Esoteric Authors: Do they serve a purpose?

[joxy]

Now, back to the topic at hand....

But not before I agree with you about judicial murder: every one of those adjectives, and then some.

 

[joxy]

Thank you both for the information on Rand and Lint. I have a vague recollection now of the former's name being briefly mentioned during my university philosophy course, but Lint is completely new to me. As Rand adopted her name at a time when curious names were fashionable I suppose her choice is understandable, but I must admit to surprise that anyone could be a successful author under the name of Lint! The prominence of both writers in the lists now seems all the more strange.

 

[Inderjit S]

I don't think your friend Joyce would be happy about a suggestion that he was Brit/American, and there are other representations there for Ireland, as well as for Australia, Canada, and India. Who would you suggest from the wider world?!

Generally speaking, many people would group Irish lit with British, or at least associate the two together. As for the Indian authors-Rushdie lives in Britian, as does V.S Naipaul who is in fact from Trinidad. And Canadian lit. can be counted as North American lit, and thus my original term was a bit of a misnomer-maybe it is too centred on British/Irish and North American lit, with the odd Aussie thrown in for the sake of it.

Indy said that it was impossible for Tolkien not to hate because he believed in damnation. His logic was you can't believe it is all right damn someone without hating them. I said by the same logic you can't believe it is all right to execute someone without hating them. Therefore hateful in this sense means "coming from someone who is full of hate" not "causing a person to hate the something (ie death penalty, damnation)."

I really do not want to get caught up in this debate but....

I didn't say Tolkien believed in this or that-my case was paradigmic and not personally centred on Tolkien’s theological views.

I am saying that such religious exclusivism that some Christians follow is hateful. Your prison analogy does not fit. The person who is sent to prison is usually sent there because he or she committed a crime. The person, who, according to some Christians, is sent to hell, is sent there because he or she is not a Christian. Not being a Christian is not a "crime"-certainly every Christian cannot be sent to hell, since there are people who have never heard of Christianity and thus cannot be punished so severely for their ignorance. Also people may not want to convert because they are happy with their religion, or do not now enough about Christian teachings to convert-and such things are not crimes. The criminal deserves his punishment because he committed a crime-the people who are damned because of religious exclusivism do not deserved to be punished because they did not commit a crime. It is kind of like the recent wave (well, maybe not so recent, Bin Laden and co. are harking back to the days of Aurangzeb and his ilk) of Muslim extremists, with their schools of Wahabbism, propagating the damnation of all non-Muslims, despite the fact that such views are anathema to their religion-and of course their attacks on Christians and Jews-despite the fact that Mohammed protected the non-Muslim monotheists within his kingdom. Another example is the one of Hindus who try and forcibly convert and attack and Buddhists, Jains or Sikhs or claiming that all three religions are a part of Hinduism. Sorry if my views sound a bit incomprehensible, I have a terrible hangover and it is like 8:30 in the morning.

 

[HLGStrider]

Your logic is still off because you missed my point:


According to Christianity EVERYONE has commited a crime at some point in their life.

Therefore everyone is worthy of damnation.

Christianity is the way to achieve pardon for said crimes. . .or not Christianity, but Christ. I believe there are ways to achieve salvation that account for some, not all, but maybe most, of the exceptions you listed. Those who never hear, for instance. As I said, Christians believe in a fundementally just God who judges justly and will take into account EVERYTHING.

That said a lot of your minor theological points are off too.

Anyway, I believe it is somewhere said in the Bible that we are not to worry about other's fate, only our own, so questions about who is damned and who is saved are really not for us to decide. We are given guidelines for how to be saved and how to help lead others to salvation, but we're not supposed to go to funereals with a check list and try and figure out where the soul ended up.

 

[Arthur_Vandelay]

That said a lot of your minor theological points are off too.

This is somewhat of a throwaway line that needs expanding upon (for instance, which of Inderjit's minor theological points are "off," and why?).

But not here. Back to the topic at hand . . .

 

[Inderjit S]

According to Christianity EVERYONE has commited a crime at some point in their life.

