My Genre

 

For many years, I searched for good books.

I read bestseller lists. I looked at award winners. I followed book club recommendations. If a book was widely praised, I felt it might resonate with me, too. I trusted the algorithm to recommend titles suited to my reading preferences.

Yet the results puzzled me. Many books that were supposed to be perfect for me left me unmoved, while a handful of others stayed with me for years. The same pattern appeared in television. Some highly acclaimed series failed to capture my interest, while others spoke directly to my heart.

Only recently have I begun to pay attention not to the categories of stories I loved, but to the qualities they shared. At first it seemed I must like historical fiction. Then perhaps it was mysteries. Then literary fiction. But none of those labels quite fit.

What I have realized is that I am drawn to stories about people learning what matters. My favorite characters are not necessarily brilliant, powerful, or successful. They are observant. They are thoughtful. They pay attention. They continue learning throughout their lives.

In the Maisie Dobbs series, Maisie is always growing in wisdom. In The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, books become a means of preserving humanity and building community. In The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a concierge and a precocious child discover that culture and beauty can become a bridge across the loneliest distances. What draws me to all three is not the plot. It is the quietly radical idea that paying attention changes you.

What interests me is not education for its own sake. It is wisdom. I am less interested in characters being clever than in characters being wise. The stories I love often place people in difficult circumstances such as war, loss, injustice, loneliness, or social change. Yet the focus is not on suffering itself. The focus is on what people do with what they learn from suffering.

Again and again, the stories that stay with me ask a simple question: Given what we now understand, what shall we do? That question appears in many forms. How shall we treat one another? How shall we live? What is worth preserving? What responsibilities come with understanding? How do we create beauty and meaning inside imperfect circumstances?

I am not especially interested in stories that merely observe life. I am interested in stories that illuminate life and then ask something of the characters — and quietly, of the reader.

The same pattern appears in the television series I love. Foyle's War, Lark Rise to Candleford, The Blood of the Vine, Lupin, and A French Village all follow people wrestling with questions of justice, community, responsibility, and courage. Their circumstances differ widely, but the underlying question remains the same: What does wisdom require of us now?

I have also learned something about how I prefer to experience stories. For many years I have listened to audiobooks. Books such as Sapiens and Caste worked well in audio because they were primarily about ideas moving forward. But my favorite novels seem to require a slower and more intimate relationship. I want to sit with the characters. I want to hear their thoughts. I want to live alongside them for a while. Perhaps that is why my most beloved books were read in print rather than listened to.  They were absorbed in quiet, the way one absorbs anything that is meant to last.

As I grow older, I am less interested in accumulating information and more interested in cultivating wisdom. I am still learning — French, flute, health, home, relationships, beauty, the faith I am still working out — but I am increasingly drawn to stories that trace the long arc from knowledge to understanding to action. That arc, I think, is the one I am trying to follow in my own life.

I don't need every book to be important. I want it to be meaningful. The stories that nourish me are stories about thoughtful people learning what matters and using that wisdom to serve, uplift, protect, or improve the lives of others.

That, I have discovered, is my genre.

Janis @ Maison Tranquille

Still Curious. Still Growing. Still Grateful.