are variations of this story, such as Cinderella’s father not dying, the ball lasting three nights instead of one, and Cinderella getting her clothes and slipper from birds rather than a fairy, but none of these differences impact the theme “Cinderella” or her character.  I have found the same applies to most, if not all, variations on fairytales.

¹Woods, Ilene.  "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" by Al Hoffman, Jerry Livingston, Mack David. Cinderella.  Walt Disney Records: Burbank,  2012.  CD.


²The Holy Bible, Today's New International Version TNIV.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005.  Print.

Personal Musings: Are You a Mary Sue?

I ask that title seriously.  Are you, as a person, a Mary/Gary Sue?

If your answer is “no”, then what’s with the stereotype against self-inserts?  If you are actually inserting yourself into a story, how could the character be a Mary Sue if you, yourself, are not?  I contend that the issue is not so much that self-inserts are Mary Sues, but rather we have a poor use of the term “self-insert”.

I wish to begin by pointing out that self-inserts fall under two categories: the “sideline” types and “author-character” types.  For the first category, the best I can describe at this moment is that the “sideline” self-insert is one where the author is a more an observer rather than an impactful character in the events surrounding him.  Such stories include Dante in his Divine Comedy and C. S. Lewis in The Great Divorce.  (By the way, where are the people accusing Dante and Lewis of Gary Sue-ing?)  The other type of self-insert is what could be perhaps called the “author-character” insert, where there’s a character that’s supposed to be, or obviously represents, the author while acting as a regular member of the cast rather than the observers Dante and Lewis are in their stories.  It is with this second form that most people protest.

Let’s begin by addressing what I’ve heard called the “superhuman” or “flawless” character issue.  If the main character is flawless and breezes through everything, never fails, never seems to struggle, then there isn’t any tension and, consequently, often destroys interest from the reader.  In other words, it’s hard to make flawless/nearly flawless characters interesting.  I don’t say impossible, mind you.  Virtuous, flawless characters can be engaging, but (1) those virtuous characters still struggle, just in a different way than the flawed character, and (2) paraphrasing one kind of Japanese beauty, flaws are a way of adding beauty/interest to a character.  Flaws help prevent a character from being invincible.

Unfortunately, so-called “self-inserts” commonly fall under the category of the invincible protagonist.  The creator thinks of everything he wishes to be able to do or admires, slaps them all together, throws in the list of his own likes and dislikes, and sometimes even gives said conglomeration his own name.  The end result is an  flawless bore fest that matches everything the creator wishes to be.  I know.  I’ve made such characters.

But here’s the thing… this idealization isn’t actually the creator.  It’s an ideal.  It’s how the author wishes to be, not how the author is, and if the creation doesn’t match the reality of the creator, can we legitimately call it a self-insert?  I don’t think so.  If the only similarity is matching likes/dislikes, appearance, and perhaps a few vague similarities in strengths or personality, it’s still an idealization rather than a resemblance of the author.   If there’s someone with similar appearance and interests to me, is that person me?  What about if we have some similar strengths and personality points?  No.  That’s just my mom.  Seriously.  But even with our similarities, we aren’t the same person.  In the same vein, an author can insert an idealized version of himself into a story, but that isn’t really a self-insert.  Anyone of any personality could insert such a character into a story, with the exact same traits.  Whether or not there are similarities to the author is superfluous.

On the other hand, if an author actually did insert himself into his story, if the author is honest with himself, you might have the most real character you could ever have.  For instance, a self-insert of my present self would be someone who is intelligent, serious, creative, dedicated, generally rational, and loves language and cheesy, innocent shoujo manga and romances (among other things), but who also tends towards indecisiveness, insecurity, pessimism, pride, bitterness, social disconnect/awkwardness, flip-flopping between bluntness and evasiveness, and fear.  And, yes, in writing a story I probably have to simplify the character from myself a bit and would likely have to make my self-insert either overcome some of those flaws that, at the time of my writing, I still contain, or make the character succumb further to those flaws in order to bring progress to the plot.  However, those flaws and strengths would still influence the actions my self-insert takes throughout the story, especially if I honestly ask myself “how might I respond to this situation?” rather than “how do I think I should respond?”, which is a question to save for the end.  And only I, among all other humans, can truly know the answers.

I wish I was different.  I wish I could be charismatic, brave, justice-seeking, poetic, kind, caring, empathetic, and a whole bunch of other things.  But if I’m honest with myself, those qualities aren’t me, just my idealization.  The real me is listed in the paragraph above.  And if those qualities make me a Mary Sue, well, what am I supposed to say?  Apparently I could never make a compelling character.  

So, summary time: self-insert characters, real self-inserts that actually mirror the author, are not necessarily bad and would probably be engaging, realistic characters.  The problem is a perfect/idealized character, who doesn’t have to (and often doesn’t) resemble the author at all.  Such figures are not real self-inserts, for they are not the author actually inserting himself into the story.  So let’s stop using inaccurate terms and address the real issues, shall we?

All stories mentioned (c) their respective creators

Reviews and Recommendations: Lord Peter Mysteries by Dorothy Sayers

So, before we begin, I apologize for missing last week’s update.  I dislike giving excuses unless something was legitimately unavoidable, so I’ll just summarize as “I forgot”.  And that’s it.  Now, onward!

Quiz time!  How many classic masters of mystery do you know?  I’m guessing most know only two: Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.  When compared to the list of classic novelists, this list seems rather… sparse.  Personally, I can understand.  First of all, the birth of mystery as a distinct genre is relatively recent, most often credited to Edgar Allen Poe (that’s mid 1800s, by the way).  Furthermore, the very genre is most often built around the question “who did it”, and once that question is answered, the story often loses some of its appeal.  My prime example is The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, but I’m sure you readers of mystery can think of a few yourselves.  For the most part, mystery seems like an expendable genre.  And that’s coming from someone who loves mysteries.

