What’s the point of stories?  I mean, why do we bother reading them?  They’re not particularly useful.  Nobody reads Moby Dick as a sailing instruction manual, (although perhaps you could!); or the Chronicles of Narnia to better understand wardrobe furniture; or the Odyssey as a travel guide.

Many people today will tell you that reading is like going to the movies: it is for your entertainment.  Pick what you like and enjoy it.  But although the best of books often will be entertaining, that’s not the answer either, at least not around here.  After all, I expect some of you find that the books you are required to read are less entertaining than you’d like—they are hard work, sometimes difficult to understand, and often seemingly irrelevant to your life.

So, again, what’s the point of stories?

In a way, we read stories for the same reason we have conversations with our friends—to know them, and to be known by them.  And believe it or not, you and I, we’re not so different from Susan and Edmund; Captain Ahab; even Odysseus.  But we have to read their stories to get to know them, to see the world through their eyes, just like we have to listen to our friends’ stories before we really know them and can call them our friends.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”  Or as C.S. Lewis put it simply, “We read to know we’re not alone.” 

Have a wonderful day.