August 02, 2004
The Role of Reading
A topic I've mentioned a few times in passing gets discussed in more depth by Erin O'Connor in a post about an article about a new book titled "Why Read?" O'Connor quotes this passage:
To me, the best way to think about reading is as life's grand second chance. All of us grow up once: we pass through a process of socialization. We learn about right and wrong and good and bad from our parents, then from our teachers or religious guides. Gradually, we are instilled with the common sense that conservative writers like Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson thought of as a great collective work. To them, common sense is infused with all that has been learned over time through trial and error, human frustration, sorrow and joy. In fact, a well-socialized being is something like a work of art.Yet for many people, the process of socialization doesn't quite work. The values they acquire from all the well-meaning authorities don't fit them. And it is these people who often become obsessed readers. They don't read for information, and they don't read for beautiful escape. No, they read to remake themselves. They read to be socialized again, not into the ways of their city or village this time but into another world with different values. Such people want to revise, or even to displace, the influence their parents have had on them. They want to adopt values they perceive to be higher or perhaps just better suited to their natures.
This fits nicely with our previous gropings towards a defense of reading that pointed out the way literature can transmit wisdom and increases empathy in a sensitive reader along with its many other pleasures. I find it interesting that we seem to be almost running from "l'art pour l'art" nowadays, looking instead to rediscover the utilitarian underpinnings behind literature and art in general. It seems the threat of obsolescence is refocusing the minds of those who promote the arts on those aspects that everyone can relate to and value rather than the jargon-laden obscurities of much post-modern theorizing.
Maybe it's the threat of obsolescence, or maybe it's just that L'ar Pour L'art was a ridonkulous, aggressively counterrevolutionary and poorly supported idea to begin with. It should be pointed out that it's a Modern idea, not a Postmodern one - for all its jargon and obscurity, postmodernism has been actively utilitarian, examining the role of literature in social life and politics, where the Moderns were the ones talking about truth and beauty. I think it could be argued that Modernism nearly killed literature by making it so great, while Postmodernism may ultimately resurrect it thanks to some really shitty criticism.
Good catch. Even so, most post-modern criticism may be utilitarian in some broad sense, but it's still pretty useless and off-putting for most people. I was speaking of a more general, less theory-based utilitarianism. More like, "reading is good for you because..." type stuff, not close examinations of what a particular work says about the social milieu it was written in. As for talking about truth and beauty, that was more the Romantics than the Moderns. The latter group was more interested in silly pseudo-scientific ideas like the objective correlative. Obviously any good art will be interested in truth and beauty (what a gag-inducing phrase for some reason), but I don't think it was at the forefront.
It does seem to be moving in a different direction, but I wonder if it is only a utilitarian notion, be it reading is good for you because X. O'Connor seems to be on to something - this idea of a second socialization. Perhaps, in an age where tradition is less ever-present, reading can serve (for certain persons, in any case) as a type of tradition to attach to. Perhaps there is something in the human mind/soul that simply desires some type of a past or "rootedness," and reading takes up the burden for lost institutions and mores.
But, then again, that's just a guess.
Forgive me for not commenting on modernism and all that jazz...
Reading as socialization is an interesting idea. I remember when I had just finished Buddenbrooks (an excellent read, btw), I was dating someone at the time that considered herself very urbane and sophisticated (I'm not talking about E), but to me she seemed phony and affected, like chimpanzee wearing a hat. Beyond that, I considered myself to be more sophisticated and "finished" than her, but I wondered why I thought that. I've done a little travelling, but not a lot, and Fort Worth is the biggest city I've ever lived in, but I still thought I was a pretty urbane sonofabitch. The answer, I decided, was literature. It's not really learning about other cultures, but more like experiencing them. From the nineteenth-century society of Buddenbrooks, to Achebe's Africa, literature sensitizes readers to any number of cultures--along the way, I guess one is bound to pick something up.
It does seem to be moving in a different direction, but I wonder if it is only a utilitarian notion, be it reading is good for you because X. O'Connor seems to be on to something - this idea of a second socialization. Perhaps, in an age where tradition is less ever-present, reading can serve (for certain persons, in any case) as a type of tradition to attach to. Perhaps there is something in the human mind/soul that simply desires some type of a past or "rootedness," and reading takes up the burden for lost institutions and mores.
I don't know. That sounds pretty plausible to me. I know I'm pretty conservative (ie wanting to preserve tradition) when it comes to education and academic matters, a fact I attribute almost entirely to reading. The classics make tradition noticeable and real through voice, style, attitude, subject matter, and a thousand other ways. There's a dignified, sophisticated, and serious way of viewing and relating to the world that's present in many of the great characters and in authors' tones that appeals to me. It's also one that lacks any notable presence today, so it seems reasonable to assume I've gotten my preference for that stance from reading. Of course, that's not to say I actually pull it off, but I find it attractive nevertheless.
The reading as vitamins idea I put forth seems compatible with the more interesting idea of reading as self-socialization. The latter can be used as one of the reasons for the former, which is, itself, merely an increasing awareness that some defense of reading needs to be made if we want to reverse the current trend away from reading literature.