In praise of authors

[girlyswot]

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.

Comments

[moonette1.livejournal.com]

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".

[stmargarets.livejournal.com]

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.

[peverell.livejournal.com]

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

Xia

[petitecrivan.livejournal.com]

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.

[rhetoretician.livejournal.com]

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.