Why You Should Read FICTION

By Matt Watson

There are two types of people in the world whenever I mention The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia: those who roll their eyes at me, and those who quote them with me. Inevitably I try to sneak in some tidbit or other from my favorite fiction authors because fiction, in part, helps inform me on how to process the world around me. Imagination helps interpretation.

Tony Reinke says over at Desiring God, 

“The imagination is a necessary component for reading fiction books, non-fiction books, and, of course, for reading the Bible. God’s book engages our imaginations by the parables of Jesus, the poetry of the Psalms, the adages of the Proverbs, and, of course, the apocalyptic language of the prophets. But what makes human imagination even more incredible is how we experience in our minds things we did not, have not, or cannot experience ourselves. 

“[Imagination] allows us to order the world, and see things collected together as opposed to the fragmented way we typically perceive the world. Dragons embody evil. Faithful and True embodies holiness and justice. Revelation engages our imaginations until we see reality through radical images, images that push us past the dominant worldly ideologies we simply assume and naturally ingest daily like the air we breathe.”

You Participate in and Enjoy God’s Creativity

Reading helps stretch the mind, not to the breaking point where it is no longer resilient, but so that like any muscle it can grow and perform better. God is the most creative person, and we just copy him in whatever we do. He made imagination, and through imagination, we can see beauty, goodness, and all the works he has made and then express worship to him.

Some take what they see and write on that, creating good non-fiction that informs and educates. We need that in our lives. But we also need the creative spirit found in fiction.

For example, if you do not read fiction you will miss out on reading about Sam’s desperate charge in defense of Frodo against a monster that would make HP Lovecraft envious, and then defeating it. You would miss every beautiful appearance of Aslan in Narnia, from his singing Narnia into existence, to his final “Well done” at the end of all things. You would miss out on tesseracts and 5th graders fighting IT on Camazotz in A Wrinkle in Time. Nor would you be able to relate with Christian on his pilgrimage to the Celestial City in The Pilgrim’s Progress. Nor would you know the exploits of Achilles at the great battle of Troy, or the long journey home full of dangers and temptations for a war veteran to his family in The Illiad and The Odyssey. 

Stories are important because God has created stories. The Bible is his story, and in his story, we get to play a part. If Romans 11:33 is true and with Paul, we can say, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” then we should see fiction as a way to go further up and further into those depths and riches of God. In this way, we worship him in heart and soul, as well as the mind. 

The Right Stories Help Us 

C.S. Lewis saw stories as a way of educating and keeping us on the right track. In the Narniad, he makes several references to the importance of the “right” kinds of stories. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the Pevensie children know to follow a robin to cover and leave an exposed position because robins are “good birds in all the stories I’ve ever read. I’m sure a robin wouldn’t be in the wrong side” (LWW, 67). Likewise, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace, who doesn’t read any fiction but only “books of information and had pictures of grain elevators or of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools” (VDT, 3), is then ill-prepared when he comes across a dragon’s hoard. He would have otherwise known that to have the greed of a dragon for gold makes you a dragon.

Not all fiction is created equal, however. You must be choosy because you don’t have time on this earth to waste (1 Pet 1:24), and you don’t want to fill your head with cheap, commercial nonsense that has no “nutritional value.” Some books are worthy of your time, and others aren’t. At this point in my life, the space I have for fiction is actually quite small and reserved for what I consider to be classics or books I’ll read over and over again. From Sherlock Holmes and Hemingway to Lord of the Rings and Narnia, these are the hearty literary meals I like to return to. But there is no hard and fast law to dictate what you should and shouldn't read. Just don't waste your time with something that isn’t worthy of it.

Additionally, just as with physical disciplines like working out, you don’t want to do the same sets all the time, you need to change it up a bit to keep the body working, and so too do you need to switch back and forth between fiction and non-fiction to keep the brain working. It is helpful to read fiction at times to allow the brain to rest from the work of processing non-fiction. And it is helpful to step into a space of learning with non-fiction rather than becoming gluttonously full of fiction only.

Fiction Can Communicate Truth

It is not a waste of time to read fiction and it doesn’t need to be ignored or dismissed. Even fiction communicates the truth, though it is made up. Lewis was converted to Christianity through J.R.R. Tolkien convincing him of “true myth.” In a letter to a friend upon his friend’s conversion, Lewis said, “Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e., the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things’.”

Stories are God’s, and God expresses himself in stories. We see that even in the Bible. Blink, and you’ll miss how Paul used pagan mythical literature to contextualize and preach the gospel. In Acts 17, Paul was in Athens having conversations with Jews and Greeks alike. In verses 22-34, Paul addresses the Greek philosophers and their idols, saying of God, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us…” (Acts 17:26-27, emphasis mine).

When Paul says “that they should feel their way toward him”, that is a direct reference to Homer’s The Odyssey. We know that because of all the ancient Greek manuscripts still existing, the word Paul uses there is found in only one other place: The Odyssey. It refers to the blinding of the cyclops who then has to feel about his sheep to try and find the sneaking Odysseus. What Paul just did is he used that culture’s prized work of fiction to preach the gospel. Even Paul read fiction.

Fiction Can Sharpen the Mind

Reading fiction does not necessitate escapism. It can be done joyfully, and worshipfully as a form of rest and recreation. God gave us the sabbath, not us to the sabbath (Mark 2:27). Additionally, fiction can also be used to process reality. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength, Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron may all have present-day applications and they can help us interpret differing worldviews.

Fiction may not be your main course, but it should at least be supplemented as a healthy side dish. Either way, make time for fiction in your life. There are plenty of lists out there for what leaders read, like Theodore Roosevelt and General James Mattis, to pastors and teachers at The Gospel Coalition, and they all include some form of fiction (usually classics). Sharpen your mind through reading, and feed your God-given creativity and imagination with fiction, so that you can better apply and understand life around you, but most importantly to worship God the Creator with creativity.