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LIFE Quest literature leads us on individual journeys by Anne Tracy
From the time I first read "The Little White Horse," by Elizabeth Goudge, I stepped onto a path unfolding before me ever since. I imagine I can see the stony road, rising sometimes toward distant hills or suddenly falling away in perilous descent, but ever traveling onward toward the heart's desire. Quest literature satisfies a deep need; even as we savor the alternations of adventure, struggle and respite, we learn how to go about our individual journeys. Beloved examples are J.R.R. Tolkien's "Hobbit and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and C.S. Lewis's Narnia series and his "Pilgrim's Regress." I often wander off the track onto byways leading nowhere; my promiscuous literary tastes tend toward diverting but mind-numbing escapist stories. Therefore, I honor with gratitude those writers who, in company with Tolkien and Lewis, have repeatedly returned me to that invisible path which is my soul's own compass bearing. George MacDonald, the Scots heterodox minister, is best known for his fantasies and children's books, "Lilith," "At the Back of the North Wind" and "The Princess and Curdie." His longer novels, full of sermons, folk tales and Scots dialect, reward a reader's efforts. I would include also the once popular but now forgotten Pamela Frankau, the esoteric novelist Charles Williams, and Dorothy Sayers. Most of these writers were part of the group known as the Inklings, who have served as spiritual guides for many readers. Since the diagnosis of cancer last January, and my retirement, I have wandered down excessively frivolous paths in my reading. Odd choices in reading have attended previous stressful events, also. As I waited for a scheduled surgery in 1980, I read over 20 stories by Horatio Alger! There is some general agreement about what is a good book, and many lists, with cultural variations, of great books. But what is a bad book? When is a bad book also a good book? Let me be clear that I am not referring here to violence, evil, pornography, horror or other deplorable tastes, though I have sampled all of these. I intend by the phrase "bad books" to include authors or titles in which readers and critics find serious flaws of plot, diction, characterization, and so on. The works of many authors who seem to me second-rate writers have nevertheless afforded me great interest, amusement or fascination. Writers who come to mind include Horatio Alger, Louisa May Alcott, "Pansy" (Isabella MacDonald Alden), L. T. Meade, Gene Stratton Porter, James Oliver Curwood, Grace Livingston Hill (niece of Isabella Alden) and Andre Norton. As a frequent dabbler in the shallows of popular literature, I admit without shame my fondness for good storytellers, even if as writers they are flawed by excess sentiment and stiff or immature literary styles. When is a bad book really a bad book? It is bad for me when the reading of it leaves me feeling discomforted, a bit ashamed, when the elusive quality of integrity seems wanting in the work. This week I read two books bought at a yard sale for their possible interest, an Outback romance by Aaron Fletcher, "Wallaby Track," and a western called "Broncbuster," by Mike Flanagan, supposed to be "in the tradition of Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey." Both of these left me feeling unsatisfied and cheated, needing to regain my readerly self-respect. When I
have stumbled into meretricious reading, it is time to get back on the
path, to get on with the quest. The journey opens before me, now nearing
the end of the road. A book at a time, I follow where brave hearts have
gone before, furnishing maps to travel by in the stories they have told. (Anne Tracy, a retired MSU librarian, has been diagnosed with cancer. He column appears regularly in City Pulse.) CP
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