Tolstoy's "What is Art?"

In What is Art?, Tolstoy rejects Aestheticism: he does not believe art should be understood in terms of "beauty" or "pleasure." Instead, as he suggests repeatedly, "the chief characteristic of art is the infection of others with the feelings the artist has experience." "True art" is only when the artist expresses a feeling to the viewer/listener/reader. He writes:

"A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist, nor that alone, but also between himself and all whose minds receive this work of art. In this freeing of our personality from its separation and isolation, in this uniting of it with others, lies the chief characteristic and the great attractive force of art."

Tolstoy also sees a moral thrust to art, and his particular religious sensibilities infuse his view of art. For Tolstoy, art should encourage "the growth of brotherhood among all men--in their loving harmony with one another." He writes a great deal about "Christian art," and so this book is of more interest to one sharing Tolstoy's peculiar Christian view (as I mostly do) than to one who doesn't.

There is much in this book that I do not assent to (I think his definition of art is far, far too narrow, and he thus dismisses anything that doesn't fit his narrow definition). Tolstoy also spends too much time documenting and critiquing aesthetic theories he disagrees with and art he doesn't like ("upper-class art" or "counterfeits of art," he calls it); it is necessary to the book, but as I read the negative (arguments about what isn't art and why) I was mostly looking forward to the positive (arguments about what is art and why).

I primarily assert the prerogative of the individual reader. If I do accept some of Tolstoy's view (for there is still much I do not), it is because I do, not because I think others should. I would rather stand with Tolstoy, demanding meaning in art and seeking its moral purpose, but I don't expect everybody to view art in this way.

Stupid Summer Project: The Strongbox

George (alone, thinking to himself): I think that Ginger Ale at the coffee shop is just Coke and Sprite mixed together. How can I prove it? I can't, dammit.

George: The, ah, actor that played Jesus made some odd choices.

Comment: a really strong episode: solid plot lines, good scenes, great dialogue. A lot of funny lines, and each of the characters has great delivery here.

Stupid Summer Project: The Cartoon

Kramer: ...and then about George dating a Lady-Jerry.

Kramer: What do I need to talk for, huh? What, to blab to the neighbors about how George has a new femme-Jerry friend? Or to tell everybody at the coffee shop how George is all mixed up in a perverse sexual amalgam of some girl and his best friend? See now, I've done all that.

Kramer: Well, it's Frank and Estelle's reaction to hearing about George's man-love for a she-Jerry.

Comment: Kramer is really great in this episode, just fabulous. J. Peterman fits into the show very well: he's eccentric like Kramer, just with a different sort of eccentricity. I've figured out what's annoying and entertaining about Sally Weaver: in her appearances on the show, she's always thwarting Jerry. Jerry is rarely thwarted--even when he is, it's mild, and he generally gets past it pretty easily. If Sally Weaver was always annoying George, it would just be another thing (just think of how often George is thwarted over the course of the show, and how badly). But there's something different going on when there's a character that can disrupt Jerry consistently.

In this episode, Jerry says "See that's funny...because it's real." I've said something like this far too many times. I wonder just how many of my common expressions are either from Seinfeld or The Simpsons. Do I even ever really speak for myself?

Not coming up Milhouse

I was happy. But because I ordered an obscure disk, instead of getting it on Wednesday, getting it back in the mail Thursday, and getting a new disk to watch on Saturday with my wife, the disk I ordered specifically to watch while she's away won't get here at all until Saturday. So I guess she will get to watch Treasures of the Twilight Zone with me.

I just thought you deserved the update.

Against Utilitarian Compromise

Leo Tolstoy in What is Art?:

"[...] the indubitable truth, that all compromise with institutions of which your conscience disapproves--compromises which are usually made for the sake of the general good--instead of producing the good you expected, inevitably lead you not only to acknowledge the institution you disapprove of, but also to participate in the evil that institution produces."

Reading (and remembering) Wordsworth

Reading Wordsworth's poetry is a pleasure. He seems to rhyme with casual linguistic ease, and he crafts lines that are both utterly simple and wholly unique. He has written so many lines of poetry that are for me so distinctly Wordsworth, so original and memorable, but when I consider why, I find myself looking at a rather simple phrase.

Coming Up Milhouse

When I was in grad school, I was home by myself most of the days and I stayed up late at night, and I watched a sickly amount of the Sci Fi Channel. I mean, it was just ridiculous how much I watched. Outside of, you know, my school work, my days revolved around The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, and the other more silly things that were on the network at the time. Sometimes I thought Rod Serling was off in the shadows narrating my life (well, not really narrating: just introducing some episode in my life then coming back afterward to provide some esoteric but fairly obvious commentary).

Now this week my wife is leaving town for a few days, so I get the chance to move to the top of the Netflix queue a disk that she would not possibly ever watch with me. So, I've chosen Treasures of the Twilight Zone. Here's what Netflix has to say about the disk:

"Three rarely seen, most-requested episodes of the original 1959-1965 series are presented uncut in this collection: "Where Is Everybody?" represents the series' premiere episode; "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is the Oscar-winning 1963 short subject (from France) that Rod Serling acquired and presented (as an episode) just once; and "The Encounter" features George "Mr. Sulu" Takei in an episode that was banned from later syndication."

So I've got that going for me, too!

