Wednesdays Words 6 - Literary Taste and Personal Development

“Once one is caught up into the material world not one person in ten thousand finds the time to form literary taste, to examine the validity of philosophic concepts for himself, or to form what, for lack of a better phrase, I might call the wise and tragic sense of life.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

I like this quote, and unfortunately feel that it describes me to a great degree. I haven’t taken the time to properly develop myself as a person to the extent that I would like to have if my situation had been ideal (read: was a millionaire with time to spare). I don’t know all the things I would like to know, I haven’t read the books I know I should have read, and I don’t fully understand my own views about the world I live in. I feel like I am making do with a minimal set of the information I would like to have in order to be content with my own personal sphere of knowledge.

Case in point: this very quote itself. I know of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I don’t know much about him. He was a writer I believe, active around the twenties, but I couldn’t name a book he was responsible for, and I know that there was a Zelda involved, but that this has nothing to do with Link.

This Zelda though, I know quite well

I find that rather than knowing important things, I know of important things. It is like my previous post on how I just don’t get poetry, yet I still have a tacit acceptance that it must be a worthwhile thing to know.

Literary taste is likewise something I have failed to cultivate. Though I possess an extensive knowledge of book titles which I should have read, or which nonetheless have some sort of literary significance; I have yet to move very far along my list of ‘books I need to read’. Brideshead Revisted, Wuthering Heights, anything by Hemingway, anything by suitably long dead Russians; the list goes on.

I know of these books, but I haven’t the slightest idea why they are important, or what the overall gist of their respective stories are.

Is it just me, or has this title always sounded more like a B-grade horror sequel than a literary work?

But the way that the modern world can overtake you is evident all over the place. I love chess, but I don’t play chess much anymore; I haven’t cultivated that part of my life anywhere near as much as I would want. I play with my son occasionally, but in order to fully embrace the game, I would have to devote far too much time to it. Let’s face it, in these days where a half hour of chess playing could be replaced with a scroll through Facebook activities, a read of my Twitter feed, a glance at the latest blog entries via RSS, a few informative and hilarious videos on YouTube, insightful commentary from Al-Jazerra or any other activities on the web; the ancient Indian game all but certainly loses the bet.

Or perhaps I can kill two birds with one stone? 

On the other hand, if we are to look at Fitz’s quote from a more modern perspective we might be tempted to dismiss it, or at least diminish its accusations, as somewhat anachronistic.

After all while it is no doubt true that the majority of the population will not form a literary taste as such, these days literature is not the only medium with which people can form a personal philosophical viewpoint.

Nowadays we can devote our attention to the multitude of movies out there, and slowly cultivate a unique cinematic taste, which may very well help us to plumb the depths of the human condition as much as any literary viewpoint would. We can similarly turn our attention to the small screen, which these days exhibits works of such complexity and daring that it is hardly worthy of the scorn so often associated with devoting time to watching the box.

But if there is any one tool which has emerged out of the past century as the superlative force in cultivating our own personal beliefs, tastes and philosophical development, it has to be the Internet.

And it's useful for pictures of people lying face down in various situations......

Nothing else can compare to the net’s ability to pervade every instance of our personality. You can read books online, turn to articles about them, read a blog, or take part in a discussion with people from across the globe. But considering the medium I am using for this message, this should be of no doubt to anyone reading.

Perhaps this widening of the information sphere is the reason for my thoughts regarding my own apparent lack in refinement. As there is so much more available to us in this information age, and our attention spans have been stretched much further than ever before, we in a sense dilute our tastes over a variety of knowledge sources never before experienced by anyone at any point in history. In this sense, a short attention span isn’t the worst thing in the world, for while it may result in a less thorough approach to whatever is being analysed at the time, it nevertheless allows for rapid transitions from one source of attention, knowledge or amusement, to another.

I mean sure I may not have much of an understanding of the great Russian authors, or the popular British novelists of the past few hundred years, but thanks to the internet I know such obscure things as the amazing abilities of animal penises, the curious nature of infinite numbers that differ in size and how to make a trebuchet out of office supplies. And this is only a small subset of the much larger experiences I have garnered from the venerable World Wide Web.