Fortunately, however, there are exceptions.  One such exception is Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which is so well written in such elements as atmosphere and foreshadowing that the story pulls the reader in even after the mystery is solved.  Another exceptional example, and the topic of this weeks post, is Dorothy Sayer’s Lord Peter Mystery Series.

Dorothy Sayers lived in the early to mid 1900s and was a friend of C. S. Lewis, who admired her work, and his fellow Inklings.  Her most mentioned works, to my knowledge, are her article “The Lost Tools of Learning” and her book The Mind of the Maker, both excellent reads.  However, of what I’ve read, the works of hers I like best are her mysteries starring debonair amateur detective, Lord Peter Wimsey.

My first praise for this series is the beauty of the writing.  Sayers knows how to write good prose.  The sentences flow together, hiccups are few if any, and there are so many clever, quotable lines.  Sayers, in her book The Mind of the Maker and in more than one of her fictions, emphasizes the importance of vocation.  She holds that if someone is called to a work, then that person should strive for excellence in his or her craft.  Sayers lives that out with her writing.

More of her skill can be seen in how Sayers constructs her mysteries.  Sayers knows how to pace a mystery, how to instill a good frustration in the reader to mirror the characters’, when to include red herrings, when to slip in clues, and how to bring about the resolution.  And when I say “slip in clues”, I mean it.  In every Lord Peter mystery I’ve read, Sayers has always made her cases solvable, sometimes even outright stating the key clue.  Sometimes this key is near the end, sometimes at the beginning, sometimes the full implication of that clue might need some more obscure knowledge, sometimes it stares in the face of the audience right till the end, but it’s always been there in every novel I’ve read, hidden in plain sight.  Another nice aspect of her mysteries is how they are chronological and pass in real time.  The full benefit of this I will describe in a bit.  In addition to Sayer’s skillful insertion of clues, she also manages to make her mysteries believable.  I’ve read some mysteries where the solution is logical on paper but sounds ridiculous when you think about it (really, final death in And Then There Were None?  Really?).  Sayers mysteries are grounded.  Every solution makes sense.  That simple logic in her mysteries is very much appreciated.

And now, onto my favorite ingredient in Sayer’s mystery recipe: the characters.

First, a dash of Wimsey.  Lord Peter Wimsey is an aristocrat, the second son to a noble family, with too much time on his hands and a talent for sniffing out trouble.  In fact, he runs towards it.  Though his proud and rather vain at times, the witty optimist Wimsey is just fun to follow.  Furthermore, his impulsive actions do not go without consequence.  Reading his reactions when they happen and then in future books is… not a delight, as often the consequences are terrible, but the closest to delight as can be reached under the circumstances.  The manner in which he changes is also quite refreshing.  If you compare the Wimsey of Whose Body? with that of Gaudy Night, you can feel the difference.

The reason for this change, I think, is mainly due to his relationships.  Surrounding Wimsey is a great supporting cast, of which I will mention three: the police officer and designated “dasher of Wimsey’s theories”, Charles Parker, the faithful friend and butler, Bunter, and the intelligent and blunt, Harriet Vane.  I love these characters.  And I adore the interactions between these characters and Wimsey.  Parker helps keep Peter grounded with his no-nonsense attitude, Harriet is a fellow intellectual who is not afraid to critique Wimsey and encourage him to change and grown, and Bunter… oh, Bunter!  He’s my favorite!  Without Bunter, Wimsey would get nowhere.  It is Bunter who gathers much of the information, who does the forensic work, and is really the detective’s rock.  If Peter is the forerunner to Batman (yes, the first Batman comic was published after the first Lord Peter Wimsey mystery), then Bunter would be Alfred.  Except he’s, I can’t believe I’m saying this, better than Alfred!  At from what I’ve seen, as not only does Bunter keep Peter standing, but he also acts as an indispensable aid to Peter’s detective work.  His first name is also Mervyn, so he gets extra points.  I love Bunter.

And there you have it.  A spoiler-free gushing about Dorothy Sayer’s mystery series.  A few words of caution in closing, though: although there’s nothing explicit, there are occasional instances of sexual immorality.  There’s also some cursing, though, again, nothing beyond a PG to PG-13 type rating.  Just don’t read it to the tykes.

So, yeah, if you like mystery, check this series out.  If you like novels, check this series out, for it holds much more appeal than mere mystery.  These are fictions in which Sayers lived out the theology she held and the demands she made of other artists.  To put it shortly: they are written with excellence.

All works mentioned here (c) their respective owners... which in this case is all Dorothy Sayers

Personal Musings: Influential Quotes

With all the talk about story and it’s importance and power, I thought I’d give a few quotes from fiction that have influenced me, whether in my approach to literature, to life, or both.  Now just to be clear, I’m not ranking these; that’s not the point of this list, and I am only dealing with fiction because to include non-fiction would make the list way too long.  To be more specific, I’m only dealing with primarily printed fiction, so no movies (unless the quote in a movie is also in the book).  Finally, I will be confining one quote per author, again to keep this list a touch more concise.  So with those parameters, let’s get going.

(1)

The part of philanthropist is indeed a dangerous one; and the man who would do his neighbor good must first study how not to do him evil, and must begin by pulling the beam out of his own eye. 

-Lilith by George MacDonald (p. 67)

The influence of this quote is much more confined than the others as it was this quote that changed my mind and my reading of MacDonald.  Before, I’d read some of his work and found great teaching in his work, but the full force of his skill came in his seamless inclusion of Scripture in this quote above.  Never before had I found such a well-done insert, one so smooth, and it made me reconsider my opinions of George MacDonald and begin a more ernest investigation into MacDonald.  Since reading this quote, he has since increasingly earned my admiration.

