Welcome to Faith and Fiction Saturday, a weekly discussion of the intersection of faith and fiction. I invite you to write a post on your blog about the topic or participate in comments. Check the schedule for future topics so can prepare in advance!
Describing the kinds of books I like to read, I often call them "faith driven." This isn't a particularly helpful explanation at times. It's not a genre. (no it's not Christian fiction. It CAN be Christian fiction but isn't automatically) It doesn't even always mention God. So what is it?
I like to read books where the idea of faith is respected and explored in the characters lives. They do not have to have the same faith as me and they don't have to believe the same things I do. But seeing how they engage with it and how it influences and affects their lives intrigues me.
I also like to read books where the faith of the author influences the story they tell. This one is a lot harder to define...it's impossible, perhaps to separate an author's beliefs from the way they see the story they are telling. They are not necessarily setting out to write a book influenced by faith, but it happens anyway, because I believe art is influenced by the way we see the world. This is why when I learn an author has a personal active faith--I become more interested in reading their books. (and I recognize it might be a turn-off for others)
So to me, faith-driven doesn't necessarily mean "filled with religious talk." It means the story and the characters are informed by faith and perhaps engage with faith.
How do you define it?
Friday, February 11, 2011
Faith and Fiction Saturday: What is Faith Driven Fiction?
Logging you in...
I enjoy faith driven books as well Amy - and you describe it well here. I think I have always dabbled in this style of read but never had a name for it.
Recently (this week) I finished and reviewed a Christian Fiction - Unspeakable Journey, but the main character had been abducted and was living in a Muslim community in Saudi Arabia. This book left me with insight to the Muslim faith.
I also read (but have not posted review yet) Think No Evil by Jonas Beiler, the true story about the Amish schoolhouse shootings in 2006. I have read books about the Amish but this one showed me their faith in ways I never knew before.
Recently (this week) I finished and reviewed a Christian Fiction - Unspeakable Journey, but the main character had been abducted and was living in a Muslim community in Saudi Arabia. This book left me with insight to the Muslim faith.
I also read (but have not posted review yet) Think No Evil by Jonas Beiler, the true story about the Amish schoolhouse shootings in 2006. I have read books about the Amish but this one showed me their faith in ways I never knew before.
I try not to name these things because for me it's a little like the difference between literary and commercial fiction: often hard to define and often a stigma is attached to both depending on your preference. That said, I do love when faith in some way--maybe less formally--drives a story. :)
I guess part of the issue, and I have avoided saying this in the past, because I'm definitely not very smart about hte whole issue, but it seems to me that the problem is that simply having a designation of 'faith-driven fiction' isn't a genre, because genres are, in a lot of ways, a creation of marketing. A book that takes on faith as a topic to muse over isn't really something directed at a particular audience. To draw a parallel, faith is a part of the human experience, so is, say, loneliness, but to say 'loneliness driven fiction', while such a designation might include a broad spectrum of wonderful books that are out there, and it might be an interesting way to study literature, isn't really a 'genre' - a genre is a section at the bookstore, in some ways. I have certainly been able to say at times in my life that I would love to go find a good book about loneliness, but I wouldn't expet this to be a genre. The more traditional and frustratingly limited genre of 'Christian Fiction' now - a genre defined (perhaps badly) by it's specific marketing towards a subset of Christianity that wants a very specifc, narrow type of book (sort of like, say, 'Hard Science Fiction', or 'Harlequin Romance', as opposed to the broader idea of science fiction of romance), because this is a great way to sell books. It's sort of like selling gluten free cake mixes: sure there's not a lot of people who want it, but the ones who do, you have a pretty captive market. I think faith SHOULD be more discussed in fiction - but in all sorts of fiction. I don't know that seperating it out does it a service. Seperating out something so integral to the human experience, I might argue, is part of why it's become the way it is: when you isolate a trait, it tends to intensify to the exclusion of most people?
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