Pandemic Survival 101: Read Epic Fantasy

This is not a particularly original thought. But, original or not, it’s what I’ve been thinking.

Because the libraries have been closed for quarantine, I’ve relied primarily on book donations from friends the past few months, and consequently have increased the amount of non-fiction in my reading diet. I am so grateful for those books, because four months without books would be…unspeakable. Forget low toilet paper supplies and loneliness—paper and ink ranks up there with food and shelter on my hierarchy of needs. Still, I find myself missing fantasy fiction.

And because I’ve been snubbed more than once for my unserious, unchristian genre of choice (“What do you mean you don’t write Christian Romance? Didn’t you say you wanted to be a writer?!”) I wondered if I was simply being escapist by pining after swords and adventure and heroics.

Isn’t it better, more realistic, more faith-building, I reasoned, to come face to face with the horrors of Stalin’s gulag? Or the limits of our medical system, or the oppression of women? I do think it’s important to read those things and to sit in the reality of a fallen world. But after some thought, I’ve decided fantasy also has its place as well in a well-rounded reading life. Non-fiction shows us ourselves for what we are, but fantasy gives us a glimpse into what we could be, and, for Christians, what we will be.

Over and over again, fantasy holds out hope for a time and a place and a leader that will transcend the muddy wreck of human ambition. Beowulf sacrificing himself to save his people, Aragorn, riding out in a last-ditch attempt to give Frodo a chance at scaling Mount Doom. Aslan, ruling over his garden at the end of the word, Chrestomanci setting to rights all the bumbling wrongheadedness that has occurred in one of his many worlds, Harry Potter giving himself up to defeat Voldemort.

We want leaders like those leaders. Desperately. To the point that we are sometimes willing to pin our hopes for a happy ending on human beings woefully incapable of providing it. Non-fiction underscores that failure. Even the truly heroic are not enough. They can’t escape the brokenness of their own souls, or the inevitability of death, and they are never enough to end the pain. But despite this failure, fiction, especially fantasy, strengthens the desire for a good king, for justice to triumph over corruption.

And it is good to hold on to that hope. It’s not escapist, because, just as hunger reminds us that we need food, our craving for good leadership reminds us that we are meant to serve a King. One day Christ will return, and that longing will be satisfied. The prophet Isaiah says that God will “swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth.” (Is 25:8) It will be the triumph to top all other triumphs.

So rather than imagine a goodness and truth on an idea or group of people that fall short, step back. Read good fantasy fiction. Remember that the resolution we crave isn’t here yet. Right now, it’s dark and dirty and spider infested. But the victorious end approaches. The King is coming back.

#Christianity #fantasy #fiction #politics