An Ode to Books Left Unwritten

Should you manage to read a book a week over the course of your adult life, you will still have only read about 3,500 to 3,750 works in total—assuming, of course, that you began your reading journey at roughly age ten and continued diligently until around age 80, according to the math, or until your death—whichever should come first.

That may seem an insurmountable number of books to some folks, but not among those who, like me, are avid readers. In a world of many millions of books, what is a few thousand, or even tens of thousands, over the span of a lifetime? Indeed, there is not time enough in all the world to read everything one may wish to. That is why we must be particular with what and who and why we spend our days reading. We must use our lives—be it moments, minutes, months, or years—well for the glory of Christ, and this includes our reading. C.T. Studd put it simply and best: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.” Among the countless good gifts given us by the Lord, time is perhaps our most precious—though fleeting—resource.

Indeed, though the days may seem to drag on, the years do not. Like the swift sweetness of spring, both our days and our years are gone in a flash. With so short a time here below, be it 80 or even a hundred years, there exists no time to dilly-dally with slop and fluff when the lofty works of such masters as Tolkien, Lewis, Augustine, Spurgeon, Bunyan, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, Doyle, Dumas, and Dostoevsky walk among us.

Like all great art, the very best of literature cannot be rightly appreciated on a single pass. To best understand an author like Tolkien, for example, you would do well to not only read The Lord of the Rings, but to live in the rich world he spent many decades crafting—to tarry amid the pages of Middle-Earth year after year by walking the well-worn paths of the Shire alongside Bilbo, perhaps stopping to share a pint and an evening’s rest with the Fellowship in Bree under the sign of The Prancing Pony, before journeying on once again to Rivendell for a spell of food, music, and best of all, rest.

Indeed, the best books are the ones we not only read once or twice in a lifetime, but those we visit regularly and take lodging in as the years press on. Some books, the truly great ones, even grow and age with us. These are the books which live in us even as we live in them; year by year we may visit many a pleasant book, but there are always certain books we are eager to return to, like those who are itching for hearth and home. It would be no hyperbole to say that some of our best friends live among the pages of those stories. For the words on the pages of these dear books—and the many dear characters, locals, and memories contained therein—have become to us a sort of Rivendell:

“Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, ‘a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.’ Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness.”

Just the other night, unable to sleep, I found myself thinking of the believer’s Homely House, of our Father’s perfect house—Heaven. There exists so little time here below to read all that one might wish to, let alone time enough to read it twice or thrice. For all the many joys of reading—and writing, might I add—there exist countless other pleasures—and commitments—for which we are responsible. There are bills to pay, hours to work, household chores to attend to, not to mention people to pray for, friends to serve, children to raise, and spouses to love.

Reading well is not only a form of stewardship but a solid form of commitment as well. Anytime you decide to sit down and read, you are invariably saying “Yes” to reading and “No” to something else. So you best ensure your reading is well worth the time. And as all avid readers are keenly aware, saying “Yes” to one book unfortunately means that you are, at least for the time being, saying “No” to another.

The very same can be said of our writing. By taking a few days to think through and then write—not to mention properly edit—a mere article, you are prioritizing that piece over and above anything else you might create. This allotment of time and creative energy only becomes compounded should you take on a lengthy book project.

With a newborn at home, I have seen this reality born out on something of a small scale. Atop the other responsibilities and cares of this life, there is now a precious little one who needs attending to all hours of the day—it is a great joy and a lofty privilege, but one that nonetheless crowds out much of the reading and writing that might otherwise have been done.

And if this can be said of me, how much more so the many giants throughout history? How many books have gone unwritten by the masters of prose and verse on account of the more pressing matters they daily had to attend to? Though he remains the most prolific writer in the English language, what more might Charles Spurgeon have done for the Kingdom had he not been burdened with the pressure of chronic health struggles? Despite writing one of the best-selling books of all time in The Pilgrim’s Progress, what else might John Bunyan have written had he not spent over a decade imprisoned for preaching Christ? Time would fail me to tell of Lewis and the death of his wife, of Dumas and his crippling poverty, or of Dostoevsky and the children his own two hands buried.

We do not know why the Lord allows some of what He does, or why he permits some books to be left unwritten and some work seemingly left undone, all the while the production of filth should flourish. Though, as with all things, might it not be for His glory and our highest good? Should no suffering blacken our days, and no trials test us, or inconvenience invade us, would any work worth reading ever have been written? Indeed, many a lousy book has been set down by its reader after only a few pages on account of the clear fact that the author has not yet known what it is to suffer—thus not known what it is to live, much less write.

However, once at rest in that perfect house, might there be time enough there to catch up on some reading? Perhaps some writing as well? These were the very questions my mind was turning over in the early morning hours a few nights ago when my thoughts turned to Home. Will the best books from here below be found above or will they be lost to the tides of eternity? What of the classics? Will there be books there at all? If so, or if not, what works might the canon of Heaven comprise?

I expect there will be time enough in Heaven to do all the good we were seemingly kept from doing here below. Every great work left unread, every book left unwritten, every opportunity for worship left undone because faithfulness required of us that our time and attention be directed elsewhere, will all be mended. I believe the Lord will give not only time for work left unfinished or not yet started—for there will be no shortage of days there—but grace at last to do the work unburdened by the strain of sin and suffering.

Upon reaching that Last Homely House east of the Sea, should we expect vast bookshelves containing the canon of humanity’s best effort at literature over the ages? Somewhere along those unending rows of mahogany, might there be those volumes we cherished here below—Dickens, Doyle, Dumas, Dostoevsky, and all the rest, comprising as their sum a sort of heavenly canon? A trillion ages from now, will I be able to dust off—will there be dust there?—a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, or The Count of Monte Cristo, for old time’s sake?

Perhaps—at least, I would like to think so. If a work be good, true, and beautiful, pointing to Christ in some way, why should it not endure forever? After all, “only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Whatever the case, I expect there to be a good deal of books in Heaven. Whether or not these will be books we recognize remains to be seen, but they will most certainly be books we shall enjoy—far more than any here below. I do expect many books to be found there, as well as many new volumes the authors of the very best books here below had to leave unwritten for a season. Indeed, I find it hard to believe that someone like Lewis or Spurgeon—who themselves wrote many millions of words over the course of mere decades, for whom words were part of their soul’s canvas, stitched into their very being—could sit still for long in that Place without taking to the pen to sing of the many glories around them, the beauty of Christ chief over all.

Perhaps the very best books here below were but a dim draft of those stories to come, a first pass at those books left unwritten for a time, with nothing now to stand in the way of their wondrous completion. Each word of each yet-to-be-written book—first planted in the soul of its author like a seed in the earth over a long, dark winter in our fallen world—now at long last ready to spring forth and bear fruit into the light of eternity for the glory of Christ, casting its light and warmth like a fresh beam from the newly risen sun.

Once there and settled in, I look forward to tracking down some of my favorite authors in the faith, my brothers—perhaps Lewis most of all. He’ll probably be off on a trail somewhere with his old friend, Tolkien, picking up where they left off on some unfinished conversation, or bent over a writing desk, already well-worn from much work. “Mr. Lewis,” I might begin with a knock at his door, “what are you working on?” And, turning from his page, by now filled with words that seem to flow much more easily than ever before, peering across at me over his spectacles—will people wear glasses there?—and responding with, “Come and see, my lad. Might be some of my best work yet—for now, that is.”

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Photo by Clarisse Meyer, Unsplash

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