Literature is Didactic: 23/5/08

I must not forget 23 May 2008.

On the morning of the 23rd of May 2008, I was reading a section of The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky and afterwards I viewed the Dekalog. I think it was episode trzy (three). Then I had an epiphany: Literature teaches!

Later on I rode the bus to HKU whereon I was reading a book, ‘Why literature matters’ whose message was in accordance with what I was thinking about earlier.

Literature has a message. In The Brothers Karamazov, which others call a dark novel (I actually thought it was pretty optimistic), Dostoevsky interspersed sudden unexpected confessions from his characters of their guilt, their downtrodden natures, but, and most importantly, the hope they have of salvation and of divine grace descending upon them. The message is of man’s fallen nature and grace. I believe there are other themes as well, but the one that strikes me most is this.

The Decalogue also has a message, episode three was about honouring the sabbath, and, as I wrote earlier in a previous entry, I believe that it was kept, somewhat unconventionally. The series can be rather perplexing and grayscale in its message (it does not admit of a clear answer), and is food for thought.

But what distinguishes literature from hard-core thinking subjects like philosophy, for example, the book asserts, is (inter alia) literature’s sensuousness. Spot-on, it hit on the reason why I prefer literature. Literature is subtle. Literature does not seek to explicitly put forward its axioms and whatnot. Instead it spins a narrative, and sometimes does so in such a realistic manner that one is drawn into another world, but one no less realistic from the real one, whereby one learns to contemplate universal issues that have equal relevance in reality. One can choose how much one will really devote to rumination, but most of the time the author’s craft is such that one is drawn in, and one slowly starts to think…

Another great aspect of literature is that it does not always admit of a clear answer. When things are in narrative format it is hard to see it in definitive terms. The author’s ’solution’ may not always be agreed with, and at any rate, one can always think about alternative causes of action that led to the outcome in the narrative apart from what the author points out (I am thinking about Hardy’s idea of Fate leading to the demise of Jude and Sue in Jude the Obscure – at some points I believe that, had Jude and Sue been a little more clear-minded, they could have avoided their tragic outcomes). Literature does not command acceptance, it is not a proposition in philosophy or a theory in science that has first to be accepted before the rest of the exposition can go on (at least, not that necessary – I know that sometimes the author’s firmly held beliefs shape the way of his narrative and the reader feels at points so irritated and frustrated that he is ready to fling the book to the floor. But the essence of my argument is, the author has not at any point required the reader to accept his presuppositions before being able to carry on reading the narrative – the reader can disagree, and still reach the end of the work all the same).

I know I went on for a while and to the casual reader this may seem unnecessary. But having pondered and agonised over the question of why literature matters it was relieving to see that it has its importance and its place in society.