(2)

Abbot Bernard folded his paws deep into the wide sleeves of his garb.

From a viewpoint on the threshold of Redwall Abbey’s west ramparts he watched the hot midsummer day drawing to a glorious close.

-Mariel of Redwall by Brian Jacques (p.3)

The influence of this quote is not so much in the quote itself as that it is the first lines of the first Redwall book I ever read.  Yes, I had watched the tv show before and got into the series through the show, but in reading Jacques writing in Mariel and then Martin the Warrior, I entered the world of 300+ page books.  From then on, I gobbled up every Brian Jacques book I could find, which impacted my writing style and raised the bar of what my 9-year-old self sought in her reading.  The full list of impacts Jacques books made on me I don’t even know, but whatever they are, they began with these two sentences.

(3)

Mine had been a life of shame.

I’m like the one black sheep born into a pure white flock.  Unable to enjoy the things my peers enjoyed, unable to grieve the things they grieved, unable to eat the things they ate-- being born an ignoble black sheep, I didn’t understand the things my friends found pleasent, such as love, kindness, and sympathy.  I simply dusted my dark wool in white powder and pretended I was a white sheep, too.

I’m still wearing my mask, still acting in this farce.

-Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime by Mizuki Nomura (p. 1)

Wow.  Yeah.  Sorry for the long quote, but I really needed to include it all.  This quote, first read when I was 14 and two years into a deep depression, complete with daily thoughts of suicide, stands as the first time I truly felt a book speak to me.  I had never felt so connected to words on a page as when I read those.  Not exactly a healthy first connection, but, ironically, it helped me.  It put to words something I felt but could not express.  I know that everyone says “I’m different; you just don’t understand” and all that, but no one truly does understand the feelings and impressions of someone encaged by depression.  Added onto that this quote still is a bit accurate of a description of me.  I am totally different from all my siblings: the straight-man born into a family of comedians, the first black sheep (rebellious) child, someone who literally couldn’t understand why my siblings would laugh or cry at certain things.  I have/had difficulty sympathizing with others, and was not very kind (I’m much better now).  Even with my friends, by middle school all my male friends had moved away and I hated, to a stubborn degree, discussing fashion and boys and those girly small-talk topics that always seemed to pop up among my female compadres.  In the end, I became an outsider.  For two years (14 in my family), I had lived in a state of disconnect, and finally I found a connection, something to which I could relate.  It was something I needed so desperately, and here it was in this book.  From this quote onward, I began to connect more with literature, learned better how to immerse myself into the story, to relate with the characters.  This quote, though depressing, I think helped open my door to sympathy.  And, yes, I’ve since grown beyond the quote, but it’s impact I cannot deny.

(4)

There is no such thing as coincidence in this world; there is only hitsuzen.

-Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicles/xxxHolic by CLAMP (p. 104[TSR]/19[Holic])

Okay, so this if from manga (Japanese comics).  I never said I was limiting myself to prose, only to print.  Oh man has this quote stuck with me.  With this quote, my entire though process on fate, destiny, determinism, coincidence, etc. shifted, which of course impacts how you view the rest of the world.  Till reading this quote, I hadn’t thought much about fate, but now I had to.  My philosophically-oriented mind demanded it!  I’m no sure I entirely agree with it, but it still gets me thinking even to this day.  By the way, if you don’t know what hitsuzen is, here’s a link that gives a good explanation.  Definitely worth checking out.

(5)

In other words, the basics of alchemy is the "equivalent exchange"!  That means that to obtain something, something of equal value much be lost.

-Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa (p. 26)

Again, another manga.  FMA.  Man.  You have done so many numbers on me!  I shouldn’t have read you so early into my manga journey.  You set the bar too high.  Anyway, this is another quote that really got me thinking about my view of the world.  It made me consider the concept quoted above (equivalent exchange) into life to test it.  Again, I don’t entirely agree with it, but it really got me thinking about how the world works and my own place in everything, and encouraging thought, self-examination, and investigation into the foundations of how the world operates is more than many stories could ever claim.

(6)

“So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

-The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (p. 82)

Yeah, you probably knew this would be here.  But it truly is one of the most powerful truths ever stated.  I first encountered this quote (or rather its slight variation) in the Peter Jackson movie; unfortunately, my young mind missed it in the excitement of my first exposure to Middle Earth.  It was only when my church’s pastor used the quote in one of his sermons that I really heard it, and it blew my mind.  The simple truth of it, the obvious yet moving reality, indeed the freedom in living with this as your mindset, I can’t properly describe it.  I can’t tell you how much I love this quote and how much it’s already influenced my thoughts and the encouragement it gives me in my daily life.  And it’s only one of Tolkien’s amazing truths.  I just wish I had the space to list them all.

(7)

All of Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis

Okay.  I’m kind of cheating, but really I don’t know of any specific quote to summarize my experience.  The truth of the matter is the whole book changed my life, specifically how I relate to others.  To give details would require a post all its own, and I’m sure no one cares about that story.  Seriously, though, I just can’t say enough about this wonderful novel.

So there are a few quotes that have influenced me through my life.  Hope it’s been fun, and see you next week for another review.


Edit: Added a link I'd forgot to put in.  Oops.

All works mentioned here belong to their respective owners.

Spoiler Shelf: Phantom vs. Faces (Round 2)

And here it is, part 2 of my comparison of twisted love between Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera and Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis.  This week I will summarize and comment on the endings of both these stories as well as the handling of love, twisted and not.  With the direction established, let’s get going.

