& other Works of Art.
Today’s sermon will consider:
1) Books You Like or Love
2) Fashionable or Popular Works of Art
3) Acclaimed or Great Works of Art
4) Books Deep Enough to Swim In
I will mention Catch-22, Don Quixote, Great Expectations, Middlemarch, The Lord of the Rings, Infinite Jest, The Cat in the Hat, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, The Da Vinci Code, Moby Dick, Anna Karenina, Swann’s Way, One Hundred Years of Solitude, A Brief History of Time, the Mona Lisa, a Kacey Musgrave video, 47 Rock albums, The Wizard of Oz, and other works of art. Come dive right in, the water’s fine.
Welcome to bookchat! Where you can talk about anything: books, plays, essays, audio books, everything and then some. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
1) Books You Like or Love
This is the first measure of any book, and the measure that matters the most in the end.
How many books are there? According to Bing, 130 million. You will read only hundreds, maybe thousands, in your whole life. Less than 0.01% of them all. So, you’ll need to develop a smart, quick filter, to separate out all the books you’ll ignore, and to open only those you’ll most enjoy reading, and the books that will nourish your soul.
It can be interesting to read Fashionable books; it can connect you to a cultural moment, and to a crowd of other readers. It can be gratifying to read Great books; you feel so smart, wandering through these monuments of thought and history. But the most fulfilling book is the one that we Love so much, that we lose ourselves between its covers, and have to come back again and again to find more of ourselves in its world.
While you read various books, from childhood on, you are developing a mental picture of which particular books you love, which kinds you like, and all the others that mean less to you, or that you dislike. Through your years and shelves of reading, you sharpen this filter. Your filter might be a conscious system of judgment (like mine is), or an unconscious layering of all your reading experience — so that some books just look right, while others feel like they are not for you.
As I said up top, we’ll consider 4 ways to gauge books, that help us judge whether to read a particular book, or ignore it. Liking or disliking is the prime measure, the one that comes straight from our own experience, and therefore the one we know best.
Still, it isn’t always simple to know exactly what we like. Ever since we ate that pesky fruit in Eden, humans have lived in division and doubt. Also, our tastes change. We all loved books as kids that would feel childish and shallow to revisit now. Other books are daunting in childhood, but when we try them again in maturity, prove rewarding.
Finally, our tastes can be mercurial, affected by where we are in life when we read a book, and what mood we’re in. When I first discovered Catch-22, it was a marvel and a delight to me. I was sixteen, with family, camping in Brittany on the north coast of France. Days we walked into the village, buying fresh food in lovely shops and market squares, or went to the beach to swim and people-watch. Living was delicious.
Catch-22 proved hilarious, a many-layered vision of the absurdity of war, and all the people trapped in it, trying to escape, and to grab brief pleasures as they could. It made me feel worldly, naughty, and in on the cosmic joke.
A few years later, I was in a very different place. College was intense, everything was changing, and I felt confused, overwhelmed and desperate. I picked up Catch-22 again, looking for more of the sun-dappled laughter I remembered so dearly. But, alas, Catch-22 is indeed many-layered. Its absurdity can also feel jagged, with jokes papered over the terror of war’s senseless slaughter. Since I was, at that time, overflowing with darkness, I fell into the dark side of the book. It chilled my heart, and all my smiles fled.
Those readings are long behind me now, and I can be glad of both. I learned more about Catch-22, and its sinuous tragicomedy; more about my moods; and more about the care sometimes required in choosing a book. I know better what I like, and when.
It is healthy and helpful to see the world and yourself clearly, to discover just what you like. Seek out all you love, make it your own and give yourself to it (or her, or him, or them). Find what keeps you fresh and hungry, then do more of that. As Kacey sings, Follow Your Arrow:
2) Fashionable or Popular Works of Art
What does it mean, to say a work of art is popular? It means lots of people are reading that book, or perhaps buying but never finishing it (e.g. A Brief History of Time, Infinite Jest, Capital in the Twenty-First Century). Or it can mean lots of people are listening to that song or album, watching that movie or show, or crowding around that painting in the Louvre.
What does popularity tell us about a work of art, what quality does it convey? There are several paths to popularity, here are three of them. Art may become popular because 1) it is Great (e.g. Shakespeare, The Beatles); or 2) it is universal, in that it appeals to all kinds of people, sometimes worldwide (e.g. Dickens, Bob Marley); or 3) it is timely, it chimes with a moment in our zeitgeist (e.g. The Da Vinci Code, Ace of Base). In the third case, Timely Art may be lively and fun, but it is often shallow and formulaic, catching attention by playing on current fads.
