Thursday, June 7, 2007
Can a man write a story on Atlantis–or is it better to leave the word to work on its own? –C.S. Lewis
Posted by Zach in News

I recently read Lewis’ essay “On Stories.” He maintains that one likes a story not for the mere sequence of events, but rather for the emotional quality that arises out of that sequence. The Story is not the thing. Lewis contends that the story is simply the net to catch something else. A story is a net to catch a particular ambience or emotional vapor. This is why we revisit a story. In essence, we don’t revisit the world of Jane Austen because we are desperate to know if the fair protagonist will ensnare the rich guy, but rather we return to her books because we wish to immerse ourselves in an ethereal grace and civility. If we were merely after a “Boy Meets Girl” story, then we could interchangeably satisfy our appetite with a Sweet Valley High novel, but it wouldn’t provoke the same internal response would it?

I think I agree with Lewis’ thesis, but it made me ask myself, why story then? Why don’t we just drink at the fountain of poetry or music or something? I’m sure there is a jazz age poem that could give us the same gleaming elegance of Fitzerald. So why do we want to wade through plot complications and human conflict?

I haven’t found the answer, but I am leaning toward one. Perhaps we like to see incomprehensible humanity made comprehensible. As life is a series of events, perhaps we like that a story that not only possesses a series of events, but also arranges them in such a manner as to bestow to us meaning and emotional resonance. Like individual atoms that form matter, events cohere to form a narrative.

At their best, stories properly assembled can display a transcendent good. The same is true with properly assembled lives. Such a parallel is no doubt pleasing.

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