Charles Dickens: Feeding the Heart and Shaking Up the Brain
64, continued
There is neither sociology nor politics in "authentic literature," nor does it impact those fields. There are only aesthetics. People who search for sociology and politics are people "who do not experience the telltale tingle between the shoulder blades." After his prejudice against female authors, here is a second, and much greater, point where Nabokov and I disagree. I am someone who has felt the telltale tingle, in the bliss of reading Cervantes's glorious adventures of Quixote, in the heavenly raptures Alice Sebold depicts in the really, truly good The Lovely Bones, in the overwhelming climax in Borges's finest short story, "The Aleph," in my breathless anticipation over how The Portrait of a Lady would resolve itself, in every time Trollope contrives to bring the central couple in his story together…you always know it will happen, but you never know quite when or how, and in Malcolm X's noble final sentence in the Autobiography. "Only the mistakes have been mine." Even now, my back shivers.
However, after reading both Nabokov and Eagleton, I have found a way of looking at the world of literature which is the first, maybe only, guiding light of my academic career. It is on one hand based purely in aesthetics and personal reaction. On the other hand, it carries implications beyond literature into the real world.
Eagleton suggests that the only honest approach is in terms of rhetoric, of the narrative/poem/work as art meant for the public's consumption to produce a reaction, sometimes exactly what the author intended, sometimes not, and how the public reaction affects existence on individual, group, and social scales.
Thinking about this in terms of Nabokov's assertion that all literature can be reduced to the structure a writer devises and that same writer's personal style, the conclusion I reach is that these two characteristics combine to express a conscious or subconscious point of view for the writers with an accompanying desired response from the reader, who in turn will have a conscious or unconscious reaction—either they can describe in concrete terms what the work means to them, or their reaction, though emotionally strong, is based on an abstract impression they cannot define…similar to how in Proust, the taste of a Madeleine triggers hundreds of pages' worth of reminiscences.
In short, the methods by which the author chooses to narrate the story or create a poetic impression/description/portrait and the idiosyncrasies of their approach to vocabulary, grammar, and discourse lend a meaning to their literature which the reader will either identify or fail to recognize, the latter situation resulting in a meaning determined by the reader alone.
The implications and applications of this theory are endless. With it, we have the potential to take any statement about a reader's view of a work of literature and, by careful analysis of the reader's life and the work's structure and style, extrapolate not only a sound reason why the work resonated so strongly with the reader, but also, further, how the meaning of the work may have left its presence on the readers' actions and thoughts after the experience. Also, how these reactions to the work influenced the writer's own thoughts and his future production. (I must thank Chad Eaton for the last point.)
I could look at anyone's biography, find the subject's favorite book, and now potentially explain WHY the book had such an impact on them and HOW it influenced their life.
The twofold result of pursuing this theory is 1) an increased understanding of human nature through interpretation of psychological and emotional cause and effect and 2) a greater appreciation of all literature, including the stories, poems, essays, and drama we ourselves produce, via the conclusion that all work will have a deep meaning for someone, even if we as creator cannot personally define that meaning.
In other words, structure and style help create meaning. The reader, either individual or en masse, either follows the author's meaning or creates their own meaning based on personal or ideological reaction to narrative elements shaped by the structure and style. The writer may then be influenced by these reactions. Literature thus affects both the literary world and the outside world, and since the outside world includes all political and sociological realms, can we not further propose that if literature does not contain their ideas in itself, it at least may shape the lives of those who shape their application in the real world? Is it mere coincidence that Andrew Jackson, whose presidency saw him preside over an intermingled family and personal staff in constant conflict all the while struggling to HOLD HIS COUNTRY TOGETHER as North and South upped their ante, often spoke of his abiding love for The Vicar of Wakefield, Oliver Goldsmith's famed sentimental novel of an ordinary hero in an ultra-troubled household?
Literature is part of the fabric of our existence, and to deny that it has no connection to other threads is to deny that the sun is part of the sky.
Bleak House is a cross-section of British society, and it contains some of the most scathing indictments of law, politics, and the treatment of the impoverished I have ever come across. When Nabokov points out that the institutions and flaws Dickens was attacking, Chancery above all, have ceased to exist, I am afraid to say he misses the point. Dickens uses his "artistic genius" to speak out not against a certain specific system of civil law, but against all aspects of society where human reason and empathy are subordinated to ideological "wisdom," nonsensical rules, and the artifices man devises in the name of order which are really there to ensure some men have power over others. As much as his storytelling, characterization, and humor, it is this defense of our liberties in the face of oppression which makes Bleak House a text of lasting value.
I wonder if Nabokov, a child of the Revolution, had seen so much of terrible politics and social organizing in his life that he turned to literature as a refuge. It is a wonderful refuge. But one should never, ever mistake it as isolated from the world. To do so denies its ability to make the world better.
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