Writing this Bookchat, and including Popularity as one measure of books, has been a learning experience for me. It has made me look beyond my own blinkers, and reconsider the scope of reading. I always took for granted that reading was a solitary, introverted pastime, because it is that for me. When I read, I go on an inward journey through a silent field of words, which my imagination responds to, coloring in between the author’s lines.
But reading can also be a shared experience, whether that entails reading a book out loud to your children; discussing a book your club all read, over wine; or queuing in a costumed horde, waiting to buy the next volume of Harry Potter, when it drops at midnight. In school and college we traded books with close friends, trying to interest them in writers we’d just discovered. At Christmas, we give our favorite books as gifts, hoping our siblings will join in our enthusiasm. Shared literary journeys are more thrilling, like rooting for our town’s team together. We also discover more in books, by discussing them with our friends. That is why we all keep gathering in Bookchats, to compare our impressions with other book lovers.
There has always been a social component to my fullest reading experience — I just never saw it that way, till now.
A Brief Digression — Hello Readers, welcome to my Rock Music tangent. So, I wrote another couple of pages here, but then I decided to be merciful to you all, and scrapped them. I was getting deep into the weeds of rock music criticism. If that’s your jam, then I’m sorry, you might have loved it. But looking back over it, I reckoned it would put most Bookchat readers to sleep.
My main point was: there’s a kind of counter-fashion, which rejects mass popularity or commercial success, and strives to be Hipper-Than-Thou. You know those poseurs who, whenever you praise a writer or band, have to name-drop another who’s more obscure?
I worked a long time on this table, and I’ll include it here, for those readers who enjoy rock music criticism. My point with the table was, Rolling Stone represents the establishment voice of Classic Rock, while Spin is the Hipper-Than-Thou rejection of the mainstream. These two lists cover almost the same period (only four of Spin’s 25 top albums fall outside of Rolling Stone’s 1967-’87 span); yet the lists only have three of the same albums, and only two other bands in common (aside from those who made the three same albums). If these lists held any objective measure of Greatness, they would agree on more than 1/8 of their picks.
Spin include no Beatles, Who or Bowie in their top 25 — in spite of their power and grace. On the other hand, if you’ve always listened to Classic Rock, Spin’s list will be much more surprising and revelatory.
popular VS. anti-pop
|
ROLLING STONE |
August 1987 |
|
SPIN |
April 1989 |
|
100 Best Albums |
Last Twenty Years |
|
25 All Time |
Greatest Albums |
|
The Beatles
|
Sgt. Pepper's
|
1
|
James Brown |
Sex Machine |
|
Sex Pistols |
Never Mind The Bollocks
|
2 |
Tom Waits |
Swordfishtrombones |
|
Rolling Stones
|
Exile On Main St.
|
3 |
Bob Dylan |
Blonde On Blonde |
|
John Lennon
|
Plastic Ono Band
|
4 |
The Smiths |
The Queen Is Dead |
|
Jimi Hendrix Experience
|
Are You Experienced
|
5 |
Led Zeppelin |
Led Zeppelin II |
|
David Bowie |
Ziggy Stardust
|
6 |
Television |
Marquee Moon |
|
Van Morrison
|
Astral Weeks
|
7 |
Sly & Family Stone |
Fresh |
|
Bruce Springsteen
|
Born To Run
|
8 |
Elvis Costello |
This Year's Model
|
|
The Beatles
|
White Album |
9 |
Rolling Stones |
Exile On Main St.
|
|
Marvin Gaye
|
What's Going On
|
10 |
New Order |
Low-life |
|
Elvis Costello |
This Year's Model |
11 |
Run-D.M.C. |
Run-D.M.C. |
|
Bob Dylan |
Blood On The Tracks
|
12 |
The Replacements |
Let It Be |
|
Bob Dylan & The Band |
The Basement Tapes
|
13 |
Aretha Franklin |
Lady Soul |
|
The Clash
|
London Calling
|
14 |
George Michael |
Faith |
|
Rolling Stones |
Beggars Banquet
|
15 |
Depeche Mode |
Black Celebration |
|
Patti Smith
|
Horses
|
16 |
Al Green |
The Belle Album |
|
The Beatles |
Abbey Road
|
17 |
Echo & the Bunnymen |
Ocean Rain |
|
Rolling Stones |
Let It Bleed
|
18 |
Velvet Underground & Nico |
Velvet Underground & Nico |
|
The Band |
The Band |
19 |
Leonard Cohen |
Songs of Leonard Cohen |
|
Prince |
Dirty Mind
|
20 |
Big Daddy Kane |
Long Live the Kane |
|
V. Underground & Nico
|
Velvet Underground & Nico |
21 |
Van Morrison |
Moondance |
|
The Who |
Who's Next
|
22 |
Prefab Sprout |
Two Wheels Good |
|
Derek & The Dominos
|
Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs
|
23 |
Neil Young & Crazy Horse |
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere |
|
Richard & Linda Thompson
|
Shoot Out The Lights
|
24 |
Sinead O'Connor |
The Lion and the Cobra |
|
The Doors
|
The Doors
|
25 |
Minutemen |
Double Nickels on the Dime |
|
|
|
|
|
|
3) Acclaimed or Great Works of Art
Popular art blazes for its moment in the sun, but Great art shines on through eternity. At least we (especially critics) would like to believe so; and furthermore that there is an absolute objective standard of Great Art that we can all agree on. Which is a beguiling fairy tale.
