When I was in high school many years ago, I picked up a book without knowing what it was about. In fact, we had a bookshop that sold books by the bag, so you could basically just pick up books, put them in a bag, and pay just for the bag an not the individual books.
In hindsight, this is not the best way to shop books, but I picked up a particular book, If Minds Had Toes, by Lucy Eyre. In high school, I had no idea what philosophy was, I only did art theory and that was the closest thing to philosophy I had experienced. But this book would place the seeds in my mind which would prove to have been so important for my life's journey.
In any case, I read the book and did not know any of the philosophers the author discussed. The book rests on a simple premise, one that even contemporary philosophy sometimes think about: Can philosophy be of worth to the lay public? The story in If Minds Had Toes follow the adventures of a boy who gets introduced to many different philosophers, real and made up, to somehow see if philosophy can change his life for better or for worse.
The book Sophie's World by Josten Gaarder follows almost a similar plot line. A girl, Sophie, finds letters in the post box on various philosophers and throughout the book we are introduced to many instances of philosophy.
I want to call these books Philosophical Fiction. But philosophical fiction can take two very distinct journeys. On the one hand, there are books like the ones I mentioned above that try to introduce philosophy and philosophical ideas through the story to the reader who is generally not a philosopher. The work of Socrates, David Hume, and all of these "big names" in philosophy is presented to the reader in a very digested format interweaved with the storyline. It is not just philosophy, it is a nice story with some philosophy mixed in with it.
I have a couple of these books. The two mentioned and then Philosophy Made Simple, by Robert Hellenga. This books also covers a similar topic with each chapter in the book dealing with different philosophers or philosophies.
And lastly, one that is not 100% pure philosophy, but which kind of opens with philosophy which sets the tone for the book is A Field Guide to Reality, by Joanna Kavenna. This is a strange book, with beautiful illustrations. I liked it, but I also hated it. This book was the "last straw" so to speak. I realised:
I do not like fiction that weaves philosophy into the story.
Philosophers are not good fiction writers. Fiction writers are not good philosophers. Or at least, this is the case with these four books I mentioned. There is nothing wrong with the stories, it is just that there is something slightly off to novelists dipping their toes in philosophy and then trying to weave it into the story. Something just doesn't work. The most recent of these books that I read was A Field Guide to Reality, by Joanna Kavenna. It just did not work for me. When I picked the book up, and when I read the first page or two, I thought that this book would be really good. But the philosophy part only lasted a couple of pages, never to really return to the story. The rest of the book, decorated with beautiful drawings, was a strange journey through England and the streets, visits to strange people in search of a book that we will never in the end see. So much for the philosophy and philosophers it started with.
(Maybe I am not getting these works, but this is after all a personal and subjective take on these books from a philosophy PhD student.)
This leads to the second type of philosophical fiction or novel:
When an author deals with a specific philosophical problem through fiction.
These books are usually the bread and butter for especially existential philosophers. Think about The Outsider/Stranger by Albert Camus or Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (which I forgot to add to the list of photographed books). The characteristic of these books is that they are written by philosophers who want to deal with their particular philosophical problems through fiction.
In Camus' The Outsider/Stranger his absurd philosophy is put into practice. The main character becomes Camus' Absurd hero to some degree and we are shown the practical implications of his philosophy. (I loved this book and I read it more than 5 times by now.)
The other book is Nausea by Sartre, which deals with anxiety in especially the form of nausea. The protagonist somehow gets beyond the nausea of modern life by hearing music, jazz music, and putting meaning back into things that lost all meaning.
But a modern author who deals with these types of ideas, is James K. Morrow. In his book Towing Jehovah the statement made by Nietzsche that God is dead is taken literally. The body of God floats in the ocean and someone should get rid of it. The book deals with this single aspect. There is nothing more to it, and it shines with its strange absurdity. It does not want to teach us anything about Nietzsche's proclamation, nor does it deal with any philosophical topic. It merely takes an interesting idea and runs with it.
And these types of novels are hard to come by. There are few of them, or at least, I have few of them. In my home language of Afrikaans, many novels and poetry books explicitly deal with philosophy in much better ways. Maybe in the future, I will deal with them. But for now, it has to be restricted to these couple of works.
It is funny how such a simple thing can be dealt with in such varying ways. The latter authors, Camus, Sartre, Morrow, deal with philosophy in its purest and most impactful way: By practising it. These novels become a sort of mutual philosophising you go along with the author.
The latter authors, Eyre, Gaarder, Kavenna, and Hellenga, all fail what they really wanted to do: simplify philosophy. This is not a philosophical activity, it reflects on philosophy and in the process oversimplifies the philosophical positions to such a degree that it does not resemble the intended meaning, whatever that might be - but this cements my point: rather than deal with philosophical issues, these authors created philosophical issues (which was not their intention in the first place).
The history of philosophy should be left to philosophers, and this might sound like gatekeeping but this is true: these ideas are not easy to deal with, and it remains the property of philosophers to discuss. In the academy, few people agree, and that is the point: in journals different readings are given, and philosophy books are printed in which these different readings are discussed. The novel or work of fiction that discusses these ideas will fail from the start.
Where does this leave the writer who wants to philosophise through their novel? By practising philosophy. Rather than reflect on old dead authors, the writer should, like Camus, Sartre, and Morrow, deal with a specific topic in and through their fiction.
Maybe I am missing the point, but I really do not like reading fiction in which the basic ideas of philosophers are digested for me, I want to struggle with ideas, and that should be the point of philosophy...
In any case, I hope you enjoyed these musings and maybe you struggle with similar ideas.
For now, happy reading, and keep well!
All of the writings and musings are my own. These are also my own subjective opinions and I am not telling you to not like these books. I am merely writing my thoughts. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.