Sometimes people ask you about your favorite this or favorite that: your favorite color or animal or food or movie or book. For my part I hesitate to answer in such superlative terms because I like all kinds of things. Additionally, the identification of a favorite anything creates heightened expectations in others’ imaginations upon which reality cannot deliver. We have this experience when everyone you know says, “That movie is great,” but then, upon seeing it, you respond with “meh.”
This experience is not a big deal for things that lack excellence. However, we rob ourselves of God’s blessing when we allow unrealistic expectations to damper our enjoying and growing from that which exhibits the good, true, and beautiful. Yes, hopeful expectation serves an important purpose in our lives, pointing us to the One Who can deliver more than we can imagine. Yet with respect to the artistic productions from this world, we should temper our expectations so that we do not elevate them beyond their proper station. These reflections feed my hesitancy to identify favorites. And yet sometimes a work of art so captures the imagination that it compels you to bear witness about it to others.
Hesitancies about Christian literature: Form and content
With these caveats in mind, one of my favorite book series of the past several years is Andrew Peterson’s four-book The Wingfeather Saga. The volumes are entitled On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (2008), North! Or Be Eaten (2009), The Monster in the Hollows (2011), and The Warden and the Wolf King (2014). Peterson is perhaps best-known as the singer-songwriter who penned the song, “Is He Worthy?” I would also point to “Be Kind to Yourself,” “Rejoice,” and “The Good Confession,” each of which God has used in my own heart.
So in addition to writing songs, he authors books. I first heard about Wingfeather some years ago. I harbored my doubts, because so much of the contemporary fiction written by Christians falls flat, notwithstanding authors’ good intentions. Far too often “Christian” books and “Christian” movies are a cut below artistic standards of excellence.
For his part, Peterson recognizes this difficulty with contemporary Christian fiction in his book, Adorning the Dark: “One great problem with much art that’s called ‘Christian’ is agenda, which is to say that it’s either didactic, or manipulative, or merely pragmatic—in other words, the artistic purity of the word tends to take a back seat to the artist’s agenda.” To be clear, Peterson does not discount agenda. Themes occupy an important role in a work of art. “Having an agenda isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, some of history’s greatest works of art are dripping with agenda,” such as the Notre Dame Cathedral. “Agenda is bad when it usurps the beauty.”[1] I would not read those words from Peterson until after reading Wingfeather, but, had I read them, I suspect they would have quieted my concerns about the series.
I had recognized Peterson’s songwriting quality to be a cut above the typical Christian fare. Still, I remained hesitant. Nevertheless, I heard, through the years, time and again, good reviews of Wingfeather. I even attended a session about it at the annual session of the Evangelical Theological Society meeting in 2019.
Well, I finally relented, and I read; in fact, my wife and I read it together aloud in the car during our travels. This exercise is the type of familial discipline that Rod Dreher encourages in his book, Live Not By Lies, so that families may strengthen the ties that bind them and proclaim the truth by the stories they tell one another. I have discovered that those recommending Peterson’s tale are entirely justified in doing so—a thousand times over.
The Wingfeather Saga and the Moral Imagination
Think of The Wingfeather Saga less like contemporary Christian fiction, to the extent that that comparison is a stumbling block, and more like the rich storytelling tradition from the authors of years gone by—people like George MacDonald, Madeleine L’Engle, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis. Peterson writes with wit and charm. His characters are well-rounded, his themes are rich, and his morals are right and good.
Through the course of the series, Peterson adapts and expands his approach to storytelling—for example, the degree of detail and perspective, particularly as they relate to character and dialogue and plot, not unlike what we see between Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings or over the course of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. Wingfeather begins small and local but then develops into something grandiose.
Someone recently asked me to summarize the plot of this series: Without revealing major spoilers, I would say that it tells the story of three children, Janner, Tink, and Leeli, as well as their family and friends, as they learn about themselves and their world. Aeweriar, the world in which Peterson’s story is set, is like Middle Earth or Narnia in that it is fictional. But like all good fiction and fantasy, it is true, and it is beautiful, because its themes cohere with the real world as God has made it. Thus Peterson’s story can grow the moral imagination of those who would plant it into the soil of their hearts and cultivate the fruits it bears in their lives.
The imagination refers to a component of man’s mind; it is like a plot of dirt that grows whatever we fill it with, whether vegetables and fruit and flowers or thorns and thistles and weeds. The moral imagination refers to the imagination that is formed by true morals. Consequently, a story, even if fictional, with true morals is more real than much that exists in our world of immorality and oppression because it reflects God’s will, and such stories can grow the imagination in a God-pleasing manner. Good stories demonstrate to us how true morals work out in real life as we traverse with characters on their journeys of highs and lows, triumphs and failures. We unwittingly learn to identify with them, put ourselves in their shoes, and grow with them through the course of their arcs. In short, the moral imagination grants us the ability to see how a given moral could apply in a given circumstance.
We all fill our minds with certain stories, certain narratives. The question we should ask ourselves is how these stories are shaping us and whether they are consistent with the order of the world as God has made it through the Logos. We learn how to live life well, not only by knowing the law of God and the principles undergirding that law, but also by understanding how they work out in the hustle-and-bustle of everyday life. For that reason, preachers often include illustrations into their sermons. If a talented speaker can capture the imagination in the span of a five-minute story, how much more can a talented author do so over the course of a novel or series?
