Stories

Below is an interesting excerpt from the book
 A Thomas Jefferson Education
 by Oliver DeMille
 concerning types ofstories:
 There are four types of stories: bent, broken, whole, and healing
. A. Bent stories portray evil as good, and good as evil. Such stories are meant to enhance the evil tendencies of the reader, such as pornography and many horror books and movies. The best decision regarding Bent stories is to avoid them like the plague.
B. Broken stories portray accurately evil as evil and good as good, but evil wins. Something is broken, not right, in need of fixing. Such books are not uplifting (in the common sense of the word), but can be transformational in a positive way. Broken stories can be very good for the reader if they motivate him or her to heal.  The Communist Manifesto is a broken classic; so are The Lord of the Flies and 1984. In each of these, evil wins; but they have been very motivating to me because I have felt a real need to help reverse their impact in the real world.
 C. Whole stories are where good is good and good wins. Most of the classics are in this category, and readers should spend most of their time in such works.
D. Healing stories can be either Whole or Broken stories where the reader is profoundly moved, changed, or significantly improved by her reading experience.
 I recommend three rules in coming face-to-face with greatness through the classics:
 1. Avoid bentstories.
 2. Develop a personal canon of healing stories.
3. Spend the majority of your studies in whole works, but don’t neglect broken stories that you ought to be fixing.