Monthly Archives: February 2017

Why Read? Critics, contemporary opinion, and the classics, by Emily Wheeler

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 James Wood: The Nearest Thing to Life

I listened to James Wood’s lectures online and found him an unusually positive literary critic, uplifting and inspiring to listen to. I was initially surprised about how much time he spent not actually speaking about ‘books’, but about his life. I suppose this should have been expected when considering his title; writing, reading and life are for him inextricably linked.

His ideas did inspire me to read more fiction, but also inspired me to start writing more myself. His eloquent descriptions of ‘serious noticing’ completely rang true with me, and described a skill that I think I am good at practicing myself, although usually through my photography and visual media work. Wood’s thoughts on the subject reminded me how much opportunity there is to ‘seriously notice’ through written text as well as visually; perhaps something I have strayed away from as my degree (BA Art History, Visual Culture and English) has focussed more heavily on visual arts practice than literature.

I thought that Wood’s discussions about religion and fiction posed a fascinating comparison when considering what the reader is being asked to ‘believe’. In fiction, we often know that what we are reading is not ‘real’, but we choose to believe in the story and become absorbed in its meaning anyway. We value the experience and usually believe that we can learn something; somebody else’s make-believe is important enough for us to engage and connect with deeply. However, in religious texts the idea of ‘realness’ and authenticity is much more important in terms of teaching and guidance for life.

I spoke to my own peers about their value associations towards fictional and non-fictional books, and found that they generally thought they gained more pleasure from fictional works;

“I prefer fiction as a method of escapism”

“I prefer fiction because it provides more of an escape and fiction is often more varied”

“I find fiction more “easy reading” but love biographies to learn about real people’s real life experiences”

“I prefer fictional novels as I generally read for pleasure. However, I believe non-fictional books are important for educational purposes”

There was an underlying association between fiction as simple or easy reading, and non-fiction as more challenging and offering more learning opportunity. I can understand why this could be people’s first impression, but on further reflection I think most people would see the value of reading fictional work for education and societal learning, as well as escapism. My own view is that much can be learnt from fiction, but I do think it depends on the books in question. Unlike the majority of peers I interviewed, I do have a personal preference for ‘classics’ – but perhaps this is due to my path of study in degree level English Lit.

The main concern among those I spoke to seemed to be around elitism and pretentiousness of labelling a work as a classic: “what is considered ‘classic’ can be very limited, especially if we are referring to the canon which is very biased towards white men.”

This is very true, and my own ‘favourite’ kind of books to read would be modern classics, particularly ranging across cultures and social demographic of authors. However, I do value the gatekeeping and recommendation status that comes with a book that has been well-reviewed, won awards, or is considered a classic.

I enjoyed Italo Calvino’s Why Read The Classics?, but I do keep in mind that these benefits may be equally found in ‘non-classic’ texts as well.

Italo Calvino: Why Read The Classics?

Calvino’s book raised some interesting questions about what makes a classic and how we should define a ‘classic’ or ‘great’ piece of literature. I’ve picked out some that resonated with me…

We are always ‘re-reading’ the classics; nobody wants to admit to a lack of knowledge about an important text! In some ways this is intimidating, especially for less confident readers. Elitism could be problematic here.

The classics “exercise a particular influence” – they are formative in the ways that we think and develop. Messages and meanings saturate our unconsciousness, and Calvino described the way that we don’t realise this at the time, but on a re-reading we discover that a classic text is perhaps where some of our ideas/assumptions/ethics have come from. He also describes the ‘traces they have left on culture’ and describes the lasting effects of classic texts like The Odyssey.

Contemporary author Philip Pullman reasserts the idea of books as moral guidance that penetrates deeper than direct social instruction; “We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.” — Philip Pullman

A true classic will have “never exhausted all it has to say” – endless possibilities for re-interpretation. The ‘Death of the Author’ notion is pleasing to think about here, as so many new readers throughout various temporal and geographical contexts have the potential to react to a piece of literature. Each of their interpretations should be valued and add to the growing paratexts surrounding a work.

Calvino also describes the way in which sometimes critical discourse can act as a kind of ‘smokescreen’ which inhibits and masks the initial ‘pure’ reading experience. This is problematic particularly in scholarly approaches to books, as we accompany the reading so often with another person’s interpretation. There is also the issue of a ‘classic’ deviating from an image that we already have of it; we rarely approach a classic that is completely unknown to us.

