So, another year, another dollar. I'm back for another year of prognostication and procrastination. Below, I look at why studying literature is a Good Thing. Hope you can make it to the end.
Yes, why is literature so important? What is literature? What is "is"? Why am I rehashing old jokes?
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Beyond the usual argument that literature helps see our better and worse angels and demons (yes, I am referencing Dan Brown; no, I am not subtly or otherwise endorsing his works) in a conveniently fictive form, literary studies encompasses all that one should know, should the Coalition win government should one choose to work in the field of the liberal arts in whatever capacity. For me, (hopefully) my future career as a journo will be helped immensely by my past, present and future study of lit.
There are a few accepted disciplines that one should be aware of if one is to work in a field requiring predominant use of the left side of the brain: history, philosophy, language and linguistics, and even the pseudosciences (yes, I am being provocative) of psychology and sociology.
The important to understand about literature, besides its being a key proof of Derridean intertextuality, which is of course kindling for another fire, is that, more often than not, it is an attempt by the author to assert their view of the world on the world. Hence, Orwell's
1984, set within the quotidian activities of the worn-out Winston Smith, is a dystopian tale of allowing the government too much power. In another example, various right-wing ideologues cite Ayn Rand as a favourite for her Nietzschean message (set within a book about architecture, or something) of individualistic struggle against the collective; the (moral) victory of the
kulak over all the other Bolshie peasants. Of course one prominent Rand fan was last year's American vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan, who
apparently made his staffers read Rand's
magna opera The Fountainhead and
Atlas Shrugged. I would have gone for
The Consolations of Philosophy myself, but each to their own I guess. The key point, again, is that authors construct and drown us, the reader, out with their world view.
(One advantage the author has over the film director in this regard is that in no case does the director ever have complete control about what happens in their film; indeed, it has been suggested through the so-called Schreiber theory that screenwriters are, to use a plain phrase, the big cheese when it comes to making movies. This complements the work of
François Truffaut who, alongside bringing up auteur theory (whereas directors not only have complete control over the film production process, but also include their life experiences in it) in the first place, came up with the idea of the metteur en scène, or setter of the scene (think Michael Bay as "director" of Transformers) as the auteur-director's polar opposite. I will acknowledge the following: while some big names loom large over the century-or-so of film directing (Griffith, Welles, Rossellini, Truffaut himself, Bergman &c), I just feel films are too ephemeral to leave a lasting impression of the tangential experiences of a director. We can sense this impression in a book, especially in a memoir or "confession". Indeed, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, which is one of the more strange books I've read, gives us a sense of what the author has and hasn't read through his allusions, name-checks and referents, which Penguin has kindly and conveniently detailed in its edition's endnotes. Even novels will have these allusions, name-checks and referents, which we can read - in more than one sense - as the author speaking to us, breaking the fourth wall if you will. Even my own allusions, name-checks and referents in this post and others speak volumes about my literary interests. How could I reveal that information through film? Of course writers have to deal with pesky editors (as well as peskier sub-editors if the publication is some sort of journal of record) and peskiest proprietors if business interests are at stake, which is rare-ish, but still unfortunate. On this blog, there is only my good self (which is like dealing with different people sometimes) to deal with, but the trade-off is that no one actually reads my stuff. Still, the independence and power of the author is much more than the independence and power of the auteur.)
Before we go further, let me add, if you didn't read the parenthetical paragraph above, I discount films in the study of literature. Why? I feel films are too ephemeral and fleeting to be analysed and reflected on, whereas I prefer the materiality of a good tome. Two more points: I recall attending a seminar on how to be a movie reviewer (yes, I was evidently very bored), and the main tip seemed to be to write the review in the hours after the film is seen, so as to not forget the, y'know, details. Why rely on something as incredibly unreliable as memory (it's the basis of Modernist literature, after all)? Wouldn't it be better to write the review while the movie's being seen? Except for the, y'know, darkness of the theater, that would actually be a good idea. The other thing is, were I running pedagogy in any capacity, I would immediately take off films off the text studying list for English and Literature. Besides the unreliability of memory, information is transmitted differently between film and the written word. This would lead into a discussion of Ong and McCluhan, but suffice to say different senses are being tickled when consuming film and book. (On an increasingly tangential note, on the chest-beating and brow-furrowing that occurs whenever anyone considers the demise of print, think of this: the context is just as important as the text. Who has ever tried reading a book online? My experience (reading Aristophanes' The Clouds; don't ask) was my concentration diminished tenfold because of other distractions (music, cat videos on YouTube, social media &c). Print needs to be kept alive as a medium, unless we want to become a bunch of distracted rats, looking for the next dopamine hit (well, more than we are already). Call me a tweed-wearing geezer, but you wanted my opinion so there you are).