I really don't understand how I contradicted you-I never said people could not be damned because of their bad actions-I said that the exclusivism that some Christians preach was hateful, since condemning a person to hell because he does not share your religion is hateful. A person may sin but may repent-sinning is in my important, one of the important parts of life-it allows us to learn from our mistakes and become better people. We are all worthy for damnation, as you say, but claiming that only Christians can be saved from damnation is wrong. It is like saying “Become a Christian-or go to hell.”

 

[joxy]

....my original term was a bit of a misnomer....

....claiming that only Christians can be saved from damnation is wrong.

Yes, classifications as British/Irish and United States/Canadian satisfy my pedantic mind, though the former should be UK/ROI.
Which leaves my original question: apart from those two, from which classifications would you like to see authors included?

Yes, indeed that's wrong; does anyone claim it? Not the founder, who said: "other sheep I have, not of this fold".

 

[Beleg]

Just to keep the ball rolling [and stop joxy from making references way beyond my understanding], I'll ask a question, losely related to the original here.

What basic purpose does fiction serve? Escapism, forwarding specific themes relating to social/political concepts or a mixture of them before?

 

[Arthur_Vandelay]

What basic purpose does fiction serve? Escapism, forwarding specific themes relating to social/political concepts or a mixture of them before?

It serves no basic purpose, and it serves infinite purposes (which pretty much amounts to the same thing). A woefully inadequate response, I know, but it's the most honest I can give right now.

 

[joxy]

What basic purpose does fiction serve?

And what is the answer to the basic question of life, the universe, and everything? 42.
It was my references that are beyond understanding? How far beyond understanding are these questions?

 

[HLGStrider]

Enjoyment

I'm old fashioned. I think the main purpose of any sort of writing is to entertain. The reason I write is to make myself and other people happy. I want them to enjoy what they read. . .


But generally literature teachers go so much deeper into that that I think they ruin the love of reading.

Yes, reading should have deeper meaning, convey deeper thoughts, and whathaveyou, but if you don't enjoy yourself it becomes a task, not an experience, and there is no point.

 

[Arthur_Vandelay]

Re: Enjoyment

I'm old fashioned. I think the main purpose of any sort of writing is to entertain. The reason I write is to make myself and other people happy. I want them to enjoy what they read. . .


But generally literature teachers go so much deeper into that that I think they ruin the love of reading.

Yes, reading should have deeper meaning, convey deeper thoughts, and whathaveyou, but if you don't enjoy yourself it becomes a task, not an experience, and there is no point.

If you think the purpose of studying literature is solely to enhance your love of reading, then there is certainly no point studying literature--all you really need is a library card and a comfortable armchair by the fire (pipe, dressing gown and glass of brandy are optional).

I can sympathise, however, with your (seeming) aversion to the idea that literary texts are repositories of "deeper" meanings, and that the task of the literature student is to "unlock" the text and "discover" these meanings (aided in his/her quest by the knowledgeable English teacher who appears to know these meanings in advance)--thus gaining an appreciation of the texts' Universal Significance and its Essential and Lasting Qualities, and a Firmer Understanding of what the text can Teach us about the Human Condition, & c. & c. Fortunately, English and Literature studies are moving away from this approach (what I would call the Matthew Arnold approach)--though not without some kicking and screaming in certain quarters (see, for example, this article by James Bowman, andthis one by Luke Slattery; for counter-arguments, see this article by Catherine Lumby, and this one by the same author)--and are dispensing with the notion that the study of Shakespeare, Milton, and even Joyce and Tolkien makes us "better people."

 

[Inderjit S]

What great good did their erudition do for Varo and Aristotle? Did it free them from human ills? Did it relieve them of misfortunes such as befall a common porter? Could logic console them for gout?

I gladly come back to the theme of the absurdity of our education: its end has not been to make us good and wise, but learned, and it has succeeded. It has not taught us to seek virtue and to embrace wisdom: it has impressed on us their derivation and etymology.... We readily enquire "Does he know Latin and Greek" "Can he write poetry and prose?" , but what matters most we put last, "Has he become better and wiser?" We ought to find out not who understands most, but who understands best. We work merely to fill the memory, leaving the understanding and sense of right and wrong empty..