So while Fitzgerald may have been lamenting modern mans aversion to literary and philosophical development and self determination, I think it is somewhat encouraging that today we have a lot more tools available to the everyday man to help them in their quest through life.
That's all for this late night rant dear reader. I hope this makes up for the missed Wednesdays Words last week; whats more I hope someone noticed it was missing.
Good night all.
MM

Oh and on a quick wiki, I see that F. Scott wrote The Great Gatsby. I haven't read it, but luckily come December this year I might not have to...

I Just Don’t Get Poetry.

I don’t get it. I would like to get it; don’t think this is a disparaging post attacking the old art form. But I just don’t understand poetry, how it ‘works’, and its place in the world.

This is my own fault for never having venturing to learn much about it. I delved into poetry as most people do when I was forced to learn a bit about it in school. But as with most things that you are told are important in school, I instantly began to question its significance, and loath the fact that I was being told otherwise. That objective view of importance always bugged me in school, especially concerning the more subjective parts of education, like art, writing or music. I have an inherent contrarian nature, so when I was just told that a poem was good because of a certain property imbued by its author, or was to take it on authority that an artwork was superior to others based on some intrinsic quality; I would always take the opposing viewpoint.

These days however, as I look upon the world with different eyes than those of my school years, I can’t help but see the seemingly numinous effect that poetry has on people, and understand that there must be something to it.

I find that for me the same can be said of most forms of art, in that I can see its influence on people and know it must have a level of depth and syntonical understanding that is simply beyond me. I do however have more of an understanding of the visual arts than I do of poetry. There are pieces of art that I like; that I have some deep visceral reaction to, or primal sense of beauty about. I look at The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai, or Picasso’s Guernica and I just like it. That being said, whenever I try and read some poetry I can’t help but think ‘Oh come on, just say it plainly and skip the melodical to and fro already’.

Definitely one of my favourite arts.......

In this time of instant gratification and Twitter feeds and rock music, and other tropes that old people might stereotypically use to explain the modern world,  I don’t have the time to search for subtext; I’m pretty much all contained on the surface. I want to know what you are saying, and I want to be able to analyse it, and learn from it.

Perhaps this is why I find it easier to enjoy visual arts than I do poetry; you just have to look at it. You don’t need to think about it, nor do you even have to pay attention. You just look at the painting, and if you’re lucky it evokes some feelings in you. For poetry to do the same I would have to either listen to it, or read it, then comprehend what was being said before I could even get to the point of seeing if it affects me in any meaningful way.

I like a painting because of how I feel about it, and it doesn’t have to be explained or even rational.

In other words I like the lazy arts.

Lazy, but still pretty cool.

Perhaps this is why I don’t understand poetry. Poetry uses language, and for me there must be a defined point to the application of language, as it is made up of such structured and logical constructs. Subject–verb–object: simple. I know what you are talking about, and I can infer what I need with relative confidence.

Being quite a logical person, I am much more comfortable when I know that I am on the right track. I like objective truths more than I do personal preferences. That you can read a poem and get something completely different out of it than I do is a bit unsettling for me, because there is no correct way to go about it. Ironically, the lack of orthodoxy which causes my unease is exactly the thing that I rallied for in school; a freedom from imposed interpretation.

Perhaps what I really want is a rational way to explain why art affects us in certain ways, as not doubt the answer lies somewhere in that indeterminable beast between our ears. But until that time comes, I think I just need to embrace the uncertainty inherent in art, and perhaps find solace in its personally fulfilling nature.

The most I know about poetry is contained entirely within either my ability to make haikus (This is a haiku, this much I do know for sure, as it’s so easy), or else within the one poem I have bothered to save into my collection; the Second Coming, by William Butler Yeats. But hell, even AJ from the Sopranos has read that one.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    has always been a bit of a douche

Nevertheless, I now find that I like the idea of poetry. I like the ability people must have to evoke feelings through wordplay, to plumb the depths of the human experience and present it in a weird and wonderful way that affects people, even if they don’t quite understand why. I like the idea that poetry, like all art, can be universally appealing, but intimately subjective.

I like these things in theory, but I just haven’t made the effort to put this theory into practice, and see how it relates to me. I have however taken the first step, in getting myself a copy of The Ode Less Traveled by Stephen Fry. And if anyone is going to get me interested in this, certainly the inimitable Mr Fry is the man to do it.

MM