Losing yourself in Literature

Photo by Atlas Kadrów on Unsplash

“Literature, together with Language, preserves, and protects a Nation’s Soul.”     Solzhenitsyn

Can you remember the last time that you escaped for hours and even weeks through a good book? A book where time stopped and you were positively enthralled? A book that opened up pages to another world; exciting, dynamic, and different from your ordinary world. And even though you eventually came back to reality, you came back different. Invigorated, energised and mentally and emotionally enriched. 

I remember once being thoroughly exhausted at the beginning of a summer. I picked up Anna Karenina. Now this is not a small book by any account. But once I got started, I couldn’t put it down. I was enthralled by the characters. By Anna and Vronsky and her love of life and love of him. Yes, it dealt with huge tragedy and infidelity, but it painted a picture of people larger than life who loved and lived and suffered. 

Five days later when I had finished reading it, I felt refreshed and ready for action again. 

What George Eliot said about Art may also be applied to Literature:

It is the nearest thing to life; it is the mode of amplifying our experience and extending our contact with our fellow men beyond the bounds of our personal lot.

Literature captures us for so many different reasons. We have an intense need for self-expression. We love stories. We are interested in the world we live in. We crave beauty and truth and goodness in their diverse forms. Literature illustrates these qualities. Characters in a story move through the pages in a dynamic and fresh way as living beings, and afterwards they inhabit our memory. For days, we retain an emotional connection with them, wondering what we would do if we were in their shoes!

But is there such a thing as Good Literature? 

The Italian novelist Italo Calvino once wrote that a classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. I think the same thing could be said about Literature.

All the great writers have been not only thinkers about life, but observers of it. Their knowledge of character, their insight into motive and passion, their illuminative treatment of the areas of experience, together with their wisdom about life and human beings, all combine to give to their view of the world a moral significance which no thoughtful reader is likely to overlook.

Good Literature is all that a good life offers; rich conversations, dialogues, exchanges, and interactions, exciting and unexpected trips and journeys to different places, meeting new people, experiencing different emotions, falling in love and falling out of love and suffering. The representation of life and of the human person in a world that is credible, and convincing, is the raw material of Literature.

One of my personal favorites is Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Claudius the King of Denmark has murdered his brother in order to gain power and money. And yet he is left internally conflicted. And the play dramatises this conflict powerfully.

Claudius even tries to repent but fails, because his ambition and his love of power dominates. And what happens? He ends up sliding progressively into evil, and engineering the murder of his nephew, only to be murdered by that same nephew at the end. Guess what? He gets his comeuppance at the end!

Good literature resonates with all of us. We can identify with the struggles and battles waged by the characters in daily life, and come to understand them in greater depth. Our knowledge of human nature is extended and enriched as a result.  

We witness the pitiful sight of  poor Macbeth as King having come to the end of a murderous career looking at his life as something hollow and empty, a path which (he feels) has just helped fools along the way to ‘dusty death.’ 

Literature does not always provide happy black and white endings. Life is not like that, and thankfully neither is Literature. Literature gives us the good and bad effects of our choices, and illustrates the consequences that come from our actions.

Is there such a thing as Bad Literature?

Edgar Allen Poe was once heard to say that:

I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down.

A play on words alright, but he was not prepared to put up with reading poor literature. 

Most of us can spot a badly written book. It’s sloppy in parts and repetitive. And let’s face it, we have all come across books that simply celebrate what is wrong, or undermine the dignity or humanity in the other person. I would suggest that this is what constitutes poor or bad literature. It’s fairly easy to recognise I think when we get a blinkered view of human nature which, rather than leaving us inspired, can just leave us feeling dejected. 

Art, in all its forms is necessarily gritty. It grows out of life, and is fed by it. The artist, whether novelist, poet, playwright cannot avoid the moral dilemmas that are a part and parcel of life, as if he or she were outside good and evil.  The artist or writer plays a dual role. They produce aesthetic works that satisfy a reader, but they also make moral judgements on their themes and characters. The best literature does this in an unobtrusive and skilful way through their themes and characters. 

Benefits of Good Literature

I like to think that we are enriched on many levels from reading good literature; intellectually, emotionally, socially, culturally. As we turn the pages of a book, we are given permission to transcend our ordinary lives, and lose ourselves in other worlds, other cultures, other mindsets.

Isn’t it true that often we learn more about our humanity from a good book? About our capacity to endure, or about the corrosive effects of greed and hatred, or even the healing balm of forgiveness and fidelity? 

Literature has a huge capacity to heal and elevate us, whether it is through our grappling with the value of long-forgotten mores, or being sensitive to the nuances of interpersonal relationships.

Literature strengthens bonds of communication between people. How many great friendships can come from discussing a book!

Oh the wit and wisdom of Oscar Wilde or PG Woodhouse!

Finding good Literature is like finding a good friend again.