LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT. 90. LEARNING FROM BOOKS

LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT

90. LEARNING FROM BOOKS

Most of us read for pleasure. Most of what we read gets out of our mind fairly soon, especially if we read much.If we read a hundred novels at a stretch- any author, any genre, anything- we would realise , with amusement or shock- that they are all the same stuff, more or less.  Sometimes, the works of a single author make us feel so. Arthur Hailey or Alistair McLean- leave alone Agatha Christie or Wodehouse gave this impression strongly.Of them, Arthur Hailey alone was somewhat  different: he  told us through his "faction" something we did not realise about the nature of the modern world around us: our hospitals, our power companies, our airports, or our automobiles or our financial system!

I once took a bet with my son. He is a fan of Amitabh Bachchan; in his school days , he was a fanatical admirer. I told him all his films looked and felt alike- that he was just a star, not an actor! To prove my point, I told him to watch  15  or 20 of his films at a stretch and then tell me. Those were the days of the video; we hired the video player and started watching the movies- two in a day, later reduced to just one a day. After some days, he quietly stopped it , and admitted that they all were the same- he could not even tell the plot of the one from the other.Of course, now playing mature roles, B has shown the actor he is! 

This boy had an ear for music. I told him that Hindi filmdom had lost its musical sense in the era of colour films and that for good music, we must go back to the 50s and early 60s. He told me those movies were unbearably slow, almost impossible to watch. Here too I threw a challenge: Listen to the music of 20 of your favourite new films, and then listen to 20 of my old favourites. I told him he didn't have to watch- we could fast forward, listening to just the music , closing his eyes the while.. So again, we went  and listened to the music of about 50 films at a stretch. He discovered Anil Biswas, C.Ramchandra, Madan Mohan, S.D.Burman, Shankar Jaikishan, Jaidev, S.N.Tripathi, Vasant Desai, Chitragupta, O.P.Nayyar, Ravi. To tell the truth, even in respect of them, true genius or creativity was confined to a period- after which it seemed to have faded;  they just rode on reputation;but the modern generation music directors were manufacturing fashionable  noise,not composing music. This is a discovery he made for himself. The very fact that much of the old music is still listened to with eager attention, when so much else is available, speaks about their quality.We don't have to value something because it is old; but we should not discard it just because it is old. As Dr.Johnson wrote in his 'Preface to Shakespeare' (1765):

What mankind have long possessed they have often examined and compared; and if they persist to value the possession, it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour. As among the works of nature, no man can call a river deep, or a mountain high,without the knowledge of  many mountains and many rivers; so in the productions of genius, nothing can be styled excellent till it has been compared with other works of the same kind.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, the greatest literary critic of England
Joshua Reynolds [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

But the point is that the modern generation does not get opportunities or time to compare. The cumulative daily onslaught on the senses is so much in volume and variety, it leaves no time for sober thinking, or reflection. Man is just a consuming animal.

In former times, we had a sense of the 'classics' in most things. The Oxford English Dictionary defined 'classic' as: 'of the first class;of acknowledged excellence,remarkably typical;outstandingly important.' A more modern dictionary may say it is something considered important or has been admired for a long time. Obviously, they all involve judgement- some body's judgement. Here comes the problem : today, no such authority prevails in such matters. Even the academic world is sharply divided on such issues; voices have been raised that what was considered classic literature did not represent feminist views, or Afro-Asian views, or minority views, etc. There is no consensus on what constitutes the core or a 'canon'. 

The unstated objection seems to be that the old classic literature projected some rigid attitudes or values, which is no longer acceptable or fashionable for society to acknowledge. What is not realised is that every kind of book or literature carries a message, represents an attitude, whether stated openly or not.

At the end of Hardy's 'Tess of the D'urbervilles', we read a sentence like:

"  'Justice' was done and The President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess".

We realise at once that the author does not agree with what had been done in the name of justice, and that he is somewhat cynical of the ways of the President of the immortals. Nay, the reference to Aeschylus makes it clear that it is more than mere cynicism: it is downright pessimism. Was not Aeschylus  a master of Greek tragedy? And did not the Greeks believe, in the words of Homer:

                                        ....leaves            

 the wind scatters some on the face of the ground;     like unto them are the children of men.

Iliad 6.146

Shakespeare restated this :

As flies to wanton boys are we to th'gods.

          They kill us for their sport.

King Lear Act 4, Scene 1.

So, now we know what the 'sport' in Hardy means.He has used the story to convey his 'philosophy'.

