In praise of authors
Apr. 3rd, 2007 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
girlyswotI'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.
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.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-04 03:26 am (UTC)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!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-04 03:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-04 03:30 am (UTC)Let me know how you get on with Jamie. *winks*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-04 10:03 am (UTC)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!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-04 02:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-04 04:09 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-04 05:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-04 05:24 pm (UTC)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. :)