Why I Read

[John F]

Under the Covers
By WILLIAM GIRALDIJAN. 24, 2014

WHY I READ
The Serious Pleasure of Books
By Wendy Lesser
223 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $25.

For writers, literature is a talent show: Those with the most talent win. Readers are more fortunate: Everybody wins. Quality reading exercises the crucial dialogue with yourself, the dialogue you must undergo to become yourself, to know where on the vista of existence you can place your own identity and awareness.

The salient word, of course, is “quality” reading. In his indispensable “Lectures on Russian Literature,” Vladimir Nabokov, with typical Nabokovian acuity, chided those pedants “who talk about books instead of talking within books.” That might appear a distinction without much difference, but Wendy Lesser’s lovely “Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books” demonstrates the chasm between Nabokov’s two prepositions. An intellectual of unflinching dignity and gravitas, founder of The Threepenny Review and author of nine previous books — including literary memoir, cultural criticism and an incandescent study of Shostakovich — Lesser talks within books as few now are able to do.

With her understanding of the nexus between the fertility of imagination and the inevitability of experience, she practices a criticism of appreciation in the mold of Dr. Johnson and William Hazlitt. In seven bright-line chapters organized by theme — “Authority,” “Grandeur and Intimacy,” “The Space Between” — “Why I Read” becomes an invitation to our own ruminative forays into literature.

Lesser is no doubt aware of the significance and pedigree of her subtitle’s phrase “serious pleasure.” Of any work of art, Walter Pater asked: “Does it give me pleasure? And if so, what sort or degree of pleasure? How is my nature modified by its presence?” Harold Bloom, via Percy Shelley, has tagged literature “a difficult pleasure” — difficult because only lobotomized best sellers are simple; pleasurable because great books must offer an ecstasy of aestheticism before they can offer anything else. For Bloom and for Lesser, the pleasure is always aesthetic and never ideological. Lesser has no patience for the modishly political. Criticism is passionate and personal or it is impotent and dull.

We turn to a book like Lesser’s not only to help us unravel the DNA of literature (what Hazlitt named the gusto in the soul of literature) but to commune with a mind abler than our own, to augment our own appreciation and understanding. Everywhere in “Why I Read” lie ribbons of literary wisdom. On why Lesser favors Swift over DeLillo and Pynchon: “Great satire, to last, needs to be offensive even to those who agree with it.” On the need for writers to recast ordinary life rather than simply replicating it: “To have authority, a literary work must be able to turn the quotidian into something strange.” On the welcome destabilizing nature of great books: “The truths in literature are incidental and cumulative, not global and permanent.” And on the trendy blurring of literary categories: “An author who self-righteously proclaims that there is no real boundary between fact and fiction is not someone you should trust regarding either.”

Lesser’s voice is so congenial, measured, authoritative and sane, it seems downright impervious to quarrel. From Hopkins to Cervantes to Dickinson, from Herzen to Klemperer to Louise Glück, she is equally discerning and deft. At one point she briefly engages Conrad to navigate the improbable canal between Norman Mailer and Janet Malcolm. But it is Henry James who presides over this book like a nudging sprite. Lesser conjures the Master with the profoundest affection and regard, calling to mind a particular Jamesian alliteration she doesn’t cite but could have, since it describes her criticism so well: “perception at the pitch of passion.” An unapologetic proponent of the traditional canon, she argues for the Great Books in words that might be engraved in granite:

“The slight, the facile and the merely self-glorifying tend to drop away over the centuries, and what we are left with is the bedrock: Homer and Milton, the Greek tragedians and Shakespeare, Chaucer and Cervantes and Swift, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and James and Conrad. Time does not make their voices fainter. On the contrary, it reinforces our sense of their truth-telling capacity.”