Ultimately, no one kind of reading is going to suit everybody, especially in an ever-evolving and complex world. People read for different reasons and must make their own value judgements about what brings them pleasure or benefits their learning. Therefore, it is important that a wide range of texts remain available, and that judgement and prejudice against certain types of reading are minimised in cultural commentary.

Henry Tilney and Feminine Fiction in Northanger Abbey, by Zack Eydenberg

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Kirsten Thorne describes the Gothic hero as “solipsistic,” “raged,” and “suicidally inclined” (98). He is often a figure “struggling against the limits of his humanity” (Lydenberg 108). Even Valancourt, from Catherine’s beloved Mysteries of Udolpho, is “no longer master of his emotions” (Radcliffe 442). A gothic hero is supposed to be a mess. Henry Tilney, the hero of the decidedly un-gothic Northanger Abbey, is composed (in almost all occasions), reasonable, and satirical. Yet we know he follows the exploits of those gothic characters as closely as Catherine.   This clues us into the idea that Henry Tilney, while reading the same works as Catherine, is reacting differently. Reading as Henry Tilney does, to acquire understanding rather than mere knowledge, pleasure, or escapism, places novels in a far more valuable context.

Before Henry’s true rank or financial situation is disclosed (29), Catherine already possesses “a strong inclination for continuing the acquaintance” with Tilney. His foremost quality in this conversation and others is being “’not so ignorant of young ladies’ ways as you wish to believe me’” (21). He assures Catherine of the importance of diaries, as they help to develop “the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated” (27). He makes clear his study of fashion, of which “men commonly take little notice” (28). He defends women’s abilities in letter-writing, saying “in every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes” (27). Henry Tilney not only observes women’s activities, but also participates in many of them.

It’s not surprising Henry Tilney loves reading novels as much as Catherine. Reading is a pastime only the “intolerably stupid” (119) dislike. Austen herself says novels are a source of “knowledge of human nature,” and “effusions of wit and humour,” (33-34) Henry’s two favorite things. Henry is keen to “understand the motive of other people’s actions” (141). He describes the results of his readings as “a knowledge of Julias and Louisas” (119). This implies a familiarity with various gothic heroines, but also could mean he has acquired emotional knowledge of those heroines through reading, and can sympathize with others as a result of reading, building upon that understandings of “motive” he mentions. Books also provide him with prized conversational similes, such as the one he uses with Catherine (120). His appreciating novels fits the rest of his character perfectly.

Henry’s appreciation also runs in opposition to the understandings of novels at the time, a novel being “’only a novel’” (33). The narrator explains that “no species of composition has been so much decried.”   Novels then were considered both feminine and useless. Novels were thought to be, as Mr. Thorpe says, “full of nonsense and stuff…the stupidest things in creation”

(48). He does, in fact, give the real reason he doesn’t read novels, which is that he has “something else to do” (47). This highlights many of the problems at play in Thorpe’s understanding of novels and of people, specifically women. Saying that the reason not to read novels is that there is “something else to do” implies that the practice of reading fiction is a waste of time, a novel-ty. “knowledge of human nature” doesn’t seem useful, and so, to Thorpe, it isn’t. With more “knowledge” of that kind, though, he might not have attempted to seduce a woman by calling her favorite hobby “stupid.”   The plot of the novel demonstrates the value of reading by comparing the awareness of a novel-reader against someone who thinks novels are “nonsense.”

Henry displays genuine interest in complexity, which novels provide. He introduces himself through humorous dichotomous perceptions she might have of him. He predicts she will see him as “a queer, half-witted man” (20), then asks that she write him into her diary as “a most extraordinary genius.”. He presents himself as two inaccurate extremes. One of his first acts as a character is to attack simplistic perceptions of people. In this same moment, he attempts to see a situation from Catherine’s perspective. He enjoys complicating. His retraction to his joke about “faultless” letter-writers begins with him denouncing a “general rule” (21). Like good fiction, his humor is an exploration of the general, and a subsequent indictment of it. He doesn’t like general statements or general words, like “nice” (120-121). He quips and corrects in accordance with his obsession with complexity found in novels and in life. So committed is he to this that he “broke the promise” (119) of reading to his sister in order to finish a book faster. His valuation of novels is so great it is sometimes at the expense of the people around him.

