I recently wrote about a desire to read/watch a book/film where only nice things happened.  I think this should be extended to the creation of a whole new genre: nice fiction.  For too long, publishers have exploited misery and the darker excesses of humanity for financial gain; I think it is time to reverse this trend and to celebrate simple niceness.

Nice has become a dirty word; it is high time that it is reclaimed; returned to being a positive attribute, rather than sneered at; remembered for being something affirmative, not just a hard, dry and rather tasteless biscuit.

My first recommendation in the genre of ‘nice fiction’ is R C Sherriff’s The Fortnight in September.  Written in 1931, it is an account of the Stevens family’s annual trip to Bognor Regis for a summer holiday.  It recounts their hopes and expectations ahead of the prospective trip; their preparations prior to departure; their travel and their arrival; and the shared happiness of their time spent away from home.  They don’t have a brilliant trip; they don’t have a fantastic holiday; they don’t have an amazing time.  Equally, they don’t have an awful trip; they don’t have a dreadful holiday; they don’t have a disastrous time.  There is no hyperbole. Everything is nice.  End of.

It is a subtle story, though.  Very well told, with its fair share of minor triumphs and tragedies, which become elevated to more lofty proportions viewed against a backdrop of understatement. 

Considered from every angle, it is a nice book.

What more could anyone want?

© Fergus Longfellow

Fergus Longfellow is the John Lennon of niceness.