As Oscar said . . ., by Catriona

Do you often/sometimes weave a moral message into your writing, or do you think that’s awful, and something that should never be attempted? Can you recommend good examples of books that do one or the other?

Picture the scene: interior, night, somewhere in California (which is a lot like Scotland once the front door's shut)

Catriona: Argh, I forgot I've got to write a blog post.

Neil: What about?

C: Moral messages in books.

N: You mean like whether you put moral messages in your books?

C:Yeah, exactly.

N: Well, that's easy enough.

C: Is it? Do you want a fork or are you just going to pick it up? (Quiche for dinner)

N: No fork. Yes, of course!

C: So . . . do I?

N: Of course you do!

C: Like what?

N: Oh come on! You know. The triumph of good. Evil must not prevail. Like old whatsisname said.

C: Stephen King? (always a good guess)

N: Older.

C: Jesus?

N: Younger. Watermelon or melon melon?

C: Melon medley? Winston Churchill?

N: No, a writer. You know.

C: Dickens?

N: No, a playwright. Not Noel Coward. Oscar Wilde!

C: The good ended happily and the bad unhappily, for that is the meaning of fiction? 

N: There you are, see?

C: Yeah but, that's- I mean- I write crime fiction where they catch the baddies. So it's sort of a given. I don't think that's what they meant.

N: What who meant? What do you want to drink? Anyway, also there's the whole person that starts out lost and then way-hay by the end.

C: Just cold water out the fridge. What?

N: The thing. You've got a name for it. You always write it.

C: The missing child? [Lisa (agent) reckons I always write a missing child.]

N: No, the thing! Armistead Maupin's got a name for it.

C: Oh! The logical family? Found family.

N: Zackly. There's fizzy water.

C: Steady on, it's only Tuesday. How is the found family a moral message?

N: What? How is that not a moral message? If you believe in love and keep looking you will find it.

C: Love? Like every pot's got a lid? That's different from the found family, though.

N: No, no, no. Not luuurrrve. Like community, acceptance, your tribe. 

C: Isn't even a sentence. How can that be a moral message?

N: Gimme a minute. [chops melon] Nothing matters more - Hang on, this was in a film. Nothing is lost that can't be found if sought. 

C: Ohhhhh yeah. Alan Rickman said it. What was that?

[Dinner prepration abandoned for a bit while we Google. Turns out that 'For there is nothing lost, that can be found, if sought.' was in the film of Sense and Sensibility. Colonel Brandon reads it out to Marianne. It's from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene.]

N: I'm really glad I didn't say it was in a film in front of anyone.

C: Ah, come on. It was a Jane Austen adaptation, not Fast and Furious:Tokyo Drift. And I didn't know either. So that's the moral message that pops up in my writing? Keep looking and you will find the loving family you might be lacking?

N: Unless you're a wrong un, in which case cccrrrrkkk! You're toast.

                                                                    The End 

I'm not sure if the take away from that is that we are a pair of world-class Philistines or that we can start an argument about literally anything, but I don't think too hard about my own stories once I've written them so I'm happy to go along with the view of my constant reader.

When it comes to books I've read, two contrasting examples spring to mind.

Stephen King's Cell is an unsettlingly nihilistic little tale, with no moral dimension to the horror that I could ever see, unless the fact that people are suddenly rendered violently psychotic by their phones is a statement about isolation and overdependence on technology. Is that a moral matter though? Or just a question of good habits and time management? In either case, I loved it.

The book I'm reading right now on the other hand - the gloriously titled Big Gay Wedding, by Byron Lane - is stuffed with messages. People are learning and growing and changing all over the shop. I'm loving it too. As I see it, Lane himself has put in the hard yards as a gay man in this world and I, as a straight person, am grateful to get the benefit. Also, such a light hand! The book is funny and touching in equal measure. As one of the cover quotes puts it: it makes you heart grow three sizes.

Cx