Bust of Aeschylus from the Capitoline Museums, Rome.

Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Modern picture of the Theatre of Dionysus where the tragic plays of Aeschylus were performed. Greek tragedies were performed as part of religious celebrations in honour of their gods.
This picture from Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.


Tolstoy did it more explicitly. He had numerous observations on history in his story, but later  he moved them to a separate epilogue. He discusses the meaning of history, and the question whether we have any free will at all.

History examines manifestations of human free will in relation to the external world existing in time and dependent on cause; in other words, it defines free will by the laws of reason, which means that history can be considered a science only to the extent that  free will can be defined by those laws.

In the eyes of history acknowledgement of human free will as a force capable of influencing historical events and therefore not subject to any laws is what the acknowledgement of free will in the movements of heavenly bodies would be to astronomy.

Such an acknowledgement negates any possibility of the existence of laws, or indeed any kind of science.

 Just as in astronomy...we had to get away from a false sensation of immobility in space, and accept movement that we could not feel,..it is essential to get away from a false sensation of freedom and accept a dependence that we cannot feel. 

War and Peace, Epilogue,Part II, Chapter 10.
These extracts are taken from the Penguin edition,2005.

Leo Tolstoy
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

It takes some study and reflection to realise the implications of these lines. What Tolstoy is saying is that we need "an absolute entity for the measurement of visible phenomena". We think we have free will, as formerly people thought that the earth was stationary. But once deeper laws, universal laws were discovered, earth's immobility  was understood to be false, even though its motion could not be felt.Likewise, once deeper laws of history are understood, our notion of free will will be found to be wrong!

The old "Classics" are classics not just because they are old, popular or excellent on the basis of some assessment, but because they deal with such fundamental issues. Not that they gave answers or the answers they gave were correct- but they had the wisdom to recognise and the courage to raise such issues.

We may think that modern day fiction does not have such 'heavy' stuff- thankfully! Modern age refuses to engage  the deeper questions of life. Modern popular fiction reflects this attitude-  but this in itself constitutes a value, a philosophy! It amounts to saying: life has no meaning; why bother to discover any meaning? live as you please, and kick the bucket. It is a combination of materialism, utilitarianism and existentialism that the modern age as a whole practises , mostly unconsciously, as if in a sleep-walk:- just exist, just get along.

Modern age does not recognise any standard anywhere to go by. See how  secular Indian newspapers especially the English ones, are clamouring for freedom in dress, manners, speech, conduct - even in, especially in public places!  They are against so called 'moral' policing , but they can soldier for new ( absence of ) morality!

It ia not as though modern literature is value-neutral, devoid of philosophy. It proclaims nihilism in the guise of science,spreads disrespect for authority in the name of freedom, questions all certainties in the name of intellectual quest. In denying meaning to life, it denies life itself- beyond the senses.


Note:

Materialism: belief that material things (money) are more important than other values such as religion, art, ethics

Utilitarianism: the political and economic belief that any action is good that leads to happiness, that things have value only because they are useful.

Existentialism:  the belief that the world (life) has no meaning,significance or aim.


ARTHUR HAILEY.

I feel he deserves special mention. He wrote on many of the industries which are the backbone of a modern society and economy: airports, hotels, financial system, big hospitals, automobile industry,the pharmaceutical industry, and the govt machinery and the politicians who run it. His novels fall into a separate category. Before writing on an industry, he studied it thoroughly, gathering all the facts, and researched hard. He got so much material that he wove into his books. They are based on hard facts- so I read years ago that his books were called "FACTION".  A book like Overload , or Wheels, or Money Changers packs so much actual information those who work in those fields are amazed; and even after 20 plus years, those problems and difficulties still persist. Hailey proves with facts what Philosophers have always said: life does not fall into neat categories, problems do not have satisfactory solutions, life is based on compromises, there is so much of wrong-doing, betrayal, crime etc behind big organisation. His books, read together , is a much better commentary on how our society functions than all the muck that is spread through our academic system and newspaper syndicates. His books are an eye opener.Do read if you have the time. Time has not dimmed one bit of his insights. Critics did not take him seriously as a writer, probably because his books pack so much actual/factual information. But why should we take the critics seriously?  Any one who has had anything to do with any of the industries would realise how true to life Hailey's characters are. As Hemingway said once, to regard them as characters is a caricature. They are people. 

Arthur Hailey Quotes
By DAMON
www.rugusavay.com/arthur hailey-quotes/
Used here for purely non-profit educational purposes. 


     

                     

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