girlyswot | In praise of authors

Entry tags:

In praise of authors

I've just read C. S. Lewis's essay on 'good' and 'bad' literature. Essentially he argues that 'good' literature is determined by the kind of reading it permits, invites, and perhaps even compels. Good literature may allow 'bad' readings, but bad literature (like bad music, bad poetry and bad art) will never sustain a 'good', literary reading. A literary reading is seen in things like the desire to re-read, an open-ness and receptiveness to allowing the text to mould and transform you, and time spent thinking about the text itself (rather than just the ideas it refers to). This is distinct from the 'unliterary' reading which 'uses' the text for information, entertainment or other things (which, Lewis asserts strongly, may be good things in themselves).

Anyway, it made me think quite a lot about fanfiction. I can count on less than the fingers of one hand the number of fanfics I've read that I've wanted to re-read, to savour, to mull over. Or those where I've been blown away by the literary artistry of the text itself. Or those that have done anything more for me than pass a dull hour or two. After the End, perhaps. Roger and Lisa springs to mind (and probably others of St M's too).

I'm sure that this is, at least in part, to do with the democratization of publishing. But I wonder if it's also partly to do with things like serial publication of chapters? And reading on screen?

Anyway, this is how Lewis's essay ends, and this is what I wanted to share with all of you who are authors, in grateful thanks:

Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes [animals] cannot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog.

Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. There are mass emotions which heal the wound; but they destroy the privilege. In them our separate selves are pooled and we sink back into sub-individuality. But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

Thank you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is a fascinating post. And you've got amazing timing because I've just returned from our city library - which has a paltry selection of Maeve Binchy by the way (only ONE!), but better for Pilcher. Hopefully I chose the "good literature".

Well, I've certainly re-read some of Binchy's books numerous times. That may be because I'm a timid reader, scared of investing time and money in things I think I may not like, so I tend to retreat into the familiar. But I do think she has some literary merit. Pilcher I like slightly less, I think. But I'll be interested to see how you get on with both of them.

Annette! I want you to read The Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. The male lead is soooo yummy. And Claire is such a wonderful POV narrator. She's a nurse who times travels back to Jacobean Scotland. And talk about chemistry - their first love scene is just - yeah - that's the way a love scene should be written. Lots of angst and violence, though. I cried at the end of it - not because it was sad, but because I was PMSing - no - because it was so beautifully done.

When we went to Scotland I made my husband take me to Culloden - and when I saw the marker where the clan Fraser had been - I squeed - honestly - I don't usually squee. And said, "that's where Jamie was!"

Oh wow - that sounds great! A nurse? That could mean injuries and scars. Can I imagine him like Gerard Butler? LOL.

I don't think this particular Binchy book is the one for me. I've read the first chapter today- the protagonist is a late 40s male going through a mid-life crisis. I want to ESCAPE that! But it was the only one our library had. I can see how I would enjoy her writing in a different setting, though. One thing surprised me though. I found several abrupt POV shifts already. Don't editors catch that sort of thing?

OK - Gabaldon. I'm going to check it out. thanks so much!

Scars? Scars? Jamie undergoes a flogging (and worse) for Claire, since they think she is a witch because she knows all about healing and her patients actually live. She meets Jamie when they ask her to tend to him. He's a bit younger than her - tall with red hair and blue eyes that slant. A man of honor and humor and a temper. *swoon*

How late is Barnes and Noble open tonight? :D

Here's an excerpt I copied from Amazon:

Jamie made a fire in a sheltered spot, and sat down next to it. The rain had eased to a faint drizzle that misted the air and spangled my eyelashes with rainbows when I looked at the flames.

He sat staring into the fire for a long time. Finally he looked up at me, hands clasped around his knees.

"I said before that I'd not ask ye things ye had no wish to tell me. And I'd not ask ye now; but I must know, for your safety as well as mine." He paused, hesitating.