In 1914 James suggested that novelists didn’t have enough criticism by which they could know themselves — a bolstering of Arnold’s brash idea that literature requires literary criticism to thrive — but with the recent onslaught of cyberspatial blather, scarcity is hardly the problem. Lesser has nothing to say about social media, because for the true bibliophile there’s nothing to say about social media. She does, however, in the book’s brief coda, nod assent to electronic reading, and it’s no coincidence that when she considers our gadgets of distraction her prose turns chatty, slack with automatic jargon.

We know by intuition and study that great books approach a condition both above and below human — what Lesser means by “grandeur and intimacy” — and our job is to place ourselves somewhere on the continuum between those shifting poles, to welcome a gravid agitation or be willing to undergo some form of personal torsion; to have our personhood both threatened and amplified. For Lesser as for Dr. Johnson, literature is a method and manner of fuller living. In “Why I Read” she has written a necessary addition to the canonical titles of appreciation. Wendy Lesser is a serious reader — a quality reader — and this book is a serious pleasure.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/books ... esser.html

[Tarantella]

This an excellent review, John, and, like so many quality critiques or reviews, it raises itself to the level of art similar to the very artworks it seeks to unlock or understand. Some points, though:

Giraldijan claims "great books must offer an ecstasy of aestheticism BEFORE they can offer anything else". I think this is somewhat high-sounding and trying to flesh out what exactly is meant is challenging. If by "ecstasy of aestheticism" he means that we stand back and observe the artifact, its power and beauty BEFORE we unlock the themes, experience and clues then I think he might be wrong. For me, the aesthetics are fully realized when message and means converge - one is not separate from the other. Actually, sometimes the art and aesthetics can obscure the meaning. This has happened with me when I read Dickens or Austen. I've become infatuated with the language and technique - and those longer-than-reasonable sentences - to the point where I've had to say to myself, "now read it again and see what's really being conveyed". So, it's not as simple as that lone paradigm. Another troubling aspect to this is that, for many authors, aestheticism exists for its own sake and can obscure the ideas of the novel, forcing us back to its creator. In short, it's the super-ego of the writer which then becomes the 'subject' of the work. (Or, as my husband says, "this is really all about THEM"!). Think 'Robert Hughes'!!

I'm unsure what is meant by "lobotomized best sellers" (unless he's referring to Shakespeare or the King James bible!) but it does sound vaguely condescending. I think he means books which are pared down to what I'd suggest are 'elements of understanding'. Many excellent writers have had best sellers and I don't think any critic can traduce the works of an author based merely on popularity. It requires a author to be adept at reading human beings in creating a worthwhile novel which many people can not only read and enjoy but be able to empathize and say, 'there, but for the grace of God, go I". Academic critiques like Giraldijan's, seem to miss this point. I'd just like to know which best sellers had been "lobotomized".

Only recently I sent an important opinion piece from a major metropolitan daily to my sister and, in so doing, I commented that I didn't know how people were able to make sense of the world at all without the thoughts of very intelligent people who could. I would add great literature to that. (My husband likes non-fiction and has eschewed fiction altogether, saying (somewhat prosaically) 'it's not based on fact'. I've just read this piece by Giraldijan aloud to him because some people have to have the 'experts' to back up their wives when making an argument!! He seems more convinced.)

I'd be interested in your thoughts.

[John F]

Lesser's book is on my wish list, as soon as Barnes & Noble sends me one of their emails offering a discount.

By "lobotomized best sellers" I suppose Giraldjean (or Harold Bloom) may be referring to popular fiction such as the romances of Jackie Collins, Johanna Lindsley, et al. But he doesn't give any examples and it's not clear.

I agree that "ecstasy of aestheticism" isn't clear either. Maybe it means not just reading for the story but absorption and appreciation of literary qualities, from overall design down to the choice of individual words. Instead of just saying "It's getting dark," or leaving it to the stage lighting, Macbeth says:

Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to th' rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse
Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.

