Spiritually profound works of fiction

Have you ever encountered a book, comic, graphic novel, or movie, in which the author lays out a profound and ingenious reevaluation of mankind's relationship with the greater picture, in the form of a well-crafted story plot with relatable characters? Have you ever consumed a piece of fiction that consumed you, to the point of making you feel a tad bit closer to enlightenment, or unraveling the mysteries of it all, upon finishing it?

I'm talking about works of real artistic merit. From what I've seen perusing book and video stores, there's no shortage nowadays of stories that were written and marketed with the intent of making the reader feel elevated, but rely on poor writing and trite, saccharine, or shallow themes to do so. This to me is pandering, and is essentially the spiritual equivalent of erotic writing or pulp action novels. It has its place, but there's no denying it's kind of junk food.

Any good story speaks eloquently to the Human Condition, in a way that's easily accessible to audiences. Sometimes (often) this plumbing of the depths can be rather unsettling. But I don't think a story necessarily has to have a dark take home message of enduring human alienation in order to be a work of real merit. Can anyone name one they've read, that offers a clever potential answer to the human predicament, that's at the very least worth mulling over in your mind?

* As a child, I found "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeline L'Engle to be one such book. It's been years since I've read it, and the story has still stuck with me.

* Say what you will about C.S. Lewis's Narnia series, I really think these books have a lot more depth to them than either side of the modern day Culture Wars give them credit for. Lewis was truly a modern-day mythmaker, who understood the human predicament quite well.

* Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" series was a real letdown to me. After the first book, which was lush in descriptive detail and teased the reader with a bold new metaphysical perspective, the rest of the series degenerated in writing quality, and the take home message turned out to be atheism. Meh.

* I give the Star Wars series a lot of credit for making a lot of Taoist ideas accessible to Western audiences.

There is a lot to The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy that I only understood after re-reading it recently. Adams puts the point across that through all the absurdity in life, it really is all just a cosmic joke.

If you've ever read Aldous Huxley's last novel, Island, shows an excellent example of a spiritually healthy, environmentally harmonious human society. It was basically a counter-point to Brave New World, although it employed similar concepts and techniques devised originally in that novel.

Fun read. Pretty straightforward and to the point with it's criticism on the current human condition.

Frank Herbert's God Emperor of Dune has greatly influenced me. Without giving anything away for those who want to read it, it's about the utility of absolute tyranny in teaching humanity about what really matters, and how in the final analysis, all that matters is that we survive in a way that ensures that we can never be shackled.

Another one is really two works: Robert Silverberg's At Winter's End, and its sequel, The New Springtime. Sure, they're good SF books, but the underlying theme that unifies both of them is the inevitability of change, as something that is never inherently bad, but simply one more thing that we must adapt to. They're staunchly anti-conservative, almost fatalistic works: civilizations collapsed because it was their time to go, and our job is to do the best we can and, if and when we are destroyed, to accept it stoically as part of the cycle of life and death.

^ I'd say that's about as stripped down as spirituality gets: we embrace our own impermanence and constant change. A haunting story that's stuck with me for years, for that theme, was Ray Bradbury's novella "Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed."

Don't forget Lord Of The Rings, with the battles between good and evil.

Robert Heilein's, Job: A Comedy of Justice It's a satire of organized religion and was the second foray into my life long love of Fantasy/Sci Fi novels after the Narnia works!

Read it very young and it helped shape my always continuing view of religion(s). Probably time for me to revist it too!

The prototypical plot-line is spiritually profound. You have a protagonist and an antagonist. A beginning, a climax, and a resolution. It's an interplay of masculine/feminine.

The Matrix

Stephen Kings "The Dark Tower" series. It helps to have read all his other works, but this book/series utterly spun (span??) me out. Holograms.

I don't think Jack Kerouac really had much at all figured out himself, but he sure told a good story. The Dharma Bums did it for me

"Nausea" by Sartre is one of the more profound books I've read from a philosophical standpoint.

and LOL at the Stephen King suggestion hahaha. what tragic commentary on American readership it is that someone thinks any of King's books are spiritually profound... *sigh*

^I've heard this criticism about Steven King before, that it's a sad reflection of our society that people enjoy his books etc... Have you read The Dark Tower series?
Take that sigh and turn it upside down. Someone may be able to glean a good deal more from a page of his writing than you, depending on their perspective.

On the Road and Dharma Bums have had a big impact on my life. Maybe more so than anything else in my life. Maybe.

Hands down, "The Juggler"by Anatole De France. A great spiritual story as well as indictment of the Catholic Church.

leiphos said:

"Nausea" by Sartre is one of the more profound books I've read from a philosophical standpoint.

and LOL at the Stephen King suggestion hahaha. what tragic commentary on American readership it is that someone thinks any of King's books are spiritually profound... *sigh*

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your literary snobbery has been established, as well as your douche-baggery.

now you must bring us.. a shrubbery!

^ Monty Python never failed to shift my worldview in a more absurdist direction, now that you remind me. They have their moments, but most of the time I didn't find them laugh out loud funny, really, and even kind of sad and frustrating at times.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

leiphos said:

"Nausea" by Sartre is one of the more profound books I've read from a philosophical standpoint.

and LOL at the Stephen King suggestion hahaha. what tragic commentary on American readership it is that someone thinks any of King's books are spiritually profound... *sigh*

Click to expand...

Dude, for one, I', and many on ths site are not American. Two, you clearly haven't read the "book" (its 7 books), and three- a book doesn't have to be by some philoso-wanker to be profound. Try writing something good yourself before 'LOLing'; I've yet to see it

A tragic state appears to be when someone can only reference cliched french philosophers , as opposed to seeing spirituality (note the thread title) in places where it may not be so glaringly obvious.

*removng my egoic outburst, with apologes*

A good book is "Thus Spake Zarathustra" by Nietzsche. Very good, though hard to read; better to glance at