In my opinion, the ending of a story is one of it’s most important aspects.   A strong ending can make even stories we didn’t like before that ending into a beautiful piece of literature (as is the case for me in Where the Red Fern Grows) or can damage what used to be an excellent tale (see my Spoiler Shelf on the Prydain Chronicles for an ending I thought dissatisfying).  What’s more, the ending of a story often establishes the author’s view of a subject.  If the first Twilight book had ended with Bella dying or at least accepted the wisdom of the Edward’s decision to break up despite her grief, the message would have been totally different.  Point is, endings can make or break a story.

And Phantom’s ending is really the straw the breaks the camel’s back.

Now, before I go further, I must remind you (as I forgot to last week) that this post will be full of spoilers, and not just any spoilers but perhaps the worst kind as I’m spoiling the ending.  Okay, warning is over.  Back to Phantom.

Throughout The Phantom of the Opera, the titular Phantom, Erik, is built up as a genius, powerful maniac of tragic past so obsessed with Christine that he would kill to have his way.  Because he was born hideous, he was rejected by his family, became a circus show, and then, when he finally found a place he could be a twisted as he wished, his superior feared his genius and tried to kill him.  Erik is not a healthy person.  Unfortunately, his brought-up-in-a-loving-home rival, Raoul, is not that much better (as I discussed a bit last week), so I can’t say I favored either of them, but at least the Phantom we had established as a crazy, twisted lover who would stop at nothing to obtain the person he desires.  Too bad that’s all thrown away.

At first, I thought Leroux was writing a fitting ending.  Erik kidnaps Christine and threatens to kill everyone in the opera house, including the two of them, if she does not become his wife; meanwhile, Raoul and the Persian (YAY!) sneak into Erik’s house to rescue Christine.  The two men end up, however, trapped and nearly drown.  Christine, who had attempted suicide earlier, promises Erik that if he frees Raoul she will not kill herself and will be the Phantom’s wife.  Erik agrees and spares the Persian and Raoul.  The Persian is then released, having to abandon Christine and trust the insane Phantom’s word that he will not kill Raoul (Leroux 210-296).  The Phantom won.  In a sweep of tragedy, twisted love conquered… until the next chapter, where we learn that right after the Persian left and Erik imprisoned Raoul, the Phantom returns to Christine, gives her a kiss on the forehead and then she returns the kiss and cries for him.  Apparently this so moves Erik that he becomes, in his own words, “no more… than a poor dog ready to die for her,” releases Christine and Raoul, and wishes them happiness (301-302).  He then relates the events the Persian before dying of grief.  Yep.  The fearsome Phantom, the insane, obsessive Phantom who was willing to kill anyone, including the one he desired, to have his victory is instantly transformed by a kiss on the forehead and tears.  What?

Now I don’t think that ending necessarily bad, especially as I am a Christian who holds that Christ can and has and does redeem even the most vile of humans.  However, with what the story had built up, especially concerning Erik, to suddenly give it such an ending falls into an anti-climactic mess.  In a different story, I might have thought that ending beautiful, but here it felt like a slap in the face.  All that build up, all that emphasis on Erik’s obsession and insanity immediately thrown out because of “my mother never loved me, but you kissed me and cried for me.”  Even the Phantom’s insistence that Christine truly cared for him or pitied him becomes untrustworthy because earlier Erik has shown to have been capable of deceiving himself into thinking Christine loves him (Leroux 248).  Also, despite how Leroux writes it, it’s not even a happy ending as Raoul is only a lesser Erik, so twisted love wins anyway just in a manner that makes it seem like it’s a good thing.  The entire ending, when taken in the context of the whole story, rings false.  

Which really is a shame because with a different ending I might have actually liked Phantom  I can even think of two examples.  First, and my preferred, would be that Christine had not tried to kill herself earlier and/or Erik ignores her pleas and kills Raoul.  Then Christine, overcome with grief, commits suicide, and it is only then, holding Christine’s lifeless body in his arms, that Erik realizes he was wrong, falling into despair himself, eventually to death.  

If you still want a happy ending, first tell the story from Erik’s perspective so that we have an emotional connection with him, witnessing his growing obsession with and adoration of Christine, and we don’t see Raoul in such a creepy light.  Then, when Erik spares and release Raoul, Christine lives but becomes a true living corpse, in contrast with Erik’s mere appearance of one.  Over time, her emptiness pains Erik’s heart.  Then, unable to bear the lack of her voice, her smile, any sign of life in her, and realizing his Christine is dead without Raoul, Erik at last releases her, knowing the woman he loved cannot live if she is with him.  Either one, a tragic ending of twisted love’s victory or twisted love’s realization of what destruction it has incurred, I think would have brought more satisfaction than Phantom’s true ending.

Although, I’ll admit I might just prefer those options because Till We Have Faces does both.  Lewis broke Faces into two different parts.  In part one, we have the tragic ending with Orual having suffocated any healthy love and relationship she has even held and hid behind a physical veil and the mental veil of queenship while blaming and condemning the gods. That conclusion alone would have been powerful.

However, there is a second part.  This part follows, over a passage of time, the queen’s confrontation with the destruction she has caused.  Orual even dreams of Psyche, of Psyche performing impossible tasks made possible because Orual takes the toil, danger, and pain in Psyche’s place.  Eventually, Orual is summoned to a court before the god and the dead, where she makes her case, reunites with her deceased tutor, the Fox, faces her inner ugliness, and finally realizes her folly (Lewis 253-298).  Then, she witnesses Psyche’s final trial, for they were indeed real.  All along the way, Psyche is tempted by illusions of ones she loves, including the Fox and Orual, and Orual’s heart breaks, for she sees what torture she forced upon her sister.  Seeing the apparition of herself cry out so desperately to Psyche, now knowing the evil such cries beget, Orual can only pray that Psyche will overcome them, and so the girl does with tears streaking her face.  When the illusions fade, Orual says to the Fox, “Did we really do these things to her?… And we said we loved her.”  The Fox replies, “And we did.  She had no more dangerous enemies than us” (301-302).