"Claire, if you've never been honest wi' me, be so now, for I must know the truth. Claire, are ye a witch?"

I gaped at him. "A witch? You—you can really ask that?" I thought he must be joking. He wasn't.

He took me by the shoulders and gripped me hard, staring into my eyes as though willing me to answer him.

"I must ask it, Claire! And you must tell me!"

"And if I were?" I asked through dry lips. "If you had thought I were a witch? Would you still have fought for me?"

"I would have gone to the stake with you!" he said violently. "And to hell beyond, if I must. But may the Lord Jesus have mercy on my soul and on yours, tell me the truth!"

The strain of it all caught up with me. I tore myself out of his grasp and ran across the clearing. Not far, only to the edge of the trees; I could not bear the exposure of the open space. I clutched a tree; put my arms around it and dug my fingers hard into the bark, pressed my face to it and shrieked with hysterical laughter.

Jamie's face, white and shocked, loomed up on the other side of the tree. With the dim realization that what I was doing must sound unnervingly like cackling, I made a terrific effort and stopped. Panting, I stared at him for a moment.

"Yes," I said, backing away, still heaving with gasps of unhinged laughter. "Yes, I am a witch! To you, I must be. I've never had smallpox, but I can walk through a room full of dying men and never catch it. I can nurse the sick and breathe their air and touch their bodies, and the sickness can't touch me. I can't catch cholera, either, or lockjaw, or the morbid sore throat. And you must think it's an enchantment, because you've never heard of vaccine, and there's no other way you can explain it."

"The things I know—" I stopped backing away and stood still, breathing heavily, trying to control myself. "I know about Jonathan Randall because I was told about him. I know when he was born and when he'll die, I know about what he's done and what he'll do, I know about Sandringham because ... because Frank told me. He knew about Randall because he ... he ... oh, God!" I felt as though I might be sick, and closed my eyes to shut out the spinning stars overhead.

"And Colum ... he thinks I'm a witch, because I know Hamish isn't his own son. I know ... he can't sire children. But he thought I knew who Hamish's father is ... I thought maybe it was you, but then I knew it couldn't be, and..." I was talking faster and faster, trying to keep the vertigo at bay with the sound of my own voice.

"Everything I've ever told you about myself was true," I said, nodding madly as though to reassure myself. "Everything. I haven't any people, I haven't any history, because I haven't happened yet.

"Do you know when I was born?" I asked, looking up. I knew my hair was wild and my eyes staring, and I didn't care. "On the twentieth of October, in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and eighteen. Do you hear me?" I demanded, for he was blinking at me unmoving, as though paying no attention to a word I said. "I said nineteen eighteen! Nearly two hundred years from now! Do you hear?"

I was shouting now, and he nodded slowly.

"I hear," he said softly.

"Yes, you hear!" I blazed. "And you think I'm raving mad. Don't you? Admit it! That's what you think. You have to think so, there isn't any other way you can explain me to yourself. You can't believe me, you can't dare to. Oh, Jamie..." I felt my face start to crumple. All this time spent hiding the truth, realizing that I could never tell anyone, and now I realized that I could tell Jamie, my beloved husband, the man I trusted beyond all others, and he wouldn't—he couldn't believe me either.

"It was the rocks—the fairy hill. The standing stones. Merlin's stones. That's where I came through." I was gasping, half-sobbing, becoming less coherent by the second. "Once upon a time, but it's really two hundred years. It's always two hundred years, in the stories. ... But in the stories, the people always get back. I couldn't get back." I turned away, staggering, grasping for support. I sank down on a rock, shoulders slumped, and put my head in my hands. There was a long silence in the wood. It went on long enough for the small night birds to recover their courage and start their noises once again, calling to each other with a thin, high zeek! as they hawked for the last insects of the summer.

I looked up at last, thinking that perhaps he had simply risen and left me, overcome by my revelations. He was still there, though, still sitting, hands braced on his knees, head bowed as though in thought.

