You're a film reviewer, music critic, contributing editor, columnist, novelist, and you're married to a poet. You'd be a fun guy to talk to at a party or social gathering. Do you get lots of invitations?
Why anybody would want to invite me over, I have no idea. Does anybody really want an earful about why the Oscars make me want to smash things, and why today's popular music gives me a headache?
But yeah, Anne and I are part of a fantastic community -- here in Seattle, and online -- that is always throwing parties, going to movies, going to concerts, giving recitals, opening art exhibits, reading original work at local bookstores. It's constantly inspiring.
And yet, we have to say "No" to almost all of these invitations. If we said yes, we'd probably have to give up our lives as writers.
Anne is one of those rare 21st-century human beings who values the rewards of quiet, of solitude. She'd usually rather spend the evening with a good book than a movie. She'd usually rather be by herself than out with a group of people. As a result, she observes things that most of the rest of us miss.
I need that kind of stillness in my life, or I would be a terrible writer. The world of activity is always whirling like a hurricane at my doorstep, inviting me to be busy, busy, busy. But Anne calls me back into stillness, where I find opportunities to contemplate what I've experienced, absorb what I've read and seen, and then take the time to craft something original out of those experiences.
That's one of the things I appreciate about Anne, and one of the reasons I'm so grateful that I get to spend my life with her.
You've written both non-fiction and fiction, but right now you seem very focused on your fantasy series, The Auralia Thread, which includes three books. You've said that the idea for this series came while you were on a hike with your wife. That must have been some hike.
It was. Watch out for the territory around Flathead Lake in Montana. Anne and I were hiking there, and I was inspired by the color and the beauty all around us.
As a kid, I was allergic to just about everything, and didn't spend much time outdoors. I've outgrown that problem, and I think I have a greater enjoyment of the outdoors because of that childhood deprivation. Growing up, I had to enjoy the "outdoors" that I found in storytelling. That's why I loved The Lord of the Rings more than other fantasy stories. Tolkien crafted a world so detailed that I loved venturing through it. The environment of the story was as important as the plot. That's why I loved Watership Down too. Those worlds became as real to me in my imagination as the neighborhood where I rode my bicycle.
Anyway, when I went on that hike with Anne in 1995, we were talking about fairy tales. Anne said, “Isn’t it a shame how so many people, when they reach a certain age, fold up their imaginations, put them in a closet, and forget about them?”
That sparked something for me. I pictured a city set in this beautiful landscape, and I imagined that city draining of all its colors. I imagined that creativity and imagination became illegal there. And then I realized I was looking over the shoulder of a character, a young artist who was heartbroken by the sight of that ash-white city. Then she began to weave a magical expression of love that would address the longings felt by those poor, deprived people.
The story started like that, and that's what became my first novel -- Auralia's Colors. I had no idea that it would lead me to so many wild, frightening adventures and become a whole series.
Raven's Ladder, the third book inThe Auralia Thread, was just released by WaterBrook. Some reviewer on Amazon called it "a delightful upward journey to ever greater heights of storytelling bliss. Plus there's cool fighting parts." Does a comment like that intimidate you or spur you on?
Wow. That's quite a statement. I hope it's true. A review like that makes me want to live up to its description.
I write these books late at night, and on the weekends, because the rest of my time is taken up by what I call "the bill-paying jobs." It can be exhausting. Like I said earlier, I miss out on so many invitations, so many events... and I also miss out on exercise, sleep, and time with my wife. The process of writing this series has been tremendously costly, so if the books bring pleasure or any kind of reward to a reader, that comes as very good news to me.
I see so many novels that are written in a hurry, without attention to poetry or nuance. They're so focused on suspense and action that they don't invite the reader to think things through. They're often extremely derivative. And they're often so heavy-handed with their messages that they don't cultivate any mystery that might make the reader want to go back and read the book again. Most novels are forgotten within a few weeks of their release. If I'm going to invest in storytelling, I want to craft something that will live on in people's imaginations and hearts. I want to take them somewhere they haven't been before, and I want to write in such a way that they'll sometimes feel compelled to read out loud. I don't know how close I've come to achieving those goals, but that's what drives me.
C.S. Lewis said to Professor Tolkien, "If they won’t write the kind of books we want to read, we shall have to write them ourselves; but it is very laborious." I couldn't say it better.
You've written and spoken a lot about the "Christian imagination," a term some people would say is an oxymoron. What's happened to the Christian imagination, and how do you suggest we bring it back?
In my opinion, the Christian imagination needs to go back to "the Dark Ages."
The Enlightenment taught the world to believe in what it could observe and prove. This was a blow to the role of imagination, metaphor, poetry, and symbolism.
Unfortunately, Christians have, for the most part, decided to contest the world's narrow-minded reliance on mere science by stooping to argue with the same tools. We stopped crafting art that was beautiful and mysterious, art that would kindle questions about spiritual matters. Instead, we started crafting simple-minded sermons, stories and songs that were fashioned to persuade rather than to intrigue. We became, in a word, salespeople.