Just the phrase "Light thickens" excites me. (It also excited the detective story writer Ngaio Marsh, who used it as the title of one of her novels.) There are some very knotty passages in late Shakespeare, including "Macbeth," where I'm not sure what is meant. In "The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism," T.S. Eliot talks about this:

The ordinary reader, when warned against the obscurity of a poem, is apt to be thrown into a state of consternation very unfavourable to poetic receptivity... The more seasoned reader, who has reached, in these matters, a state of greater purity, does not bother about understanding; not, at least, at first. I know that some of the poetry to which I am most devoted is poetry which I did not understand at first reading; some is poetry which I am not sure I understand yet; for instance, Shakespeare's.

Seems to me this says something like what Giraldjean says, but more plainly. Whether or not you agree is of course up to you.

As for likes and dislikes, you have trouble with Austen and Dickens, while I can't abide Henry James, especially his later novels. On the other hand, one of my great books is Joyce's "Ulysses," which makes Dickens and even James seem like "Fun with Dick and Jane," which many Americans read in first grade. Giraldjean's review warns me that Henry James is central to Lesser's book, which doesn't put me off - maybe she can provide the key to unlock James for me, and if not, what she says may be worthwhile in other ways. I'm looking forward to finding out.

[Tarantella]

Apposite comments. Thank you.

"Light thickens" also excites me, as do a huge number of Shakespeare's words including, but not limited to, ".. when I love thee not chaos is come again". And those unforgettable words from the same play ("Othello")..."making a beast with two backs".

I take your points, absolutely. Enjoyable as Austen and Dickens are (late Dickens is very trying, though), both writers seem to inhabit the twin poles as far as prose is concerned. Austen is subtle and sophisticated and Dickens is the essence of perception, laced with acutely vivid imagery, wit and worldly understanding. And very cinematic.

These words from Dickens will be etched on my brain until I take my last breath. They are from the opening page of "Dombey and Son" and refer to the (somewhat austere and calculating) importance to Dombey of the arrival of a son, anticipating the consequences of him being able to carry on the family business. Who else could have framed it this way!?

"He will be christened Paul.........And again he said 'Dom-bey and Son', in exactly the same tone as before. Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey's life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships, rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their orbits, to preserve inviolate a system of which they were the centre. Common abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole reference to them. AD had no concern with anno Domini, but stood for anno Dombei - and Son".

This is an example of great writing where aesthetics and meaning converge instantly. The abundance of ideas in this one paragraph - about, paradoxically, solipsism and the global, both juxtaposed magnificently to describe egotism (Dombey) on an industrial scale. And Dickens uses language very musically, IMO, and the first instance in this novel is his syllabic formation of 'Dom-bey and Son. There's an inherent rhythm in the entire paragraph which, I think, few writers are able to achieve.

I don't regard Dickens as especially easy - just look at the novels from his later period; these are very difficult and "Our Mutual Friend" is just boring - and long!! Austen requires life experience to understand and I know this from trying to teach "Emma" to perplexed 17 year olds. The only novels of James that I've read both reflect very different stages of that writer's evolution: "Washington Square" and "What Maizie Knew". I've got "Maizie" open in front of me now and notice I have underlined in pencil many of the sentences, including "It gave her often an odd air of being present at her history in as separate a manner as if she could only get at experience by flattening her nose against a pane of glass"(101).

There's something 'spoken' or 'conversational' about this style in "What Maizie Knew" - written as if one had just spoken it when, as we know, there's a tremendous difference between written and spoken language. The former can be syntactically challenging and the latter a practiced artifice. And I'm also drawn to the similarity of these lines with those of late Dickens!! Ironic detachment.

[John F]

I'll add only that I sympathize with your husband about non-fiction and fiction. I read a lot but not much fiction, not because "it's not based on fact" - fiction always is, in one way or another, and can of course go deeper than fact - but for some reason I take less pleasure in it than in other kinds of reading, and given the emphasis of Lesser's book and the review, it's OK to say that.