Henry perhaps shows unnecessary instruction when chastising Catherine about her having “erred” in thinking the general killed Henry’s mother. He calls her judgment into question, and accuses her of “admitting” questionable “ideas” (222). This is when he has just discovered she thinks his father is a murderer, and that she sought out his deceased mother’s room to gather evidence of this. He calls on her to “consult your own understanding” (222) rather than accuse her of having none. At his most irritated, he displays faith in her ability to observe, comprehend and understand, using the tools their novel-reading should provide, and merely accuses her of not using those abilities. He definitely tries to claim the moral high ground for himself, declaring “you have erred,” instructing her to “consider,” “consult,” and “remember,” (222) and asking many rhetorical questions. At his most serious, though, he goes back to the idea that understanding, in this case understanding the differences between fiction and reality as well as the similarities, is the missing piece in Catherine’s applications of gothic novels to life, but not one she is at all incapable of achieving.

The Pilgrim’s Progress: A Happy Coincidence, by Bethany Ashley

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This week, I had a change of heart. My initial reading of The Pilgrim’s Progress, was that it was tedious and very difficult to get through, despite its simplistic structure. However, I think this was partly due to my lack of knowledge about the Bible. It was hard work, as an ignorant reader, to recognise the parables and the huge number of references as they were being told. Nevertheless, John Bunyan has produced an incredible text that would surely be rewarding if you recognised more than the majority of biblical references. I will one day re-read The Pilgrim’s Progress, after I have read the Bible to see if it is more satisfying.

One aspect I did enjoy, in terms of popular culture, were finding phrases like Vanity Fair and Worldly-Wise appearing in The Pilgrim’s Progress. It is incredible to think that words we almost take for granted had to have an origin somewhere. For my dissertation, I am writing a collection of poetry based on the life of mathematician and code-breaker Alan Turing. Additionally, I am developing my own digital humanities resource. Therefore, the opportunity to explore the Reading Experience Database was fascinating. I will certainly be using this in the future to look for new avenues of research.

It was during this exploration of the database, that I happened upon a happy coincidence.

As I’ve been reading a copious amount about Alan Turing recently, I decided to try and find out what he had been reading. Of the three records that appeared, it seemed almost unbelievable that Alan Turing is documented to have read The Pilgrim’s Progress as well as: Reading Without Tears and Natural Wonders Every Child Should Know.

Alan’s extraordinary experience of The Pilgrim’s Progress was as follows: “The only books he had were little nature study notebooks, supplemented by his mother reading The Pilgrim’s Progress aloud. Once she cheated by leaving out a long theological dissertation, but that made him very cross. “You spoil the whole thing” he shouted, and ran up to his bedroom”. – Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma, (London, 1983), p. 9, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=31265, accessed: 03 February 2017

As a result of this research, I have decided to work on a series of poems titled respectively after the three books on record. I have included a first draft of one of these below. It is based on the death of Turing’s childhood friend, Christopher Morcam, with whom Alan enjoyed academic argument and astronomy.

 

Reading Without Tears

At sundown before Saint Valentine’s Day a boy

extended out the tether of friendship and yet

died from complications of bovine tuberculosis.

 

I am sure I could not have found anywhere

another companion so brilliant and yet

so charming and unconceited.

 

We journeyed to Cambridge to try for Trinity

I was unsuccessful but he was not and yet

I went and he did not.

 

I wrote his mother to ask for a photograph

so that I might remember him and yet

found I did not need it.

 

I looked over the glass ball stuck round

with paper to mark the stars and yet

couldn’t trace them all alone.

 

On the hockey field I watched the daisies grow

under the warmth of sun and yet

wait to spread their petals wide.

 

My own mother will write to your own

send flowers for the funeral and yet

she will not quite understand why.

 

At sunrise on Saint Valentine’s Day a boy

heard his footsteps fall heavier and yet

he will not quite understand why.