Consider the Mona Lisa. I’ve heard and read many people claiming that the Mona Lisa is “the Greatest painting of all time”. But what do they know? Well, some of them are professors of art, or else have spent months of their lives in museums, staring at paintings and considering all their qualities. If you can actually stand and deliver an hour lecture, full of your observations, researched facts, and clear logic, to explain why the Mona Lisa is the very greatest painting — then I’ll concede you have a compelling argument.
However, 99% of people claiming that the Mona Lisa is the greatest painting couldn’t give that lecture if their lives depended on it. All they’ve done is read some expert make that claim, and take their word for it. Lord, what fools these mortals be.
Searching on Bing for “Greatest Painting of All Time”, most of the first few pages of results put the Mona Lisa top. But many of those lists weren’t of Greatest paintings, but rather Most Famous. Which is indeed a simpler, more measurable quality. It is also more arguably true for the Mona Lisa. But this painting was hardly famous at all, until the 20th Century.
The Mona Lisa holds the Guinness World Record for the highest-known painting valuation in history: $100 million in 1962 (equivalent to $870 million in 2021). It was painted in the early 1500s but, for the next three centuries, only a few artists and critics talked about it. In the 1860s, French intellectuals generally began to hail it as a Renaissance masterwork. For another fifty years, the public didn’t pay it any mind.
In 1911 the Mona Lisa was stolen, by an Italian employee at the Louvre, who believed it rightly belonged in his homeland. In late 1913, he tried to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, but was apprehended. The painting was exhibited there, then returned to the Louvre in January 1914. That episode, four centuries after Leonardo da Vinci painted it, was when the Mona Lisa started becoming "the best known, the most visited, the most written about . . . work of art in the world".
Pros & Cons of “All-Time Greatest” Lists
I mentioned before that there are 130 million books on earth, so you won’t read even 0.01% of them in your lifetime. We live in an age of information and entertainment overload, and face similar far-too-much-to-choose-from dilemmas in every direction. What should we read, and learn about, and listen to, and watch? It’s enough to make your head explode. Filtering the best, or our favorite, out of all we could see is a tricky, complex endeavor.
So, though they are beguiling fairy tales, Greatest lists are also useful first steps to begin filtering with. If you discover a fresh fondness for SF books, or Film Noir movies, or Prog Rock albums, then searching for lists of the best among them is a fine way to start exploring a new field. But when you peruse a Greatest list, consider its source, and apply grains of salt accordingly. When The Guardian publish their 100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century, I take it a lot more seriously than when Buzzfeed does.
Still, something in us yearns for certainty, for clear definite answers. It would be sweet to know who truly are the Greatest writers, and which are their Greatest books. Another measure of Greatness is, which writers have stood the test of history? For instance, millions have debated the literary qualities of Homer, Lady Murasaki, Chaucer and Cervantes, and every century has mostly agreed about their Greatness.
To judge contemporary writers, start with their prizes. The most glorious is the Nobel prize for Literature which, it seems to me, has for the last several decades only been awarded to Great writers. After that, the Pulitzer, the Booker and the National Book Award are among the most esteemed prizes for writers.
And yet, in the end, how much does all the praise of these learned committees add up to? These prizes and lists are useful to help you find good reads, and fun to debate about. But the prime measure of any book is whether you, singular reader, like or love or loathe it. For myself, the most meaningful measure I have found of Greatness is: When I read a favorite book a few times across the decades, and in each rereading, I find more joy and meaning than before.
