Heated Debate

Back on Wednesday I attended a book discussion at school. These are usually sparsely attended (especially the ones I lead: one person showed up for my discussion of the excellent World War Z, and two came for the talk about the satirical delight that is I Am America (And So Can You!)) and the level of discussion is kept on the surface: people talk about what they liked and didn't like, which events made them happy or sad, and usually connect the plot points to personal issues they with which they are dealing. Real "literary" discussion almost never takes place.

Those of you who noted that the sidebar contained the book The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox may have wondered why it was there: it certainly isn't the kind of novel I'd normally pick up for myself. Well, the book discussion was the answer. (I most likely would have skipped it, save that these discussions count toward my "professional development" hours for the college, and attending is easier than actual work.)

The book is fine. There's nothing extraordinary, but it is interesting. It was easy to get through its 200-some-odd pages, the characters had some development, and the plot (about a woman who discovers she has a great-aunt of whom she has never before heard and who has spent the last sixty years in a mental institution) clipped along. The discussion (attended by six people) was much like all the others we've had.

One issue, though, kept rearing its head. There are some surprising turns in the novel (I won't mention them, on the off chance that one of you readers might pick the book up yourself someday—they are somewhat critical to the story), and I argued that these weren't justified by the character's actions. Many of those present thought this was unfair, and that they could fully identify with and understand the character's actions. What began to emerge was that these other readers were willing to accept the actions because they, themselves, could fill in the emotions the character must have been feeling and the logic she must have used. On my part, I kept insisting that it wasn't our job to "fill in" the character work for the author; it is the author's job to lay the groundwork so that, when a character acts in a surprising way, we aren't totally confused as to why she has done so. This is especially true because the novel delves extensively into the thoughts and feelings of each of the characters—it wasn't even possible to argue (as these folks claimed) that we can't know what goes on in a person's head, because that's exactly what the novel purports to show us.

It's a bit like a murder mystery in which you might follow a detective as he tracks down all the leads, and then in the end someone we've never heard of comes forward and says, "Oh, I did it; he was my former business partner twenty years ago and I decided to do him in." I don't need everything spelled out for me (trust me—I'm a huge fan of books that are subtle, difficult, and even abstruse), and having a character act in a surprising way is fantastic when the foundation for that action is laid earlier in the work. It's like getting to the end of The Sixth Sense and seeing all the pieces you watched earlier fall into place: the movie earns the surprise by building it into the fabric of the story that comes before.

At any rate, this made me realize that most folk are reading books to see something within themselves confirmed by a story; at best, they work with the bare plot elements and characters and insert their own understanding where it is not made clear by the author. A plot outline and character sketches would probably be just as effective for them, because they will substitute their own emotions and thoughts as needed. This is probably also why most books don't need to have much literary merit (much to my sadness): the quality of the writing isn't as important as events and characters people can identify with.

All this made me think of C.S. Lewis' excellent An Experiment in Criticism (which I've mentioned many a time and oft before) and his discussion of the differences between how the "many" and how the "few" look at art. It's a fascinating inquiry into why there are popular tastes and why only a small population of readers/viewers/observers prefer works of a difficulty or quality for which the "many" do not care. (Ask the average class of community college students if they like Shakespeare and count how many assents you get, for example. I'd peg the number at between 5% and 10%. Not that anyone has to like Shakespeare in particular, but the class of people who consider his work brilliant and artful is always small.)

In brief, Lewis' thesis is that the many look to "do" things with art, while the few look to have something "done to" them by art. I'll let his much more refined and interesting words end this long post:

This attitude... might almost be defined as 'using' pictures. While you retain this attitude you treat the picture—or rather a hasty and unconscious selection of elements in the picture—as a self-starter for certain imaginative and emotional activities of your own. In other words, you 'do things with it'. You don't lay yourself open to what it, by being in its totality precisely the thing it is, can do to you.

You are thus offering to the picture the treatment which would be exactly right for two other sorts of representational object; namely the ikon and the toy. (I am not here using the word ikon in the strict sense given it by the Eastern Church; I mean any representational object, whether in two dimensions or three, which is intended as an aid to devotion.)

A particular toy or a particular ikon may be itself a work of art, but that is logically accidental; its artistic merits will not make it a better toy or a better ikon. They may make it a worse one. For its purpose is, not to fix attention upon itself, but to simulate and liberate certain activities in the child or the worshipper. The Teddy-bear exists in order that the child may endow it with imaginary life and personality and enter into a quasi-social relationship with it. That is what 'playing with it' means. The better this activity succeeds the less the actual appearance of the object will matter. Too close or prolonged attention to its changeless and expressionless face impedes the play. A crucifix exists in order to direct the worshipper's thought and affections to the Passion. It had better not have any excellencies, subtleties, or originalities which will fix attention upon itself. hence devout people may, for this purpose, prefer the crudest and emptiest ikon. The emptier, the more permeable; and they want, as it were, to pass through the material image and go beyond. For the same reason it is often not the costliest and most lifelike toy that wins the child's love...

The distinction can hardly be better expressed than by saying that the many use art and the few receive it."