If you pay attention, you will find that every story has something to teach you. Maybe you think curling up with one of your favorite novels is just a pleasant pastime, and I certainly hope it is that, but for the observant reader it can be so much more. Stories have the power to stir the deep waters of the human heart, and by looking carefully we can get a glimpse of the truths hidden in those depths.
For example, my understanding of romance was recently expanded by reading a fantasy novel that was probably targeted at teenage boys. “The Name of the Wind” is a novel written by Patrick Rothfuss and, like many science-fiction stories, it draws in readers by allowing them to vicariously experience the danger and power of a magical world through the adventures of the main character. Of course, such a story would not be complete without a woman to make things complicated, and this story spent a lot of energy developing a particularly ill-fated romance.
What surprised me about this story was how strongly I reacted to the ups and downs of the main characters fumbling relationship with the elusive and alluring love interest. Rothfuss actually does a brilliant job connecting the reader with his characters. You come to feel and agree with the way the two young lovers admire and respect one another, and recognize how good they could be together. But you also come to understand that their relationship is all but impossible due to life circumstances and the mix of pride and fear making up their own personalities. The author creates very mature and genuine affections in the hearts of two people who are too young and inexperienced to know how to handle them properly. Towards the end of the story I actually threw the book across the room after the two come infuriatingly close to speaking their hearts, only to bury them again as the world begins to pull them apart.
After I finished the story I kept wondering what it was about this fictional, and very juvenile, romance that got me so worked up. I still cannot decide whether or not I even want to read the next book. Rothfuss is a compelling writer sure, but I think there is something more about this high-school level romance that simultaneously draws me in and makes me want to stay away, something inside my own heart.
My current theory is that there is something inside me that believes the romance between a man and a woman is supposed to be as passionate and simple as a high-school romance. That a man is meant to desire a woman’s beauty with all the passion in his heart. That romance should be simple, almost foolish, without any need to be wise or guarded. Yet, because I am not in high-school anymore, I also know that reckless love cannot navigate the troubles and brokenness of the world we live in. Lasting relationships require wisdom and dedication in addition to passion and admiration. To love is often a conscious choice, yet maybe once, before the fall, it did not need to be. I think my heart knows that the love between a man and a woman was not originally designed to require the caution and prudence it now does. That when it sees the ill-fated bloom of an unguarded romance it both craves and weeps for what can no longer be.
Maybe I am misreading my own emotions, but I am confident there is something to learn from the way my heart stirred as I experienced this story. Maybe a theology book could teach me more about the role of a man and a woman or the effects of the fall, but some things need to be felt to truly learn what they mean. Stories, and our reaction to those stories, can teach us much about the state and affections of mankind if we are really listening when we hear them. So next time you sit down with a good book, be observant of how you are being affected, and see if you can’t learn something about the inclination of your own heart.
