Hello readers,
There are few moments more difficult in my life than those after finishing a book, when I am tasked with determining what I will read next. Partly, this is because I am afflicted with that terrible, terminal illness of Waterstones-itis; if I ever make the mistake of wandering into a bookshop, I am never able to escape without at least three additions to my shelves in tow.
As such, over the years I have accumulated many more works of literature than I have had the time to read. Do I regret this? Of course not, what a ridiculous question. Does it feel slightly overwhelming, when I glance at my shelves and see some of the most prestigious and revered names in authorial history all clamouring that I read them first? A little.
Now, I must admit something that will likely come as little surprise to those familiar with my writings on this website, and yet may have also in the past caused some to look at me as somewhat of a, to put it mildly, literary snob. That is, when I am offered the choice between a modern book and a work from centuries past, I will almost always turn my nose up at the first. Usually, I find myself drawn to works from between the 17th and the 19th centuries; indeed, it was the study of this time upon which most of my university career was based.
This website itself is evidence of this inclination, for its artwork is a combination of imagery from the works of Lord Byron and HG Wells, and its name is derived from a Henry James quote (explored further in my most recent essay).
Recently, I have been making efforts to increase my comprehension of more modern texts. It must be stressed, perhaps as a sort of plea for a more lenient sentence, that the post-war period of American fiction is one of my favourites. But I do feel guilty about my disregard for recent literary endeavours— that is, until I look back at the classics on my bookshelves, and all desire to drag myself back into the 21st century simply melts away.
Part of this is due to my own aesthetic preference for pre-war writing styles. Though I have great admiration for the likes of Hemingway, Carver and Bukowski, personally I feel that minimalism has sucked much of the joy from the act of writing, and that in throwing out the bath water of time-wasting word-salads outside, they’ve abandoned the baby of genuine stylistic exploration along with it. I think it is a great thing to witness an author using all the colours of our wonderful language at their disposal, and that simply because something might be a little drawn out for our fast-paced age, it doesn’t mean every word on the page is entirely superfluous. We are writing a novel, after all, not an IKEA instruction manual.
But my own indulgences aside, I believe that there are other reasons that it can be useful to rest upon the classics as well. For one thing, when faced with today’s litany of urgent things grabbing at our limited attentions, the ever-more gaping nature of our wallets, and the general looming transience of our time on this planet for reading, it is necessary to figure out which novels are worth opening and which are not. For every ancient Roman coin there is a mountain of bottlecaps and old cans to sift through first.
Fortunately, the march of history is rather good for this kind of thing. After all, whilst it would be impossible for ourselves alone to act as judge for the merit of each book ever written, fortunately we have the whole of human society for that instead. Sometimes, I fall into the easy trap of deploring the modern cultural buffet as full of complete rubbish, especially compared to the feast of masterpieces and classics that previous eras have produced. However, this damning indictment is only possible with the convenient and foolish mixture of historical ignorance and hindsight.
It is not that everything written in the past was golden— in fact, there was likely as much garbage put to paper, if not more. (This problem may be exacerbated in our technological age because there are many more mediums of media than there were in, say, Victorian England; more ways to produce art necessarily means that more terrible art will be produced. Luckily, the same is true for brilliant art as well.) It is simply that all the works probably not worth reading have been since lost in time, and thus we are not troubled by the knowledge of them.
We do not yet have the luxury of the vantage point given by this vast historical colander of terrible art, when it comes to works written in the modern age. In one hundred years’ time, only a fraction of the books brought out as I type these words will be remembered, much less revered, and a lot less time will be wasted because of it.
Now, there is an obvious immediate criticism of this. Not all works that stand the test of time do so due simply to their greatness— and there are many excellent works of art that have been forgotten about, and do not deserve to languish in obscurity. The historical colander, after all, has many holes. But to this I say, that is the wonderful thing. There are countless instances, in our more enlightened age, of us looking back into the contemporaneously-underappreciated corners of humanity, and finding once overshadows masterpieces comparable in quality to the canon itself.
This, naturally, is excellent, ever more high-quality examples of human artistic expression is only a good thing. And furthermore, we can have our cake and eat it too— the library of classic texts is not limited, and one does not need to sacrifice their reverence for already appreciated works in order to give others a shot in the limelight, too.
A perfect example of this, that is particularly relevant to my own interests, is the surge in appreciation for female poets of the Romantic era, such as Hannah More, Helen Maria Williams, and Felicia Hemans. Their perspective is one that would inherently differ to the male poets of the time, and so a greater dive into their catalogues is a thrilling opportunity for a new take on a much-trodden historical genre. It goes without saying, of course, that an appreciation for these new poets need not come at the expense of our love for Wordsworth or Coleridge, for Shelley or Byron (though perhaps they may be knocked off the top spots of people’s favourite Romantic poet rankings. Hopefully their egos won’t be too bruised).
In order to salvage these criminally undervalued works, one must of course venture beyond the offerings of the historical colander. And yet again, this does not render the current canon redundant— one must have a reference point in order to judge true greatness, and possible new candidates for the highest echelons of literary acclaim must be held to the most rigorous and testing of standards against our current paradigms of writing. Only after surviving such gruelling inductions can they deserve the limitless adoration that comes afterwards.
There is another objection to delving back into times long past for reading material, which is to say that their messages are outdated, their values archaic, and their messages irrelevant. Their authors are not party to the knowledge we have today, and are often too prey to the prejudices and shortcomings of their times for us to take seriously, let alone respect.
To that, I say— well, what could be said would surely take up another Scribbling alone. But briefly, I must point to the fact that people of exceptional artistic quality are able to make truly timeless commentary on the human condition, despite contemporary limitations of thought. I oppose the temptation to disregard the writings of those who came before, simply because they were of their time— if anything, it would be useful to remember that one day we will be those who came before, and we can only hope that the historical colander will be kind to us, despite the obvious shortcomings and mistakes that we are now oblivious to.
Finally, on this point, I also believe that there are universal components to literature, and art in general, that truly determine which works can be placed on a level higher than others. It would be surely foolish to claim that there is no such thing as ‘better’ art; appreciation of it may be subjective, but personal taste is triumphed by true undeniable skill. Yes, certain pieces were elevated in their time due to entirely arbitrary factors, like discrimination or privilege. But it would be a mistake to now stamp down classical works entirely deserving of prestige, in some self-righteous mania of justice or revenge, based on yet another set of arbitrary imposed criteria. It will be extremely interesting to see, as civilisation advances, which beloved texts slip through the holes— and perhaps, though it pains me to say it, some may be works that I hold dear now.
But the historical colander is not perfect, and things lost can also be regained. One thing that I believe is an everlasting truth, is that at the root of the human condition is a yearning for and an appreciation of a truly good story. No matter where that story may have originated from, or the mind it may have sprung out of, if it strikes something deep in the reader, then its sound will resonate across cultures, and across ages.
Thank you for reading,
The Watchful Scribe