We shall stick to good books, then.
A student of the literary will encounter all facets of knowledge - and epistemology itself - (even the pseudosciences) in an exemplar of literature.
Take, for example, the study of Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground. The story of a neurotic man (and I should know!) who journalises his life, I was fortunate (?) enough to be prescribed it for my literature course last semester.
Reading the novella (instead of only its synopsis on Wikipedia), one becomes immersed in a range of ideas and concepts that one can store for later so that one can confuse friends and strangers alike at parties.
What does Notes from Underground, as an arbitrary example, teach us? (Besides the lesson that getting emotionally involved with prostitutes is never really a good idea?)
- We can approach the text from an philosophical stance, looking at the case for and against Rational Egoism, the viewpoint critiqued by Dostoyevsky
- We can study, psychologically, what motivates a person to abandon all forms of social contact and become a misanthrope
- We can explore the aesthetics of the novella, and its links to Modernism
- We can explore translations of the novel from Russian into English - various translations have titled the work Notes from the Underground, and key ideas are changed slightly, or significantly, due to differing ideas on how a word or phrase should be rendered comprehensible to the monolingual English reader
- We can study the role of censorship in 19th century Russia, amid autocracy.
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I mentioned my aspiration to work as a journalist in the opening section. There is, in fact, an intersection between journalism and literature. No, I don't mean journos making it up as they go along. At the heart of journalism and the wider media industry is the desire to tell, and be told, stories. Why is it that news bulletins refer to reports as "stories"? It seems to me to be the most receptive way a particular message can be reached. What I mean is, by labeling these packages as "stories", there's an element of artifice about the content, and therefore an element of unreality, and therefore an element of irrelevance, and paradoxically, an element of believabilty. Who cares, and who's going to not accept, about what those clowns in Canberra do if it's all meaningless and without practical implications? The press gallery can prattle on all they like about Kevin Rudd's leadership chances, but what does it mean to the people on the streets and in the suburbs? The other side of the coin is that the more serious bulletins actually do refer to their packages as "reports", because the people running these bulletins understand consumers want to stay informed.
All media involves some element of story-telling. From the most bland documentary to the hippest advertisement, the creators of these productions have thought about narrative, and the sequence of items to be presented. Is it no small wonder that the elements of hard news - who, what, when, where, why and how - are the same things schoolchildren learn about in primary school when learning how to write a story?
There have been attempts to formalise this story-telling in the heady world of journalism. The most notable of these is New Journalism, a term coined by Tom Wolfe in 1972. (He was, and still is, a satirist, so we should be careful about how much this term may or may not reflect badly on journalists.) The whole point is to subvert the hard news style of reporting (25-word paragraphs, ordered by most newsworthy information, written in language comprehensible by a 12-year-old) and instill a style of writing that is more languid (think Saturday feature as opposed to Monday headline). More than ordinary breaking news, New Journalism moves closer to the omniscience and omnipotence of the pre-Modernist novelists (as if journos need another reason to give themselves a big head) and this way lies that link between literature and journalism.
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The points being the following: we can study and learn from well-written books in a way we can't do so from well-directed films; well-written books should contain a range of disciplines and history and philosophy should be the foremost of these; Notes from Underground, as an arbitrary exemplar of literature, teaches us both about ourselves and the temporal and physical surroundings of the author; literature, because of the above points, is essential consumption for anyone wanting to make a living in the liberal arts; and journalism, my chosen field of work, has strong connections with literature and story-telling, made stronger by the advent of Tom Wolfe's New Journalism.
Happy Australia Day Citizens' Day weekend, folks.