I am not prepared to bash my brains for anything, not even for learning's sake, however precious it may be, From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime...If I come across difficult passages in my reading I never bite my nails over them: after making a charge or two I let them be...If one book wearies me I take up another.

The portrait of the conversations of Socrates which his friends have bequeathed us to receives our approbation only because we are overawed by the general approval of them. It is not form our own knowledge; since we do now follow our practices: if something like them were to be produced nowadays there are few who would rate them highly. We can appreciate not graces which are not pointed, inflated and magnified by artifice. Such graces as flow on under the name of naïveté and simplicity readily go unseen by so course and insight as ours…Socrates makes his soul move with the natural motion of the common people: thus speaks a peasant woman…his indications and comparisons are drawn from the most ordinary and best known of men’s activities: anyone and understand him. Under so common a form we today would never have discerned the nobility and splendour of his astonishing concepts; we who judge any which are not swollen up by erudition to be base and commonplace, and who are never aware of riches except when pompously paraded.

Quotes from the great Michel de Montaigne.

 

[Inderjit S]

I have also posted the same topic at a literature forum where I have been castigated as 1. someone who wants to burn all of the books I don't understand. 2. an idiot. 3. an idiot. Currently in a debate with, what seems to be, the whole darn forum.

 

[joxy]

For example, you say:

What did he say; and what are these last two postings about?
Is something missing?

 

[Arthur_Vandelay]

I have also posted the same topic at a literature forum where I have been castigated as 1. someone who wants to burn all of the books I don't understand. 2. an idiot. 3. an idiot. Currently in a debate with, what seems to be, the whole darn forum.

Well, that's what you wanted, right? A debate! (Even if it is a little one-sided, and not in your favour ). At least the posters in The Book Forum kept on topic, unlike some on this thread (myself included--sorry about that).
But I do think that you may be taking all of that--the contrary opinions of your interlocutors on the other forum, that is--rather personally (nobody has called you an idiot, for example, as far as I'm aware, on either thread on either forum). In any case: it looks like a great site--thanks for the link!

Reading your remarks on The Book Forum, I have a better sense of where you stand regarding the questions you posed in your initial post (on both threads)--and I can also understand some of the objections of your interlocutors, even if many of them have, as you rightly point out, misconstrued your intentions. For instance, your initial post appears to take it as a given that there is such a thing as "esoteric" literature: and in subsequent posts (here and in the other place) you attempt to qualify this description by pointing to the distinction between works that are "easier" and "more difficult" to understand. Firstly, while an "esoteric" text may be difficult to understand, not all texts which are difficult to understand can justly be described as "esoteric," if by that you mean "designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone" (source). Your initial post suggests that esoteric texts are those which pander to the demands of the intelligentsia; I'm not certain that difficult-to-access books necessarily "pander" to the demands of the intelligentsia (if by that you mean that they are written with the demands of the intelligentsia--whoever they are, and whatever their demands may be--in mind), and I'm not certain that it can be inferred from a book's difficulty that it has indeed been designed with "the intelligentsia" in mind.

Second, you suggest that the author has a "message" to get across, and that it would be better to make the message more accessible. Frankly, I am as skeptical of that (i.e. the notion that a text has a "hidden message" for the reader to discover--and I think the idea that a work is "esoteric" depends upon the notion that it contains a "hidden meaning") as I am of the notion (implied in a post by an Ashlea on the other forum) that there is a "human condition" which certain works of literature tap into. As Nietzsche says, "When the book opens its mouth, the author must shut his." Whatever message the author is trying to convey, readers will make of his/her work what they will. If certain advocates of a difficult-to-comprehend author snobbishly chide readers for not possessing the competence to "get" what they (the advocates) declare is the author's "message," the author can hardly be blamed for the snobbishness of his or her advocates.

Third, I find it highly unlikely that a James Joyce (for example) would write something of the magnitude of Ulysses simply for the purpose of seeming "erudite." Again, if Ulysses has subsequently been described as a work of erudition, that is hardly Joyce's fault. I don't know that we should readily assume that an author is snobbish, just because we find his or her books too difficult to comprehend.