 

Bethany Ashley

On Northanger Abbey and the post-chaise, by John Stafford

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Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey 1817 (written 1798-9)

On re-reading Northanger Abbey (after a fifty-year break) I was surprised by how much was familiar to me, but also how much seemed to be missing! I particularly remembered more detail about travel by carriage that seemed to show the conventions of the time. On checking the Internet, I found that the details I was missing were actually from Pride and Prejudice, where the types of carriage used for various purposes are used explicitly to signal the social status of the passengers and as a means to shock the reader.

A blog entry on Austenblog by  Margaret C. Sullivan: A Closer Look at Carriages and Characters in Pride and Prejudice https://austenblog.com/2010/07/02/a-closer-look-at-carriages-and-characters-in-pride-and-prejudice/ has information relevant to Mr Thorpe’s carriage:
“Younger gentlemen’s personal vehicles were usually either a gig or a curricle. These fast, sporty carriages were similar in being open vehicles with two wheels, seating two comfortably, and driven by one of the passengers; the main difference being that a gig was equipped to be pulled by one horse and a curricle by two, thereby doubling the horsepower—a Trans Am to the gig’s Firebird, if you will. Mr. Collins, predictably, owns a gig, in which he takes Sir William driving while he is visiting Hunsford. Mr. Darcy, also predictably, owns a curricle, which he uses to drive Georgiana to visit Elizabeth at the inn in Lambton.”

And specifically mentions the post-chaise that is ignominiously hired by Catherine Morland:  “A woman of gentle birth would not have travelled alone, especially in a hired vehicle, though it was sufficient for Elizabeth and Maria to have each other as a companion. (To step away from P&P for a moment, imagine what Lady Catherine would have to say about General Tilney sending poor Catherine Morland home alone on the post-chaise with no servant in Northanger Abbey! )”

Catherine Morland is sent about sixty miles on an eleven hour journey alone in a carriage at a cost of £3-4 (they were twelve pence a mile plus extras, and Catherine alludes to the extras: “Her youth, civil manners and liberal pay procured her all the attention that a traveller like herself could require.”)

The experience of travelling without supervision for the first time was a rite of passage in the twentieth century. It made you feel a bit more grown up. In my case it was to work in a hotel as a waiter in Swanage in the school summer holidays when I was sixteen. Travelling by train was something I had only done before with my family for holidays. Others did such a trip for a university interview or to start university. Before the first world war, most people never left home, but by the second world war men and women, boys and girls were being drafted into posts far away.

I believe most British students don’t travel alone until they have their own transport now, the normal mode being Mum’s car. Students from overseas of course have much more difficult journeys, but I wonder if a transcontinental trip by plane is much more challenging than Catherine’s sixty miles in very different times.

Defining Readers, by Nick Ricketts

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I am trying to get my head around the idea of different types of reader. As someone with scientific training, I tend to look for definitions, yet I am not sure that is particularly helpful here. I read an online article just now by Jane P. Tompkins in which the ‘mock reader’ is described as “… another ‘author’ whose existence was entirely a function of the text.” who “… directs attention away from the text and toward the effects it produces.” To me, this implies that the effects produced by a particular text are consistent, but surely that is not the case. I have read the same passage in a book at different times and have discovered a different meaning. My response has varied with mood and even surroundings, and different people certainly have a different response to the same book. My question is, what do we make of this?

The Indulgent Reader, by Bethany Ashley

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I don’t know if I am allowed to admit this, but I haven’t previously read any Jane Austen. I recall opening Pride and Prejudice briefly, then deciding I’d much rather re-read Wuthering Heights instead. So, this wasn’t just my first time reading Northanger Abbey, it was my first time reading Austen – and what an indulgent text I found it. Rich in social history, and impropriety, I loved having the opportunity to explore Bath and the Pump-Room along with Catherine. This wasn’t a book I had to struggle through, I humoured the drama of Catherine crying throughout her breakfast after receiving news from her brother, and earlier wishing to throw herself from the carriage so that she may walk with Henry and Eleanor.

It is quite clear that in places we are also indulging Austen, especially in her declaration on the values on the novel. At times, this created a distancing that removed you from Catherine’s world briefly, and reiterated that you were merely an observer and that Austen too was observing these things. It was quite clear that this was Austin’s interference in the story, but I saw no reason why she shouldn’t use her influence and readership however she had wanted.

