October Journal, Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

I have been reading Joseph Epstein’s curious book, The Novel, Who Needs It? I have often asked the same question, given my fascination with writing novels with ideas, and have hopes of learning from this most distinguished man of letters.

My question takes a slightly different form, that is, is there a place today for novels of ideas? Is there a place for novels that incorporate serious themes, questions, even political and social ideas (horrors), so very unfashionable, into character and plot. Epstein admires the nineteenth-century era of long dense novels, as do I. My concentration in my BA Literature was Charles Dickens and I appreciate the long sentences and paragraphs and character development so at war with the twenty-first century mind. I particularly appreciated Dickens’ ideas, writing at a time of child labor and poor houses, experiences he endured as a child.

Who writes novels of ideas today, or in the last fifty years? Who writes these and still is published? They may make one think, and that is challenging for many, especially if the thoughts “trigger” negative feelings.

I find the discussion particularly curious, given many are bemoaning the current culture of death and propaganda, saying, the truth tellers, the Jews and the Christians (who are required to try not to lie) have ceded the ground to nihilism, socialism, communism, and may other isms that prop up a culture of tyranny and death. We are told by these astute observers of our culture that we should have been writing novels with ideas, films with ideas, for art, don’t we all agree, informs culture.

And yet, as a present-day novelist, I am told not to preach, not to teach, but to embrace passion, particularly illicit passion, hedonistic characters, and demonic deeds. I am told to check the boxes if I want a publisher, and the boxes are many and illicit. Can’t go there.

I suppose Aesop’s fables were of the preaching variety too. And fairy tales that warned one of witches in forests that gobble children. And morality narratives of all kinds, reflecting a cosmos of good and evil, virtue and vice, the stock and trade of Judaism and Christianity.

And now we have wars and rumors of wars, serious threats to our democracy, challenges to America, the one country in the world, or should I say on the planet, that can defend the innocent against the guilty, the peasant against the tyrant, and truth against lies.

Many are speaking of the rise of evil in our world. Evil lives in all of us, as Solzhenitsyn said, in every heart. The question is, how do we root out evil in our own hearts? We define it so that we can recognize it so that we can destroy it within ourselves. Again, Judaism and Christianity point the way with lists and laws and confession and repentance and forgiveness. With virtues and moral theology classes (highly recommended).

It turns out that Joseph Epstein, whose writing I greatly enjoy, as essayist and culture defender (not warrior), while he has written numerous short stories but has never written a novel, and I wish he would write one so I can learn from him. But critics often don’t write in the genre they criticize.

There are other writers whom I greatly admire who comment on the arts culture of today and bemoan its materialism and self-centered creeds, immediate gratification, lack of responsibility, denial of the work ethic, and many more. But then without the God of the Jews and the Christians, this is what we get – we become our own gods.

I will continue writing my novels of ideas, characters placed in today’s culture, for good or ill, who must grapple with virtue and vice. There is so much to say, so many characters to fill the pages, so many challenges to life in this third decade of the twenty-first century.

The wars and rumors of wars are a constant that humanity must face, just as each of us must face our own inevitable death. But considering the nature of humankind, who he is, why he is what he is, where he has been and where he is going, is no small thing. And today, it is vital that each of us think again, ponder good and evil again, consider virtues and vices and how to live with one another. How to love one another.

And so we are back to the loving and demanding God of Abraham, the God of the Jews and the Christians. We need to listen to him so that we can make sense of this world in which we find ourselves. We need to listen to the law and be held accountable, for one day we will face judgment whether we believe in judgment or not.

In the meantime I’m sticking with my characters who debate some of these questions, question some of these debates, and in the end, I, along with my characters, will be accused of preaching and teaching. So be it.

And also in the meantime I’m hoping someone else will write a novel of ideas we can all learn from, to see how it is done, and how to live our lives the best way possible.