Then, Psyche returns with something in her hands.  Orual goes to meet her and falls to the ground, ut Psyche lifts her up and hands Orual what she, Psyche, in her final trial fetched, “the beauty to make Ungit [Orual] beautiful” (305-306).  All her trials Psyche did for Orual’s sake.  Psyche, who loves Orual with true love, suffered for her sister and sought what would make her sister beautiful, and it does make her beautiful.  Both inside and out.  In a scene I cannot quote for it contains too many beautiful words to fit here, Orual is redeemed by the admittance of her own sin and Psyche’s love.  At last, ugly Orual’s heart is transformed, as is her appearance, and, in one of the most telling phrases of Orual’s change, upon seeing her’s and Psyche’s reflections, she sees that they are “both beautiful (if that mattered now)” (307-308).

In part 1, twisted love seems to win, but Lewis, a Christian who knew the redemptive power of Christ’s true love, does not end his story there.  Instead, true love, sacrificial love, triumphs, and Lewis concludes his story as one not just of destruction but of restoration and healing.  Faces is a story of fall and redemption, of the perversion what what is good and then its restoration.  This is a story of tikkun olam, a Jewish phrase meaning “putting back into harmony everything that is broken.”  Beautiful.

Why, Phantom, do you feels so empty in comparison?  Should not your similar ending have brought such beauty?  One main reason I can give is that the characters never feel the consequences of their actions, so any “redemption,” especially one so rushed and without an foreshadow or build up, fails to satisfy.  We barely feel Christine’s despair or the Phantom’s hurting heart.  We never even see Raoul’s reaction to his brother’s death.  It’s as if consequences don’t touch the characters.  Orual’s actions, however, impact her, and we feel it.  She dwells upon the results, justifies herself, as if we are the judges, runs away, hides behind a veil, refuses to face her own evil, and then, when at last she confronts her brokenness, she does not break down at once, but in pieces till her last defenses crumble and she stands naked before herself and us.  She sees her own wickedness, and then she sees Psyche and real love, and Orual’s heart finally breaks.  Orual has fought this entire time; we have seen the disastrous results, and now, at the end of all things, she humbles herself, admits and submits, and she is transformed and restored.

This is the Christian narrative, and it is both the most personal and universal of stories, for redemption is the world’s story, the story of all you who have removed your veils, and it is mine.  And it is beautiful.

Leroux, Gaston.  The Phantom of the Opera.  London: Penguin Group.  2008.  137.  Print.

Lewis, C. S.  Till We Have Faces.  New York: Houghton Harcourt Publishing Company.  1984.  Print.

Spoiler Shelf: The Letter That Started It All

The following is the word-for-word* transcription of the letter I started, but never finished, which first prompted me to consider starting a blog.  In writing it, I discovered the extent of my desire for dictating my impressions of the stories I read, when I found myself 6 pages in and only half done.  I did not wish to send my friend a 12+ page letter, so the letter remains unfinished, though in my possession.  I had intended to edit down the content, but time passed, and I began this blog, where the edited material shall be instead (hence the similarity/quotations of some points in my posts).  Now, two points: first, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS both for the stories mentioned and for my next two blog posts, and second, my thoughts today are not quite so emotionally charged as they were upon first writing the letter.  I have since been able to take a more distanced approach of one story, especially upon rereading it in order to have a more balanced view.  So, without further ado, let us dive into the letter that started it all:

*A few names have been removed for privacy reasons and spelling errors have been corrected, but besides that, word-for-word

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 10, 2014

Dear X,

I have been meaning to write to you recently but had been undecided as to the content until I finished a certain, well-known classic book.  If, from that statement, you reasoned I'll make that book the topic of this letter, you are half correct.  I do wish to discuss the book, but primarily in comparison with another book, one I recently finished rereading, that addresses the same topic as the prior-mentioned classic: twisted love.  Both stories you know, or have at least heard of, but while their subject matter is related, their approaches to the subject of twisted love is very different, as are the skills of the authors behind the stories.  I suppose that's enough of an introduction, so let's move on to the comparison between C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces and Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera.

I believe in my last letter I mentioned I was rereading Lewis's Till We Have Faces, but in case I forgot to mention it, I will say that a few weeks ago I finished my third read through of the story; my first time being in literature class last year at R.  As you might be able to tell, and perhaps already know, I love that book!  I wrote to you about the impact the story had on me in realizing how I, like Orual, had become obsessed with my close relationships, such as my friendship with you, and how I was hurting myself and my impression of you.  Even now, a year later, I see myself, or at least my past self, in Orual.  As I read through, I found myself meditating on that time, feeling so thankful for the book, and really thinking about real love and what love means.  In other words, it's a story I can connect with, immerse myself in, and makes me think about myself and reality.  It's a powerful story to me.  However, Lewis did not just write a story; in my eyes and mind, he practically wrote a person.  That statement probably sounds silly, but I really think it's true.  Each time I read Till We Have Faces, Orual seems to become more and more real.  When I read the story, it doesn't feel to me like I'm reading a fictional narrative but the real account of an actual person's life.  I feel like I'm reading about a smart, rational, but sensitive person, driven to cling to any love or acceptance due to rejection from everyone around her and a sense of inferiority and worthlessness.  She wants a place because she has always felt pushed aside for her younger sister.  She is hurt and craves love, and when she receives some, she clings onto it, onto those pieces of joy and acceptance.  However, because she is afraid and insecure, she hangs on too tight, becoming jealous and obsessive, which eventually strangles any pure love she held towards others and twists it.  It's a tragic story of a real person with real emotional and mental pain that led to poor decisions and deception that had real, horrible consequences.  Perhaps I am reading things into the narrative, but as I contemplate Orual, those are my impressions.  The feeling of reality is boosted by Lewis's personal, natural-sounding writing style and the insertions of little cultural bits sprinkled throughout the story, as if Glome had been a real place.  What's more, Lewis wrote Orual's thoughts, how she came to those thoughts and her influences, in a matter that really seems/is logical.  We completely understand Orual's thought process and sympathize, even agree, with her.  Orual feels real, more so than any other fictional character I think I've ever encountered.