The hairs on his arms shone stiff as copper wires in the firelight, though, and I realized that they stood erect, like the bristles on a dog. He was afraid of me.

"Jamie," I said, feeling my heart break with absolute loneliness. "Oh, Jamie."

I sat down and curled myself into a ball, trying to roll myself around the core of my pain. Nothing mattered any longer, and I sobbed my heart out.

His hands on my shoulders raised me, enough to see his face. Through the haze of tears, I saw the look he wore in battle, of struggle that had passed the point of strain and become calm certainty.

"I believe you," he said firmly. "I dinna understand it a bit—not yet—but I believe you. Claire, I believe you! Listen to me! There's the truth between us, you and I, and whatever ye tell me, I shall believe it." He gave me a gentle shake.

"It doesna matter what it is. You've told me. That's enough for now. Be still, mo duinne. Lay your head and rest. You'll tell me the rest of it later. And I'll believe you."

I was still sobbing, unable to grasp what he was telling me. I struggled, trying to pull away, but he gathered me up and held me tightly against himself, pushing my head into the folds of his plaid, and repeating over and over again, "I believe you."

At last, from sheer exhaustion, I grew calm enough to look up and say, "But you can't believe me."

He smiled down at me. His mouth trembled slightly, but he smiled.

"Ye'll no tell me what I canna do, Sassenach." He paused a moment. ... A long time later, he spoke.

"All right. Tell me now."

I told him. Told him everything, haltingly but coherently. I felt numb from exhaustion, but content, like a rabbit that has outrun a fox, and found temporary shelter under a log. It isn't sanctuary, but at least it is respite.

You won't be able to put it down!

WARNING! SPOILER - LAST LINE!!

Wow. I went out and bought it at Barnes and Noble, LOL! I've read 6 pages and I'm hooked. (And I usually avoid first person POV!) I can't wait to get Gianna to bed so I can continue. Thanks!

I meant spoiler in your excerpt, not my reply! Why can't we edit these darn comments!

At least it gave you a chance to show off your other icon.

Let me know how you get on with Jamie. *winks*

It's fairly obvious early in the novel that they will have to be paired off for her protection - so I didn't think it was too bad of a spoiler.

Did you know that Diana Gabaldon used a yahoo group for feedback on a lot of this? It was when the internet just started (early 90's) and she would post parts for comment. She has some interesting things to say about writing coming from a science background. (She has a PHD in biology)
Can't wait to hear what you think as you read more. I thought the opening was a little slow - but boy does she build momentum!

Ok - darn you I was up past midnight reading this! I made it to page 118 and adored every minute of it. This is exactly the type of escapism I was looking for. I actually didn't think the opening was slow, because I was so glad to be in the Scottish Highlands and savoring her descriptions of the land and history and mythology. And I LOVE quiet interpersonal stuff, as in Claire rediscovering her husband - who has dark hair, hazel eyes and an unruly forelock, LOL! I'll post a *sigh worthy* excerpt in a but. The only criticism I have so far, and you all will laugh at me for saying this, but I think the author went a little overboard in the injuries and scars to Jaime. (I know you can't believe your ears! Too many scars for moonette?) But in the first 1/8 of the book he's been shot and had his shoulder dislocated, stabbed, beaten up (all separate incidents), and she vividly described numerous scars over his back from a prior flogging the story of which he told Claire in flangsty detail. I would have stopped at the musket shot and stabbing and saved the flogging info for a bit later and done away with the beating up scene. Sheesh. Poor guy. But of course it's WONDERFULLY flangsty!! Oh man.

LOL - we've got it in girlyswot's journal - too many scars for moonette!

Poor Jamie - she does put him through the wringer - and it gets worse because what she does save for the ending . . . *shudder* But escape you will - and you know my love of happy endings, so don't worry.

And it really is a read all night kind of book.