In response to your opening question, a member of the Book Forum posted the following:

Do Japanese maple trees serve a purpose or are they superfluous and not needed?

In response to one of my questions to you--"What is literature"--you posted the following:

This question is overly-fastidious. What is anything and everything?

I don't regard my question (and Dr Ransom chided me for it also, detecting the foul odour of postmodernism in the air) as "fastidious" in the least. It is impossible to contribute to the debate you have initiated (nothwithstanding the occasional detour into arguments concerning the merits and demerits of the death penalty) without making assumptions about what literature is: for example, Ashlea from the other forum makes one such assumption (one with which I disagree): literature "speaks to the human condition." So I think it is a question that is well worth exploring--at least for conversation's sake.

 

[Arthur_Vandelay]

What did he say; and what are these last two postings about?
Is something missing?

What on earth are you going on about?

 

[joxy]

A_V: I was referring to a posting of yours which included the words: "For example, you say:", followed by a line of underscores, but without a link. Those references no longer appear in that posting, so the answer need never be known.
I was also asking Inderjit S the significance of his posting #54; I believe I have now deduced the answer.

 

[Barliman Butterbur]

Do difficult to read authors serve a purpose or are they superfluous and not needed and do they simply pander to the demands of the intelligentsia? Shouldn't literature be able to be accessible to everyone rather then a select few? Authors such as James Joyce and Thomas Mann are notoriously difficult to read-whereas authors and poets such as Maya Angelou, Graham Greene and Toni Morisson as well as existentialists such as Franz Kafka and Albert Camus are pretty easy to read, even if their messages are a little more hidden. ...

You mostly refer to fiction, but you could have subsumed nonfiction here as well. My point is that there are many concepts that are inherently difficult, complex and subtle, and if they are boiled down they will lose their essence.

When I first ran across LOTR, I found it "notoriously difficult to read," but the more I stayed with it, guess what? I stretched — grew to the point where I appreciated it — we all did!

The same thing goes for "difficult" music and art, to say nothing of mathematics and astronomy, chemistry, religious esoterica, etc. I have no use for authors and artists who are deliberately obtuse (how pathetic!), but for those who need to express and deal with an inherently difficult or subtle or complex concept (anything from hard science to poetry), I say let them, and let us all grow up to their level.

We are a frighteningly dumbed-down society, and getting worse by the hour. If you want to read a couple of books on that subject, may I recommend "Dumbth" and "Vulgarians at the Gate" by the late Steve Allen.

Barley

"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." —R. Buckminster Fuller 164b

 

[Mrs. Maggott]

You are right Barliamen! We Americans (and many others in the West) are unwilling to take the time or effort to glean meaning from many works that require thought and re-reading after a certain period of time. We want everything "dumbed down" so that we can understand it without effort. In a way, like baby birds who demand that their parents pre-chew their food, we want it all digested, compacted and abridged so that it takes little or no effort to assimilate what we have read. Of course, when that is done, we then have the temerity to complain about how "boring" or "inane" the book or film or play was - not understanding that it became so at our insistence, of course - and refuse to read or see (or even hear) anything but that which is currently "popular".

I think we can safely say the same thing about music. As a young person, I was introduced to classical music at home, albeit the music was "popular" and certainly not atonal or even that of more "modern" composers such as Shostakovich or Stravinski. Indeed, my mother absolutely hated Bach whom she considered boring to the extreme. Her tastes ran more to Italian overtures (Rossini in particular) and the romantic composers. But even so, many children those days were introduced to classical music by the radio. Remember, the "theme songs" of many popular children's shows were classics: William Tell for the Lone Ranger, Flight of the Bumblebee for The Green Hornet etc., so even if we didn't understand what it was, our minds became familiar with more complex forms of musical expression than Shaboom or Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight. Sadly, however, most kids today learn more about violent behavior and sexual activity from "music" than anything transcendent or magical. In fact, much of what passes today for "music" elevates Does Your Chewing Gum and similar musical silliness into the rank of a classic!