4) Books Deep Enough to Swim In
Like our first category (books you love), this is a personal, subjective measure of a book. You, dear reader, may find Middlemarch deep enough to swim in, but The Cat in the Hat too shallow to do that; whereas your four year old might have a contrary assessment of them both. A book’s depth is partly subjective, depending on how you personally happen to respond and resonate with a given book. Depth is also partly inherent in the book itself. There are books that most readers and book lovers agree are deep enough to immerse themselves in, such as Don Quixote (Faulkner reread it every year), Great Expectations, Anna Karenina, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and The Lord of the Rings.
There are many books that I started reading, only to quit, forever. There are two particular famous books I found terribly difficult, dry and dusty. I tried and quit, but kept trying, every five or ten years. I’d make it 30 or 50 pages in, then quit again. I kept seeing them on Greatest Novel lists, and friends praised them highly. Being a pretentious intellectual, I felt I had to read them; I also yearned to crack them, to find their juicy kernels of meaning.
My first challenge book was Moby Dick. When I finally left the harbor, and sailed the open seas with the Pequod’s crew, I was enthralled by the splendor of Melville’s prose, his wild imagination, and all the shaggy-dog digressions along his convoluted voyage. A most peculiar book, which the public was not ready for in 1851. It bombed, which broke Melville’s heart, since he had poured his entire soul into it. Seventy years later, when Modernism came along, it finally started to sell, and was deemed great.
My second challenge book was Swann’s Way. The plot is slow to go anywhere. It is like steeping in the atmosphere of a tea-house, observing passersby through the window. But, if you will let yourself steep, there are marvelous qualities in it. Proust is a master of language and description, he paints such rich tableaux.
In my teens, and again in my twenties, Melville and Proust proved impenetrable to me. But then they opened up, in my thirties. The books stayed the same, so I must have changed. What had I gained in the meanwhile, that finally revealed the depths in these books, so I could swim inside them? I had read more books by then, and harder books, which made outdated or obscure language feel less daunting. I had also acquired more scholarly knowledge and life-experience, so the layers of subtle meaning woven through these books became more transparent to me. Reading them became less of a strenuous deciphering, and more of a joyful natural flow.
The third way I matured into a defter reader lay not in my understanding, but my attitude. I had more patience to sit still and listen. I brought a more open-minded, cooperative curiosity to my reading. I’ve been observing this newfound skill lately, this zen-like gaze, and nurturing it in my life — because so much of our world is rushing frantically in the opposite direction. Social media makes our minds into grasshoppers: read two paragraphs, click another link, hop hop hop, never stop.
We set out to discover four ways to judge books — but we are also measuring books, and appreciating books, and now trying to swim inside them. The first measure (books you love) is found in your own heart, how you personally feel towards any book. The second and third measures (fashionable books, or great ones) is seen in the eyes of other people: the crowds who make something popular, or the critics who award it prizes. This final measure (books we can swim in) lives partly in the book itself, and partly in your personal response to it.
However, another way of seeing this is, a book need not be at all deep for you to swim in it. You can swim in almost any book (or movie, album or painting), if you will meet it where it is, and accept it there, with a zen-like gaze. Just as your four year old, a few paragraphs ago, was happy to swim in The Cat in the Hat. To be a more open-minded, cooperative reader, simply trust the artist to tell their own story, to paint their own world, while you pay full attention and soak it all in.
We already do this, with artists we know and trust. Fiction can take us to dark, horrifying places, and our human instinct is to doubt and pull back from them. When I was four, watching The Wizard of Oz, the witch throwing fireballs from the roof terrified me, so that I hid behind the couch until she was gone. During these Covid times, I’ve mostly avoided books I feared might disturb me; I get enough of that from the news. Except, there are some writers I love, admire, and trust not to hurt me in their worlds. So I can read something dark by Shakespeare, Ursula Le Guin, or Neil Gaiman. Because when they turn dark, they always bring so much empathy and wit, so much balance in their own souls, that I know the world will make more sense, with enough hope in it, when all’s said and done. They are dear friends of mine, William, Ursula and Neil, because they stretch me and nourish my sanity. Jane Austen and Kurt Vonnegut do, too. Manna for these troubled times.
I think a zen-like gaze is often the kindest thing you can give a writer, and yourself while reading their book. Let your grasshopper hop out the window, and leave you in peace. Turn off your critical mind (as much as you can), trust the world of the book, and give yourself up to its story. While you’re in it, fully inhabit it. When you swim completely inside the book, you get the most comprehensive view of the story, just as the writer meant to tell it. And maybe they’ll fail, and their story will fall apart. If so, you’ll know that by the end anyway, but you’ll have a better ride getting there.
So the 5th Way to Judge a Book is: don’t judge it at all; listen with your whole self, and live through it.
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