By the way - where did you find this info about Gabaldon? I'd like to read more. She seems pretty young from her picture. Wow - to have several bestsellers under your belt by that age. And to spend all of that writing time with manly men! * is envious*

I have a book called The Outlandish Companion that she and her editor wrote. It contains a glossery of all her characters and Celtic words, etc . . . I really hope JKR will come out with something similar when the HP books are over - althought the Lexicon is great.

Anyway, there are several chapters where she talks about writing and how she got into it and she gives tips on how to research (she had never been to Scotland until after this first book was published!) She has three kids and a husband with a good sense of humor and she's very Catholic and she loves to cook. I think you two would get along. :)

Red hair and blue eyes? Hmm.

I looked the book up and it's called "Cross Stitch" in the UK. I wonder why.

There was already an "Outlander" in print in the UK at the time, so they (editor) changed the title. You can buy a copy at the Culloden gift shop. :)

LOL - I don't know what CS Lewis would make of Roger and Lisa - but it's good to know you liked it and remembered it.

There's a certain "popcorn" aspect to fanfiction - the idea of "what happens next" propels a lot of popular stories. So once you know what happens next, then there really isn't a reason to re-read.

Of all of JKR's books, HBP is the one I have re-read the least - I think because it has the "what happens next" vibe. The meaning of everything will become clear at the end of DH and then perhaps there will be scenes I savor.

I guess that's what I like in any reading material - a little bit of meaning. I love novels with themes and symbolism and structure - bonus points for a book that will lift you up rather than depress you. So much of modern "literature" is too despairing for my taste. I find I'm much happier with children's literature than the adult stuff.

Have you read The Lightning Thief or the Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan? My son adored those two "Percy Jackson" books (the third one is coming out in May - woot!) They are mythology based adventure stories. Lots of fun and some things to think about as well. I raced through them to get the story and now I want to read again to get all the mythology references.

I find I'm much happier with children's literature than the adult stuff.

Oh, phew! I thought it was just me who did things like that. :-)

Xia

Nonsense - we all write HP, after all!

Well, true, :-) but other than books I've had for some time, the only new books I choose to read are written for children.

I find they're more imaginative. I've just read the last in a series by Chris d'Lacey that started with 'The Fire Within', 'Icefire' and Fire Star'; a very imaginative take on dragons, with twists. Lots of things I read contain dragons, now I think about it... ;-)

What's the new one called, Xianiane? My daughter really enjoyed the first three and I now she will want to read any new ones. I haven't seen it here but we often get boks after they're published in the UK.

Oh bum! I wasn't very clear there, was I? As far as I know, tdu000, 'Fire Star' was the last in that series. I had to wait for it to come out in paperback (£6!!) b/c I refuse to pay for hardback!

I can recommend another series that's highly imaginative, though. Written by Elizabeth Kay, the first is called 'The Divide', followed by 'Back to the Divide' and we've just started 'Jinx on the Divide'.

Xia

I went to Amazon and looked and there's new one coming out in September called "The Fire Eternal". I was wondering how come you got an advance copy! I'll look out for the Elizabeth Kay series.

Really?! Oh, *excellent*! You have made my morning -- still time for a 'happy ending'. :-D

Thanks for that!

I completely agree about the 'what happens next' aspect - I think that was partly what was in my mind when I said about the serialisation of the online novel.

I'm a bad reader first time through with most books. To the extent that I often will read the ending early on, simply as a way of enabling me to slow down and enjoy the book more, rather than just trying to see what happens. Doesn't always work though - the ending of some books is utterly incomprehensible when you haven't read them all.

But the stories I go back, like you, are the ones where I find meaning. Which can come through characterisation - exploring what someone is really like, and the things that drive them, or plot - I'm thinking of something like Ian McEwan's 'Saturday' where he explores the seemingly random connection of events along with a very deterministic view of the world, or in some other way. Books like that definitely withstand re-reading and careful reading and time thinking. And sometimes even change the way you think about the world.