"artist of the idea"

In Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, Mikhail Bakhtin makes an interesting point on ideas in literature when he calls Dostoevsky a "great artist of the idea." According to Bakhtin, Dostoevsky did have his own monologic ideas, and some of these ideas made their way into his novels. However, once in his novels, they became a part of the dialogic work. These ideas are not the author's ideological statements, but a part of the dialogic aesthetic of the polyphonic novel (and in Dostoevsky, these ideas are not separable from the character holding/speaking these ideas).

Essentially, Bakhtin makes a distinction between the way Dostoevsky as a thinker and Dostoevsky as an artist represented ideas. This distinction is between "straightforward monologically confirmed ideas," and what Bakhtin calls "images of ideas" or even "idea-images."

I accept this distinction, though it is not total (for example, Bakhtin shows that polyphony is a part of Dostoevsky's other writing, too). I also find it useful in understanding my own pleasure in reading in general, and my own pleasure in reading Dostoevsky.

Against Rigidity

My Reading Declaration in Brief
Chapter Two: Against Rigidity

"Thus Dostoevsky portrayed not the life of an idea in an isolated consciousness, and not the interrelationship of ideas, but the interaction of consciousnesses in the sphere of ideas (but not of ideas only)."
Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics

I find as a reader I ought to avoid universal, absolute pronouncements about literature. The great diversity of writers means that I will always find a writer who will shatter any totalizing statement. Say there are no ideas in literature? Then you will miss much of Dostoevsky: even Bakhtin, who focused on Dostoevsky's aesthetic, recognized the importance of ideas in his novels and examined how Dostoevsky's aesthetic portrayed those ideas. Say one shouldn't look for symbolism in literature? Then avoid Hawthorne, who practically begs his reader to find symbolism in his short stories. Do you have a precise definition of what great poetry should be? No doubt there is a great poet in history who not only defies your definition but probably writes poetry that is precisely the opposite of your definition, but that is no less great.

I have preferences. I try hard to recognize these as my own preferences, and to not universalize my notions into any totalizing theory. I know that whatever my notions and preferences, there are writers who will defy them, and still be great. And that is also why what I offer here is not a prescription for others, but my own Declaration of Reading.

Cosmology and Poetry: George Herbert

I'm always intrigued to read poetry that mentions new scientific discoveries. There are some brilliant poets who show a particular gift for wrestling with the tensions of a new cosmology replacing an old one (for example, In Memoriam A. H. H. is such an enduring poem for me because Tennyson explores his friend's death and his own religious doubts in the context of geology and evolution).

There is always tension when a new cosmology challenges an old belief. These tensions sometimes surprise in poetry. George Herbert's poem "Affliction (5)" begins:

My God, I read this day,
That planted Paradise was not so firm,
As was and is thy floating Ark; whose stay
And anchor thou art only, to confirm
And strengthen it in ev'ry age,
When waves do rise, and tempests rage.

It's an interesting first stanza, and I can't quite reconcile it with the next three stanzas (yet). "My God, I read this day" suggests Herbert is now, in his own age, learning of scientific models of the universe, the "this day" a strong contrast to the ancient texts which describe Eden and Noah's Ark. But the second line is stunning:

"That planted Paradise was not so firm,"

In one beautiful, concise, eloquent line, Herbert expresses all of the anxiety new scientific knowledge can inspire in the faithful. Literally, that an old cosmology of a firm earth is replaced by the model we now recognize, of an earth floating in space and hardly at the center of it all. But so, too, is faith no longer "planted," no longer "firm": the new cosmology challenges the traditional religious cosmology, challenging articles of faith.

But the last four lines turn to God for support. There is dual meaning: God supports the faithful through whatever troubles arise, and God still guides the earth even as it spins about in the void. In a confusing, doubtful world, in a world that seems shaky, Herbert turns to images of God such as "Ark" and "anchor" that supports despite the "waves" and "tempest."

Stupid Summer Project: The Reverse Peephole

Jerry: Cheapness is not a sense.

Kramer: ...Keep the big bills on the outside.
Jerry: That's a five.

Comment: The moral devolution of the characters is complete. In an earlier season episode, we learn that Elaine is morally opposed to fur: she makes a big scene at a party over a fur coat. Also in an earlier episode, we learn that Elaine's moral stances affect her dating choices: she broke up with a guy she thought was great because they disagreed on abortion. But in this episode, Elaine finds out that her boyfriend David Puddy wears a fur coat. She's upset by this. Jerry says "And of course you find fur morally reprehensible." Elaine responds, "Eh, anti-fur, who has the energy anymore? This is more about hanging off the arm of an idiot." At this point in the series, Jerry, George, and Elaine have lost any sense of morality beyond selfishness when others break the social order to annoy them. Kramer still has an zany sort of ethos, but is he what's left of our moral center? Elaine has changed: she is now just as selfish and shallow as Jerry or George. I'm not objecting to this shift, just observing it.

There are some good things in this episode. George is just the sort of person to save all his coupons and such in his wallet, and Kramer and Newman are the sort to reverse their peepholes to check if anybody is ready to ambush them with a sock full of pennies.

Reading McCarthy's "Blood Meridian"

The power of literature is largely in imagination. Reading allows me to escape myself, to experience the world for someone, somewhere, somewhen else. The stories we read are largely imagined by the authors, and re-imagined by the readers. Reading takes us away from our own narrow experiences and into another experience.

But when I read, I do not set myself aside. I am a vegetarian, and when I read descriptions of animals being hunted or eaten, I became conscious of myself. I am a pacifist, and when I read depictions of violence, I become hyper-aware: what is happening, why is it happening, how is it being represented, etc.

And that is the paradoxical power of literature. Even as it can take you away from your Self, it thrusts you deeper into your Self.