“May you ever appear when you are most needed and least
expected!” – Elvenking, The Hobbit
Gandalf receives this parting blessing from the Elf king of
Mirkwood near the end of The Hobbit,
and I draw attention to it because it touches on a desire all people
experience. It is a timeless truth, one might say. The idea that, in the
darkest turn of a story, some unanticipated miracle, some unimagined event,
might change all gloom into hopeful light, is one Tolkien explores in his essay
“On Fairy Tales.” He dubs such moments in fairy tales – and really, in all
great stories – the “eucatastrophe.”
I bring this up because, in my rambling way, I wanted to
share a smaller sort of “eucatastophe” in my own life. Ironically, this term
Tolkien created to describe a specific moment in stories is now to be applied
to specific stories in my life: books.
Sometime in middle school, I realized that there were not
enough books in the world. I knew that there were far more novels on the
shelves of libraries than I would be able to read in my lifetime, but I gazed
at them with longing because I knew most of them were off-limits.
You see, I grew up in a family that took reading seriously.
We were careful about what we read because “you are what you eat,” and “you
think what you read.” I’m forever grateful for growing up with a skeptical
attitude towards what I read. But, we were also serious readers. We read
voraciously. I whipped through several-hundred page novels in just a few days.
Stand-alone books were inhaled and disappeared as if they’d never been. In
short, there were never enough books to read, especially after we’d reread all
the titles on our shelves two or three times.
In high school, the required reading of my English classes
all but convinced me there were no more new books left in the world – at least,
not the ones that I liked. It looked like I’d be rereading the “Redwall” series
and Jane Austen’s works, and a choice few other novels until I died.
Then, my eucatastrophe struck. Well, it wasn’t sudden. I
guess I’d say my serialized eucatastrophe began sometime in college. You might even call it a "book-atastophe." I started
encountering new and new-to-me old works and researching lesser-known works by
favorite authors. I learned about religious classics written by the saints and
bought them from the clearance section of the local Catholic bookstore as often
as I visited. I started finding reading lists online and asking for
recommendations from friends. I became part of a social media group composed of
people with similar reading tastes to my own.
Over my (currently) 6.5 years of college, I’ve amassed
multiple pages of titles on a “To Read” list, filled my bookshelf with new
favorites, and even made a pile of unread books that I’d like to target next –
that one never seems to disappear.
In high school, I reached a point where I thought there were
no new stories that I would ever enjoy reading, but unexpectedly, slowly, and
to my great delight, I learned that there are new wonders to encounter as long
as you are willing to look.
