Must Your Novel “Mean” Something?

Kevin DeYoung of The Gospel Coalition recently posted on the difference between storytelling and preaching. Using a quote from novelist, university professor, and National Book Award winner, Walter Wangerin, Young addresses an issue front-and-center among Christian novelists: Message-driven fiction.

First, Wangerin on the meaning of a novel:

[The m]eaning [of a novel] devolves from (and must follow) the reader’s experience. Meaning, therefore, springs from the relationship between the reader and the writing. Should I, the author, ever state in uncertain terms what my book means, it would cease to be a living thing: it would cease to be the novel it might have been, and would rather become an illustration of some defining, delimiting concept. Sermons do that well and right properly. Novels in which themes demand an intellectual attention can only be novels in spite of these didactic interruptions.

In this, Wangerin appears to break from a basic tenet of religious fiction. “Should the author ever state in uncertain terms what their book means,” he says, “it would cease to be a living thing… and would rather become an illustration of some defining, delimiting concept.” In other words, novels with a stated meaning or message are little more than sermons, illustrations of “some defining concept.”

So… Authors should never attempt to articulate what their novel means.

Defenders of message-driven fiction will probably hedge here. Every story means something, they typically retort.  I have a hard time disputing this. A meaningless story seems like an oxymoron, a waste of time for writers and readers. Even a roller coaster is meant to do something. Stories are birthed within worldviews, propelled by ideas, values, images, and scenarios. How can breadcrumbs not be dropped along the way?

I think it’s important that we not interpret Wangerin as suggesting our novels shouldn’t mean something.

On the surface, it’s an issue of handling. If an author is heavy-handed, their message becomes little more than a “didactic interruption.” Frankly, “[n]ovels in which themes demand intellectual attention” aptly describes many books on the Christian market.

But the issue of meaning is not limited to the treatment and handling of a theme; it also has to do with the nature of reading. Novels should mean different things to different readers. Or as Wanegrin put it, “Meaning, therefore, springs from the relationship between the reader and the writing.” Thus, the reason an author should stay mum about their message is that a good story can mean a lot of different things.

In his essay on literary criticism entitled On Criticism, in the Of Other Worlds collection, C.S. Lewis makes a distinction between intent and meaning. “It is the author who intends,” Lewis writes. “The book means.” As such, the author — not the reader or critic — is best at understanding his intent in a piece. That’s pretty obvious.

The author’s intention is that which, if it is realized, will in his eyes constitute success.

In other words, if the readers laugh and cry when the author hopes, he is successful. If, however, they are laughing when the author wants them to be crying, or vice versa, he has not achieved his intention.

But according to Lewis, “Meaning is a much more difficult term” to define.

The nearest I have yet got to a definition is something like this: the meaning of a book is the series or system of emotions, reflections, and attitudes produced by reading it. But of course this product differs with different readers. The ideally false or wrong ‘meaning’ would be the product in the mind of the stupidest and least sensitive and most prejudiced reader after a single careless reading. The ideally true or right ‘meaning’ would be that shared (in some measure) by the largest number of the best readers after repeated and careful readings over several generations, different periods, nationalities, moods, degrees of alertness, private pre-occupations, states of health, spirits, and the like canceling one another out when (this is an important reservation) they cannot be fused so as to enrich one another.

Notice that while intent resides in the author, meaning emerges in the readers at large.

It’s a fascinating idea that once the writer submits his piece to readers, something completely outside of her control happens: the book’s meaning emerges. This dovetails with Wangerin’s thoughts and suggests that one reason an author should refrain from over-handling or articulating their novel’s meaning is that the author is not always the best judge of her own book’s meaning.

DeYoung concludes his thoughts on Wangerin’s quote:

A story is meant, first of all, to be experienced. The story is the point, even before it “means” something. Movies and novels that try hard to be explicitly didactic, usually make for poor stories and so-so lessons. The fiction is supposed to be felt and discussed, often with multiple layers of meaning or deliberately debatable meaning.

I like that last line. However, novels with “a deliberately debatable meaning” are anathema in an industry that demands a message.

So must your novel mean something? I don’t see how it can’t. The problem is, if you try too hard to tell me what it means, you’re probably preaching.