The best friends of beauty in a novel are deep contemplation, honesty, intentionality, originality and love.
Deep contemplation, because lasting beauty is never superficial. Honesty, because duplicity is ugly. Intentionality because true beauty comes only from beautiful motives. Originality because again, nature’s variety proves it inseparable from beauty. And love, because it is both the purpose and the Source of all things beautiful.
Sadly, our culture values instant gratification above everything, even at the cost of ugliness and mediocrity. Television, fast food restaurants and tract houses testify to this. Even more sadly, Christian readers are as guilty of it as anyone. The popularity of simplistic answers to the many paradoxes in the scriptures is one proof of this.
Only pride or money could explain why a novelist would pursue readers who demand easy answers to the vast enigma of the Godhead, who have no time for sunsets, who find an ocean view too empty, who barely see the roses, much less stop to smell them.
We are told no one can serve two masters. Write for pride or money, and you do not write for love or beauty. Yet we are also told our novels must burst upon the reader’s mind with all the urgency of a fire drill. We must hook them. We must do it right away or they will rush off to the next shiny lure, and we must keep them on the hook, wiggling like a dying fish until the bitter end. But beauty does not operate that way. Beauty demands nothing. It does not insist. Beauty whispers. It entices.
For those who love in spite of the unknown and unknowable, for those who gaze in awe at sunsets, ocean views and roses all ablaze with color, there is another sort of hook.
Just to pick one fine example, consider One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Marquéz. I found little in the plot to justify so many pages, and today I do not recall a single character’s name, but the words . . . the words! Contrary to the usual advice, for me it was no page-turner. Instead my mind lingered, dreading the coming end because each page turned meant one page closer to the ceasing of those beautiful, beautiful words. The joy they sparked within me will not die until I do.
How I wish the world was filled with novels of such beauty! How I strive and strive to write such words, every single one an offering without blemish to the Source of beauty. And how I search for those who also strive to write that way, that I might have a chance to read them when the Lord is done.
An excerpt from an article which first appeared at Novel Rocket in 2011
Athol, you captivated me with your beautiful words. Indeed, after reading the piece silently, I was compelled to return to the beginning and read it aloud. Slowly and deliberately (for the diction required that despite the clock’s insistent ticking), as if I were reciting it for an audience of thousands. I voice a hearty, “Amen,” to your concluding paragraph.
Write on!
Because of Christ,
Sharon
I identify. Beauty is my favorite morsel. I’m refreshed to find another who voices my own cravings.