Good stories cultivate the moral imagination because they beautifully demonstrate to us a model, a pattern, an example, of how to live. Wingfeather is such a story. It is an adventurous tale, full of fun and mystery and intrigue. It includes themes of wonder, danger, courage, sacrifice, maturity, and redemption. How do we respond to evil, overcome failure, and love the unlovable? Peterson explores these questions, and more, in a manner that is true.
Review of specific themes
At this time, again without giving away major spoilers, I will exemplify some of the themes that emerge from The Wingfeather Saga. For one, we see that money cannot purchase true happiness, true joy; it cannot finally lift the spirit from its deep, dark depths. Oskar, the librarian, says to Janner: “Lad, it’s one thing to be poor in pocket—nothing wrong with that. But poor in heart—that’s no good. Look at them [passers-by]. They’re sad in the eyes, and it’s a sadness no amount of money could repair. Why, they hardly remember what it’s like to laugh from the belly anymore.”[2] Peterson challenges the ideals of our materialist age. Poverty of pocket is not so bad relative to the want of hope.
Wingfeather is thus a tale of sadness, of sorrow, but also it is a tale of hope. “Of all creatures,” says the character Artham, “you should know that the darkness is seldom complete, and even when it is, the pinprick of light is not long in coming—and finer for the great shroud that surrounds it.”[3] This passage brings to mind the scene in The Lord of the Rings, where Gandalf the White arrives at the Battle of the Hornburg at Helm’s Deep with the light of the dawn to provide deliverance to the army of Rohan from the darkness of the night of the near-defeat of battle, or where Frodo looks to the Phial of Galadriel while in Shelob’s Lair outside of Mordor. This theme of light amid darkness demonstrates hope amid despair.
When we hope, we also wonder at the mystery and sublimity of this world and its history. We cannot ultimately wrap our minds around it. “All my life I’ve wanted to believe the stories are true,” says Oskar. “I’ve never been able to quiet the pleasurable ache between my heart and my stomach that I felt as a boy when I read these tales. . . . It is only when we have grown too old that we fail to see that the Maker’s world is swollen with magic—it hides in plain sight in music and water and even bumblebees.”[4] The world is deeper and higher and bigger than many within the contemporary world know, but the ancient stories, and the human heart, knows better.
Peterson continues this theme a few books later. Speaking of a specific character’s decision, he writes, “He remembered old tales, stories about self-sacrifice and the way a single, beautiful act done for the sake of another could shine out across the dark of the ages like a breaking dawn.”[5] Such passages speak to the importance of history and memory in one’s life, themes that Dreher explores in Live Not By Lies.
Even while we may wonder at the world, we can also worry about life and its challenges and difficulties. But like Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 6:25–34), Peterson encourages us to forsake anxiety: “Hush, now,” says the character Nia, the children’s mother. “It’ll be all right. It does no good to worry over what’s already happened. What matters is now. The past and the future are both beyond our reach.”[6] Sure we reflect, and sure we plan, but we must not let what is beyond our control cripple the task at hand.
In place of anxiety, we cultivate the virtue of courage and grow in faith thereby. Podo, the family patriarch, speaks to the importance of courage and conviction that perseveres amid difficulties, and potentially dangerous and even deadly, circumstances: “When it comes time to fight, you fight. Even if those Fangs tear us to pieces, we’ll meet the Maker knowin’ we fought hard for somethin’ good. So don’t you shake your head like you’re givin’ up.”[7] Undoubtedly, difficulties can lead to doubt. Yet courage prompts us toward belief.
Peterson speaks to the theme of belief through the character of Armulyn the Bard. At a time when circumstances tempt characters to lose hope and forsake belief, he remarks: “It may be hard to believe, but it’s real, I tell you. Sometimes in the middle of the night, the sun can seem like it was only ever a dream. We need something to remind us that it still exists, even if we can’t see it. We need something beautiful hanging in the dark sky to remind us there is such a thing as daylight. Sometimes . . . music is the moon.”[8] Not unlike the Marsh-wiggle Puddleglum, in Lewis’s The Silver Chair, who resists the bewitchments and enslavements of the Lady of the Green Kirtle in the grim, dark underworld, Peterson reminds us that reality consists of more than we can see.
Conclusion
I hope I have made the case that The Wingfeather Saga is worth your while. In my opinion, it stands heads and shoulders above much contemporary Christian fiction. Still, I would urge you to guard against unrealistic expectations about the series so that you can enjoy it for the gem that it is. Wingfeather has the capacity to shape readers’ moral imaginations and, consequently, their growth in godliness. It is good and true because its themes accurately reflect the real world, and it is beautiful, because it is not contrived but organic and truly enjoyable.
[1] Andrew Peterson, Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making (Nashville: B&H, 2019), 84–85.
[2] Andrew Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, The Wingfeather Saga, Book One (New York: WaterBrook, 2008), 29.
[3] Andrew Peterson, North! Or Be Eaten, The Wingfeather Saga, Book Two (New York: Waterbrook, 2009), 311.
[4] Ibid., 279.
[5] Peterson, The Warden and the Wolf King, The Wingfeather Saga, Book Four (New York: Waterbrook, 2014), 307.
[6] Peterson, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, 146.
[7] Ibid., 194.
[8] Peterson, The Warden and the Wolf King, 145.
October 8, 2021
Fantastic review! I couldn’t agree more.