Finally, I wish to touch on the consequences of Orual's thoughts and actions as well as the story's ending.  I don't know if you've read the book, so I'll try not to say too much, starting with the consequences in the story.  I should probably mention that in discussing Orual's consequences, I will touch on the impact of other characters' thoughts and actions as well, as they influenced Orual's thoughts and actions in turn.

To summarize the ingredient of "consequences" in Faces, as far as I remember, pretty much every conversation or action has consequences.  Even things that, when read the first time, see to just be on the side are brought back up and have direct influence on the story, whether with plot or Orual's character.  The interactions between Orual and the three men closest to her, her father, the Fox, and Bardia, provide the best examples.  Their words shape Orual's view of the world, one which I think reflects lewis's own pre-Christian confusion of "reason vs. myth/super-naturalality", her view of her self, and impact her actions.  Each of these secondary characters, with their distinct attributes and human interactions, are irreplaceable in the narrative for their influence on Orual.  Other characters of more distant relation (in terms of human relation, not bloodlines) and less frequent appearance, like Orual's sister Redival and the girl's old gossip caretaker, are essential and distinct in their influence, their words and actions directing the flow of the narrative river.  However, (of course) it is Orual's actions, thoughts, and the application of those in relation to Psyche that are the most distinct in terms of consequences.  How Orual interacts with Psyche ends up destroying the relationship they had, and Orual's thoughts following impacts not only her own character but also the entire country of Glome.  Her thoughts and actions changer her country!  Rather interesting it is, though, that Lewis pretty much glosses over these changes to to nation, focusing on the destruction that Orual brings to her personal relationships.  Every single relationship of any significance mentioned in the story is ruined and twisted by Orual, the consequences of her thoughts and actions.  For most of the book, twisted love has triumphed, and we sympathize, pity, and reprimand Orual, for she sowed the seeds of destruction and reaped it.  In other words, Till We Have Faces is a record of twisted love and "real" (feels real) characters whose thoughts and actions have real, even far-reaching, consequences leading to a fitting climax and conclusion that I won't discuss here in case you haven't read the story.

These points in Faces pretty much describe everything lacking in Phatom.  My favorite summary of Phantom's issues in to say that it suffers from the same problems I hear most often when describing the Twilight series: two guys in an unexplainable love with a blank-slate female in a story where a side character is more interesting and the conclusion falls flat for lack of consequences.  Unlike with Faces, I will not spend much time on each point, as there isn't much to talk about, and I have no hard feelings about "spoiling" the story, not that there's much to spoil.  Actually, saying that there's not much to talk about is a bit too harsh, but I stand on my point about spoiling.  Most people know at least the general idea behind the plot, the solution to the mystery of the phantom, if you will.  Any other potential moment of tension or mystery, or rather most other, is ruined by the author himself.

I suppose this point, this destruction of tension, would be a good start for discussion.  I know it's not from the list of Twilight problems I mentioned, and not having read Twilight or watched the movies, I cannot say if this point applies.  However, this is not an academic paper and I do not want to skip this important point nor have to rewrite these late two pages for the sake of structure.  I ask you, as my reader, to forgive this selfish decision.  Now then, onward!

To understand better my problem with the lack of tension in this story, we must address the genre of the book.   The Phantom of the Opera is primarily a romance.  However, this is a point I wish to discuss later as this topic of tension relates more to the story's secondary genre: mystery.  Within the mystery genre, what makes a good mystery?  In my opinion, it is not the idea of the audience getting to try and solve the case before the detective (which would exclude most, if not all, of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries) but rather the author's ability to keep the reader in suspense.  We want to know who did it, how and why.  We want to know if there will be more thefts or murders or whatever.  We want to know if justice will prevail and the criminal stopped, but we won't know unless we read.  Solving mysteries along the way beside the detective is what makes us read all the in between stuff and is a large appeal of many mystery masters like Agatha Christie, but it's the answers to the questions who, how, why, and what happens next that the reader is searching for.  The tension of not knowing the answers and always feeling like a piece is missing or just out of reach is the great fun of a good mystery.  Now then, if the questions and tension of finding answers is what makes a good mystery, what makes a great mystery?  The answer is the same for every great book: even when you know the answers, even when you know what will happen, the story still takes you in.  I know many people do end up getting sucked time and time again into even bad, poorly written stories, otherwise Phantom and Twilight wouldn't still be around, but please hear me out.  The point I am making is that a truly great mystery can pull you into the mystery even when the tension is, supposedly, gone.  My example is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson.  Although I knew the story, although I had seen more than on adaptation of the story, although I knew the answers to just about every questions a mystery addresses, I was still sucked in.  I knew the answers, but I was still caught up in the mystery: finding clues, seeing foreshadowing, accompanying the "detective" as he tried to find the answer.  The tension that should have been gone grabbed me and kept me hooked.  For that reason alone (and there are others) I think Jekyll and Hyde can be considered a great mystery.