Oh and I'm absolutely with you on not wanting to be depressed by books! I think there's enough misery in the real world without wanting to read novels that add to it! Some of my top favourite books that made it across the ocean with me are those I read as a child and still love to read now.

Never heard of Riordan but will look out for them - will they be in childrens/young adult section of the book shop/library?

Right now I'm working my way through Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody series. Fun, undemanding, detective stories set in the world of Egyptian archaeology. Definitely not 'good' literature, but about all I have the energy for at the end of the day.

And, I meant to say that one of the reasons I was thinking about R & L is because Lewis has a whole chapter on myth and the way myth works profoundly on the reader, almost regardless of how well or otherwise the story is told. I think he'd have enjoyed R & L!

I think he's right about myth - and that's why I was so excited to give it a whirl. The ancient story really pushed me in a great way.

Here's the link to The Lightning Thief:

http://www.amazon.com/Lightning-Thief-Percy-Jackson-Olympians/dp/0786838655/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-0494812-4587868?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175635786&sr=8-2

Ooh, looks fun.

Hmm. Myth.

*starts thinking about Anat the Girl again...*

Must write that story soon.

How fascinating that was, Girlyswot. Is that esssay published somewhere? I would be interested to read it in its entirety.

Xia

I'm glad you liked it (was worried it might be a bit 'heavy' for an LJ!)

It was published in 1965 by CUP and it's called 'An experiment in criticism'. I really enjoyed it and read it in its entirety (when I really only needed to read the first and last chapters for the essay I'm writing). It's not a long book - just over 100 pages. Don't know if it's still in print, but a library might be able to track it down for you.

There are some wonderfully old-fashioned expressions and Lewis is very much writing to address the society of his time, but I think the points he makes about different attitudes to art (of all media) are still very much valid. My guess is that people who are 'good readers' will instantly recognise themselves in it (as I did) and those who are not will dismiss it as nonsense.

Interesting. I shall have to hunt it up. Thank you. :-)

Xia

It is still in print. Amazon has it. I've just read the first chapter and some of chapter 2 there. I was rather miffed when I clicked the little triangle and got the back cover instead of the next page! :lol:

Cool! Isn't the internet a wonderful thing?

That was beautiful, thanks for sharing. He definitely described what reading is like for me, and made me feel wonderful to be a part of that portion of humanity that inhabits a world other than the earth under our feet.

Hi! Glad you liked it and thanks for de-lurking!

Ros, thanks for that quotation. I like the way Lewis thinks, most of the time, especially about literature.

This quotation reminds me of a thought I had a few years back. I was re-reading Janice Norton's "Treatment of a Dying Patient" (one of the most beautiful things I've ever read, and entirely in clinical language!), and I e-mailed James Boyd White, who'd written the book in which I'd originally found Norton, and thanked him for introducing me to a friend. That's the way I feel about really good books and authors -- as if I'd met a good friend for life. This is an illusion, of course, and one that sometimes badly intrudes on the lives of authors, but I feel that I've learned so much from LeGuin, Irving, Atwood, Dickens, Tolkien, etc. (and Lewis too, while I'm at it) that it's as if I know them; and yes, I feel that I've looked through their eyes.

Thanks Ken, I'm glad you liked it. That's a really interesting point you make about feeling like authors are your friends. I don't think I quite see it like that. My friends are the characters who, when I read, become completely real to me, and I sort of suspend the reality that tells me there's an author who made them up. So I feel like I've seen the world through the eyes of Elizabeth Bennet and Dorothea Brooke and the Pevensie children and so on, rather than Austen, Eliot or Lewis. Of course I know that the characters are a way into the author's mind too, but for me that's a very secondary experience.

I guess that's one reason I've always been drawn to write fanfic. Since the characters become so real to me, inevitably they live on after the end of the book and because I've come to care about them, I want to know even about the mundane lives they live after their story has been told.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In praise of authors

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject