The Cambridge Scene

The two critics discussed across the way pose a literary dilemma. They exemplify reading as it should be, and yet their influence is, on the whole, destructive. The very fact that they find reading immensely important, and do it with unusual acuteness, has tempted us to rely on them to do our reading for us. We seem to believe that if we read Dickens, and Trilling on Dickens, we are just as well off as Trilling. And how much easier it was to get there.

We ignore the fact that these critics act on a theory of art which does not countenance such tomfoolery. Only when art leads to a modification or intensification of sensibility is it distinct from Eliot's "superior amusement," or even more degrading, a virtue. Some people seem still to believe in Puritan fashion that reading the good book is in itself righteous.

But if art is distinguished by the modification of sensibility, then the importance of art is determined by the extent of the modification. (Whether the extreme modification of a few sensibilities, is more importance than a slight modification of many supposedly inferior sensibilities is of no concern here. A debate on the comparative importance of Rimbaud and Anne Lindbergh hangs on the democracy of your taste. (Personally, I am afraid that not even politicians, much less artists, can be both democratic and honest with themselves.)

The distinction between effectiveness and goodness follows from this belief. Effectiveness is a measurement of degree to which a book affects the readers, goodness is a measurement of the way in which it affects him. It is perfectly legistimate to contend that Norman Vincent Peale is a brilliant but pernicious author.

Now this distinction is a common one, but it implies an attitude towards books which is far from common. For if we accept this contention about art, it makes absolutely no difference what we read. The only thing of importance is what happens to use when we read.

The Absence of Art

But if this is true, then there is, from a subjective point of view, very little art. The typical reader wants a diversion. He reads in order to prevent anything happening to him. He reads because he cannot stand being alone. He reads for the same reason he smokes, or drinks, or plays records, or gossips. The proof is that most people combine these things with their reading.

This reader feels his isolated self-personification more or less inadequate to the occasion of life prior to death, and he seeks purgation in books. But needless to say, he who cannot live with himself does not find is easier to live with another. Rather than submit to a book, he steels himself against it, with alcohol, or inattention, or self-consciousness.

He cannot see, even for a moment, through another's eyes, and so modification of his own vision is impossible. Instead, he hears, classifies, and reacts to the ready-made categories, ad infinitum. Loneliness is a narcotic, and like a narcotic we find it very difficult to escape, despite our pain and distaste. The incapacity to read is, of course, only one symptom of the general addition to the self, a single phase of the incapacity to listen either to lecturers or poets, or friends, or lovers. And so he finally writes lyrical ballads to the existential dilemma, or becomes schizophrenic.

The Professional Reader

But there is another reader who is not escaping. He reads as a temporary or permanent occupation, one which has achieved remarkable status in certain circles. He seeks vicarious acquaintance with a culture hero and thus to participate in his heroism. For him, what he reads is most important. He must read the most heroic and most significant, and he must know about it, and be able to answer when questioned. This means that he must read "the original" in order to satisfy his conscience. Criticism is, however, needed to retain his social status, since personal reactions, even when they exist, are seldom marketable. This is a very time-consuming process, known as being an English major; but since the habit is unproductive it seldom extends beyond the college level, except as it becomes a part of the professional ritual of professional debates, or the publisher's cocktail parade.

The End of Reading

So long as reading is "our duty to the party," it might as well not exist. The science of the humanities, otherwise known as English Literature must be ousted from consciousness if we are to read. In the case of a few hardy souls, formal study can provide a few illuminating tools. But when studying books means answering questions, and when the answers are to be assessed by a man who puts a higher value on a stock response than a capacity to ignore the theories and the critics, then reading is on the way out. Any group of people which believes that we can have any important knowledge about books will rarely produce readers.

But even the reader who has no ulterior motives often turns to the perceptive critic, when the critic can see, and he cannot. Searching like Diogenes, he tries to use the critic for a light. Unfortunately, his instrument is as unsuitable as Diogenes', which dooms them both to failure. And he would rather not live in a barrel.

Perhaps he follows the critic's beam hoping the critic will lend it to him after a while, hoping that if he reads "Paradise Lost" often enough, he will discover his own experience. The experiment is seldom tried, and I also suspect that the poem, like the sphinx, speaks only when he expects to hear a voice, and that following the critics will produce only the voice which he has been told he will hear. If he reads a book about which he has heard enough, he can only react in those particular terms. He may reject or accept, but he is within the predetermined framework, which makes the possibility of an important experience slight.

Possibly people who like to read should concentrate in physics. Possibly they should read Lewis Mumford or Edmund Sinnott about whom they are not asked to have opinions, or Vardis Fisher of whom nobody has ever heard, or Norman Mailer, about whom nobody gives a damn. But most of all they should stop reading the opinions of Wilsons and Trillings, and start following their example. In award, they should treat them as artists, not connoisseurs