So after all that discussion about mystery stories, what about Phantom?  How does it measure up?  Well, right from the start it faces the same problem Jekyll and Hyde does: pretty much everyone knows the solution.   Everyone knows the identity of the Phantom, or at least has a general idea.  With this, the tension is already weakened.  However, even if this were not the case, Phantom would not be a good mystery, let alone a great one because Leroux did not know how to write tension... pretty much at all.  To illustrate, I wish to address a non-mystery scene.  The illustration involves two of the three main characters, the protagonist, Raoul, and the object of the story's love triangle, Christine.  In this scene, Raoul, wishing after much effort to finally separate Christine from the Phantom, confronts her on the identity of this supposed specter.  Christine complies, describing the first encounter she had and everything between then and now.  She confessed and re-confesses that she loves Raoul but says she cannot be with him for fear of the Phantom.  Raoul responds by declaring they should run away together, escape the Phantom, and be free together.  Christine, who has been nervous all day and constantly checking Raoul's words and actions in case the Phantom might overhear them (in fact she brings Raoul to the roof of the opera house so they can converse in secret), agrees to run away with Raoul after a performance the following night she promised the Phantom she would do, if I remember correctly.  Okay, so, looking at this scene, it had potential for great tension, wondering if they might succeed or perhaps be stopped as they try to run or even before they get a chance and however many other possibilities might be there.  Where did the tension break?  Right.  From.  The.  Beginning.

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And there you have it.  As I said, the letter remained unfinished, and while I might have writing something following this last paragrapm (it's been nearly a year, so I don't know), I cannot find it.  I hope the overly-long paragraphs were not too out-putting, and I pray you had a wonderful Christmas and do have a Happy New Year, 2015! :)

Sincerely,
V. A. Boston

Personal Musings: Show vs. Tell

 “‘Are the young women to be veiled or unveiled?’

     ‘Need you ask?’ said the King with one of his great laughs, jerking his thumb in my direction.  ‘Do you think I want my queen frightened out of her senses?  Veils of course.  And good think veils too.’  One of the other girls tittered, and I think that was the first time I clearly understood that I am ugly.

     This made me more afraid of the Stepmother than ever.”¹

Wait… wait a moment!  Is… is this… no… is this… telling!?!  I see some nice, strong verbs like “jerking” and “tittering,” but what about that ending?  Where is the showing of “ugly” and “afraid?”  And, a few paragraphs later, the same thing happens again!  So writes the author, “I know now that the face I saw was beautiful, but I did not think of that then.  All I saw was that she was frightened, more frightened than I-- indeed terrified.”¹  What is meant by such a vague word as “beautiful” or “terrified”?  These are telling words!  Who is this?  Who is this author who dared to tell instead of show?  Who dared to use such mental words as “frightened” rather than describe what “frightened” looks like?  Who would do such an elementary mistake as telling instead of showing?  Who… what?  C. S. Lewis?  What?  No.  There must be some mistake.  In what book would Lewis, the C. S. Lewis, have possibly done something so… Till We Have Faces?  You mean C. S. Lewis’s final piece of fiction?  The work he thought his best novel?  My favorite novel?  That Till We Have Faces?

Yes.  That Till We Have Faces.

To any of you who have taken a course or read a book on creative writing, how often have you come across the phrase “show don’t tell?”  I cannot describe how frustrated I am with this myth of writing.  Yes, I call it a myth, for, like a myth, it contains some truth, but can, and seems often does, lead into false beliefs.  Many times have I encountered on blogs, in classrooms, and in books on writing the mantra of “show don’t tell” as if it were one of the foundations of literature.  In all truth, the foundations of story are character, plot, and words, not images.  

Within that last category of words, we have abstract words, words that exist only in the mind such as beautiful, happy, scared, ugly, etc., and we have concrete words or phrases, ones we can perceive through out senses like golden hair, dimpled cheeks, tear-stained face, and warty nose.  To give another example, authors give concreteness, through story, to abstract concepts and world views: God’s forgiveness in the parable of the prodigal son, the dangers of greed in The Hobbit,² and the destructive nature of twisted love in Till We Have Faces, to name a few.  The difference in literature from most other creative mediums is that it uses words to do so.  Mediums like paintings, graphic novels, movies, and video games all use pictures to tell their stories and messages.  They are the epitome of “show, don’t tell” because they are visual mediums.  Literature uses words.  And what do these words do then?  They tell a story.  Literature records words, a medium of communication that requires someone to hear you, which makes novels, short stories, etc., in reality, an auditory medium.  We don’t watch a book.  We listen to or read (mentally listen to) them.  You could watch a movie that’s just a bunch of images, but a book isn’t considered literature if you just list a bunch of really detailed descriptions.  To repeat the mantra“Show, don’t tell” is to say, often unintentionally, something like “make your book a movie.”

Now, before someone drops accusations of the fallacy of equivocation on me, let me say that the type of telling I’m described above is not exactly what is meant in the saying “show, don’t tell.”  My point in the previous paragraph is simply to say that, much as music’s power comes from the arrangement of notes and movie’s power often stems from its arrangement of visuals, the power of novels originates more from the usage of words than on detailed images.  Do I mean by this that we don’t need detailed images in stories?  By no means!  I would never think Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queene better without such gruesome and terrifying a description of the dragon.  What I mean is to say that the most powerful image imaginable (pun intended) cannot carry a book as can the most simplistic of “telling” sentences.