And if you're like me, you don't go out on Friday night to listen to salespeople. You go out to the movies for an imaginative experience.
We need to recover what we left behind in "the Dark Ages." We need to prioritize beauty, mystery, and imagination again. Faith is about the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Faith is explored in the language of poetry and metaphor. The recipe of faith requires a healthy dose of mystery, and a little dash of doubt... just enough to keep us questioning, growing, pursuing. That's why the Christian life is about a "relationship" with Christ; it's not about passing a test with the right answers. Thus, Christian artists should be striving to remind us of the world's most provocative questions, and creation's most beautiful mysteries. To tease our minds into active thought, active relationship with the Divine.
Just look at how Jesus spoke: "The kingdom of God is like this. And like this." And his stories were subversive and shocking and confounding. He did not tell "Christian stories" with obvious messages. He invited us to discuss scenarios that were perplexing, and that caught us by surprise.
Artists, by their very nature, draw us closer to God even if they claim they're doing the opposite, because their work suggests that there is something going on in the world that we cannot reduce to a paraphrase. They suggest that we can learn something by pondering relationships, looking at beauty, by contemplating the composition of elements within a frame. They invite us to look beyond ourselves.
Anybody who does that -- Christian or otherwise -- is in danger of sparking profound questions in the human spirit. That's why my own faith has been strengthened far more by secular art than by the pulpit-pounding tactics of what passes for religious art these days.
And that probably explains an ongoing phenomenon: Compare the Literature section of the bookstore with the Christian Fiction section. You'll find authors who are Christians shelved in both places. Most of the books written by authors who know how to tell compelling, artful stories--like Marilynne Robinson, Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, J.R.R. Tolkien, Madeleine L'Engle--end up shelved in Literature. The beauty of their work invites a large audience. By contrast, most of those stories characterized by message-driven storytelling, stories written to make Christians feel comfortable, end up shelved in Christian Fiction. Don't get me wrong -- there are exceptions. But I would hope that Christian writers would be aiming for the kind of excellence and artfulness that captivates all kinds of imaginations. Art should not be about persuading or appeasing; it should be an invitation to discovery and discussion.
Why should people read books like Raven's Ladder? Is there a practical benefit, especially for Christian readers?
If you're asking me why Christians should read fantasy, well... that's easy. Fantasy strips away the gadgetry and distractions of our immediate, everyday lives and boils it down to the essentials of creation: Mountains, forests, fire, stone, water. In short, fantasy returns us to a world in which our relationship with each other and with nature allowed mystery (often represented as "magic") to be that much more palpable and inescapable.
J.R.R. Tolkien persuaded C.S. Lewis to embrace Christianity because he was able to describe the purpose and appeal of fantasy and mythology. C.S. Lewis loved mythology, but he suspected that these "pagan" stories were terrible lies. (And Christians continue to make that mistake today, condemning popular mythology as "Satanic" and "demonic.") But Tolkien challenged Lewis to think about the recurring themes of fantasy and mythology. Pagan myths and fairy tales tell us stories in which the world is under a curse. Something beautiful has been imprisoned or put to sleep. Often, a god or a king or a divine figure descends, appears in a humble disguise, and delivers a redemptive kiss or a spell-breaking act of love. The god"falls" and becomes a man. We suspect there is a broken connection between us and the Divine. We anticipate a hero, a savior, a superhuman redeemer. We anticipate that the curse can only be broken by a kiss from a regal but compassionate prince.
"Eternity is written in our hearts," and it manifests itself
sometimes in our stories--even the stories of unbelievers. And these stories
are pointing toward Christ, the True Myth that entered human history. That's
why fantasy stories are so timeless. That's why fairy tales resonate with so
many people.
When I write fairy tales and fantasy, I find myself describing
situations that capture my own spiritual questions.
Raven's Ladder is a story about an exodus, as a society seeks a new home in a dangerous world. It's about a king named Cal-raven who follows a vision of faith, struggling to reconcile his dreams and hopes with the harsh realities of the world around him. It's about his sense that there is a grand and benevolent presence in the world, and he's trying to define that presence. But when he does, he comes to frightening realization, and his faith suffers a devastating blow.
Meanwhile, a work of magical art continues to tease Cal-raven with the suggestion that there is a better place for him and his people. It's the art that was introduced in Auralia's Colors, the first book of The Auralia Thread. It's the beauty that transformed the heart of a beast in the second book, Cyndere's Midnight.
I hope readers enjoy The Auralia Thread. It may not be the swords-and-dragons kind of fantasy story that they expect. I'm writing it because I'm finding mysteries and questions and adventures in Auralia's world that intrigue me. It's my own creative process of asking God some hard questions by imagining some frightening circumstances. And I'm grateful for where it has led me. I hope that I'm able to share those stories in language and pictures that will be exciting and meaningful to others as well.