One of the passages I found most interesting, awoke questions of the value of the written versus oral text. As Henry, Eleanor and Catherine walk to Beechen Cliff, Henry mocks Catherine’s lexical choice: ‘nice’. It is clear that there are many interpretations to Henry’s mocking, and flirting seems most probable in my opinion, but the important question it raised was whether Henry would have the same critique of the written word. This is not answered in the text but was provocative enough to allow me to think of other places I’d encountered this before.

The most prominent in mind was from the Bible. This year I’ve downloaded an app in which David Suchet, of Poirot fame, will read the Bible to you in one year. (Another text I haven’t read before). In Luke 11:28 Jesus says that ‘blessed are those who hear the word of God.’ Suchet pointed out in an interview about the project, that the emphasis in this passage is ‘hear the word’, not read, not speak but hear the word. I therefore wondered whether Henry was giving the same authority to the spoken word as the written word, or if one is more worthy of respect than the other. The written word is more often carefully considered, than the spoken which is spontaneous, but this doesn’t necessarily make it better, or truer.

I then considered poetry, my go-to form, and one I feel more comfortable discussing. Especially in regards to poetry, do I feel that the reader experience is important in discussing the value of oral texts. There is nothing worse, than finding out your favourite poet is dull at reading their own work, and nothing more powerful that somebody surprising you with something you’d previously ignored by feeling every word fizzing around your bloodstream. There is no truer example of this than Kevin Kantor’s People You May Know. I loved it so much, I bought his collection to re-read which sadly failed to capture the tension in the air, and I spent longer looking at what I thought was an errant comma than enjoying the reading experience.

I am now left to wonder if the next time I re-read Northanger Abbey, I should do so aloud.

Bethany Ashley

The experiment begins, by John Stafford

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It’s an experiment maybe. Get together a brilliant university staff member, a dozen sparkling third year undergraduates and a dozen retired people of various levels of education. Give them a reading list of books so varied that no-one has read them all already and see what they make of them.
Is that a fair representation of what we are doing?

I have a way of reading a new non-fiction book that’s a result of choosing books for a public library in a past career:
1. scan through it quickly to see its structure and ease of understanding,
2. pick a short section I can understand and read it
3. read the whole thing, looking up words and references I don’t understand (there was rarely time to do this as a librarian!)
4. make notes on anything I want to take from it.

James Wood (2015) The Nearest Thing to Life. Jonathan Cape. isbn 9780224102049 was the first week’s book.

I took it at first sight to be an autobiography, as there are childhood and youth anecdotes illustrating many points, and chose the section about his ‘unedifying girlfriend’ (p6) as a good starting place. I had to look up ‘unedifying’. I was reassured that the book was accessible enough to understand its contents. Falsely reassured, though, because although I can begin to grasp the concepts of serious noticing and secular homelessness, I am far from doing so. I have read some of the books referred to in the text, but not many. The quote from John Berger (p. 45) was the first clue I had to start thinking about the meaning of Wood’s text, and I have read some John Berger and read more about art than literature.
I have one note from this first full reading: that a text necessarily assumes some knowledge of its subject on the part of the reader, and the writer must provide enough hooks to what a reader may already know. Still thinking about some other ideas.
I would not have chosen to read this book had it not been on the list, nor would I have chosen it for my library unless it had been requested by a reader

I am in various stages of reading the other set texts, and I am also looking at W.G.Hoskins Two Thousand Years of Exeter, rev ed 2004, to learn something of my new home town; and Gordon C. Fisher, Blender 3d basics 2012, which is about a computer drawing program.

John Stafford

Reading for Life

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Reading for Life: Literature, Emotion, and Community is an innovative new module taught in the Department of English and Film at the University of Exeter, UK. It brings together final year undergraduates in English Literature and members of Exeter’s vibrant University of the Third Age (U3A) community for discussion about reading and the impact of reading upon and across life. It aims to encourage attentive, deep reading, believing that this can be experienced by all, in an infinite array of ways, regardless of formal knowledge. It seeks to model a practice of shared reading across generations that offers the opportunity for enhanced meaning.

This blog hosts the personal reading and module reflections of this diverse study group. We hope you enjoy it!