So what is meant by “show, don’t tell”?  I hardly need answer that question.  “Show, don’t tell” means don’t “tell” your audience something when you can “show” it, such as replacing descriptions like “she was frightened ” with sentences like  “she trembled, clutching the smooth cloth of her wedding dress till it wrinkled”.  (Ironically, this second example, that of showing, requires less imagination on part of the audience as the author does all the imaging for them.)  Now, I do not intend to say teachers and writers who promote “showing” are entirely wrong.  Most writing does benefit from detailed descriptions and stronger, more exact word choice, as I mentioned above by referencing The Faerie Queene.  Even Snow White is described as having skin white as snow, hair black as ebony, and lips red as blood rather than just as “beautiful.”  However, I know from experience of two issues with the mantra “show, don’t tell.”  Firstly, new authors, and sometimes even experienced ones, most often end up describing too much all over the place.  When students are told not to use such words as “delicious” or “happy,” works tend to get bogged down in over-description.  Secondly, authors, under the spell of “show, don’t tell,” end up showing all the wrong things.

For, in reality, sometimes telling is more powerful than showing.  What do I mean?  Let’s return to Till We Have Faces.

First off, I wish to quickly illustrate one power of using telling instead of showing through the example of using “frightened” and “terrified” instead of showing them.  During this section of the story, Orual, our first person narrator, was a little girl, and her young mind’s first reaction was to compare her own fear to this other girl’s, which is a very human thought process.  How often do you, when first meeting someone, begin reading them to discern the person's emotional state?  And what if it was someone you feared but, to your surprise, appeared to be afraid as well?  And then, when recounting memories from childhood, do you often give exact details from those readings you did as a young child in that surprising first meeting where you saw mutual emotion from someone you feared?  By using telling sentences like “she was frightened-- indeed terrified,” it’s more natural, adding to the believability of the story.

The other example I wish to use is when Orual calls herself “ugly.”  Though I have read the story three times so far, I cannot recall one detail of Orual’s appearance besides her brown hair and that she is “ugly,” both of which are mentioned in the first chapter.  After that, the only physical descriptions we really get of her are about her clothes, and the only “showing” we see is how no one is romantically attracted to her so long as her face is visible.  Why would Lewis do this?  Why would something so essential to the story as Orual’s appearance be so neglected?  You would think that something like this, the source of the rejection by people around her and of her low self-esteem, would be dwelt upon more, wouldn’t you?  But it’s precisely the lack of “showing” that makes the statement and its effect so powerful.  Is Orual actually physically ugly?  Or is she perhaps just less feminine?  By only telling us she is ugly, Lewis forbids our knowing and therefore our objections.  We cannot say anything to counter the claim because we have nothing to counter.  We can only accept what Orual has accepted already: her physical ugliness.  Furthermore, by giving less detail about Orual’s physical ugliness, Lewis draws attention the ugliness of her heart.  Orual knows she is physically ugly, but she does not understand how ugly and twisted her heart becomes, too.  Meanwhile, the reader sees Orual’s ugly heart without seeing the face Orual dwells upon.  Finally, and this is perhaps my favorite idea, I find it fascinating how, right from the start of the story, Orual has no face.  Till We Have Faces was not the original title of the story, but it is a main theme, the idea of approaching God face-to-face rather than hiding behind a veil.  Halfway through the story, Orual begins wearing a veil, but to the reader, her face has been veiled from the beginning.  Perhaps it was not Lewis’s intention to make it so, but even if it were not, I think it is a powerful image brought about by the lack of imaging (lack of “showing”) employed by Lewis.

Till We Have Faces is full of examples like these two just mentioned, instances of “telling” rather than “showing” that add power to the story rather than detract.  You see, when it comes to showing and telling, it is up to the author to decide which to use based upon which is more effective.  For instance, consider two descriptions of a man walking through a desolate place.  If I wanted to write a “show” description, I might do something like: 

“As he walked, the toe of his boot suddenly caught an unseen stone, and he crashed to the ground.  With a groan he stood and stepped forth again.  The rocks, however, threatened with every step to trip him or twist his ankle.  More than once a stone slipped out from under him, and he tumbled down onto rough and jagged rock.  Before long, hasty bandages wrapped around his knees and hands where rock has pierce or gashed, but still he continued.  Presently, he came to a wall of rock, thrice the size of his height, and his heart sank.  With shaking fingers, he gripped the wall and began to climb; however, his hand soon slipped, and he fell to the hard earth.  Blinking back tears, he clenched his teeth to stop the sobs forming in his throat."  

By contrast, a “telling” description might be, “And on he walked, and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. And as he walked, his baggages became more a burden, and his heart more a baggage.”

Each of these examples provides a different effect.  For the first, we are “in the moment” with the character, experiencing the difficulties of this land.  We witness his pain and struggle, and that influences the tone.  The second example, on the other hand, feels much more desolate.  We are distant, and our only experience with the character is the length and weight of time and distance.  As we read the repeated words, we can feel some of the burden, though we are not “shown” anything specific.  The emphasis in the second example is the drawn out nature of the tiring journey.  We see no moments in time, only that it goes “on and on and on.”  Either one of these descriptions can be powerful.  It all depends upon the context (of both the scene and the story itself) and what the author wishes to convey.

And so, I implore you, stop this false dichotomy.  Don’t use a pithy saying like “show, don’t tell” when it’s so misleading.  If, after saying such a phrase, you must unpack it and describe exceptions or proper use because it’s so easily misunderstood, then it has failed as a truism.  Rather, carefully consider which is more impactful for each instance because really, it is not a matter of show or tell, but instead of show and tell.  For is that not what written stories do?  Come, let me show you truth by telling a story. 


¹Lewis, C. S.  Till We Have Faces.  New York: Houghton Harcourt Publishing Company, 1984.  
       Print.


²Ward, Michael.  "A Thief in the Night: The Christian Ethic at the Heart of The Hobbit."  CRI.  The 
     Christian Research Institute, n. d.  Web.  1 Dec. 2014.  <http://www.equip.org/articles/thief-night-
     christian-ethic-heart-hobbit/#christian-books-3>