- C.S. Lewis, from The Great Divorce

The phrase "ivory-tower intellectual" is something of a cliché in the English language, implying an individual so caught up in the pursuits of Academia as to forget the "real world," losing touch with "common sense" in favor of esoteric theory. A milder version of this individual is the "absent-minded professor," who tends to be looked on as amusingly harmless. The ITI (to abbreviate), however, is regarded with something like scorn: it must be undemocratic (besides impractical and therefore valueless) to write or even think in a way that "the man on the street" cannot understand.

This article is not intended as a defense of the ITI: there is something to be said for the world of everyday living. It is also not intended as a defense of the opposite camp. "Commuter fiction" – one professor’s term for page-turners snapped up to be read on the subway – is generally popular, and profitable, by virtue of suspense, plot twists, and other gimmicks disdained by ITI writers. The charge that these popular techniques have also been abused is a valid one. The difficulty is that both sides, anxious not to be confused with each other, not only emphasize their own strengths, but also eschew techniques associated with the other side they might otherwise have used, resulting in an escalating vicious dichotomy between style and substance.

Standing at the foot of our Tower of Ivory, I propose a truce: there will be no more name-calling from either side. One side will admit that there is a value in symbolism and themes, in shifting POVs and flashbacks – in short, that there is such a things as ‘good’ writing as opposed to ‘bad’ writing. The other will admit that the best-crafted story ever written accomplishes nothing if its readers 1) don’t understand what happens, or 2) don’t care. It is in the union of these two elements that the best writing can and will be accomplished. This is our goal: to write interesting stories (poetry, articles, art), and to write them well.

In passing I would like to point out that this goal applies in particular, more, not less, to Christian art and writing. If we believe in a world of order and significance; more, in a world that in its very creation is multilayered and symbolic – even sacramental – then to write as Christians, even to write well and reflect accurately the world we live in, our works should reflect the significance, the layering and symbolism, of our world, and should do so in a way that affirms the joy and wonder of it as well – for a Christian world is at its heart, if nowhere else, joyful and wonderful. This reflection can be simple or complex; it can be of any genre or any medium; it is not limited as to subject or character or tone. But the center of any such endeavor is that it is there, and that, as good workmen, we cannot forget any of our tools if we wish to do good work (or good works, to use Lewis’ phrase).

In closing, then, I propose again my truce: and more, that rather than waiting for those "out there" to realize its terms, we ourselves must enact it first, sallying forth to claim all of what is ours, both the stories we love and the tools to tell them as they should be told.

(c) 2001
By Annie McAndrew
All Rights Reserved
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