Does Literature Help Us Live?

 Tim Parks's essay in the New York Review of Books, "Does Literature Help Us Live?," rang true for me and made me cry...until the last two paragraphs, when Parks seems to take a cynical turn that is the complete opposite of what he'd written. Nevertheless, well worth the read, particularly in his references to Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale. 

Sample:

"at the core of the literary experience, as it is generally construed and promoted, is the pathos of this unequal battle and of a self inevitably saddened—though perhaps galvanized, too, or, in any event, tempered and hardened—by the systematic betrayal of youth’s great expectations. Life promises so much, but then slips through one’s fingers."

WHY Theater?

I wonder whether my work to discover HOW to make theater more sustainable, more fulfilling, more rooted ignores an earlier question about why theater at all? 

In some ways, the 20th century, and now 21st century, theater has done the same thing I have done, focusing on "how" instead of "why." 

In 1936, Walter Benjamin addressed the central question in "The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction." My memory is that his answer centered on the concept of an original work's "aura" -- that it carries with it the singularity of its original creator. I must revisit this essay, along with Simon Sinek's Start With Why. 

After which my question is: HOW can art be separated, as much as possible, from commerce without becoming reliant on charity from the rich? Which is rooted in my lifelong moral objection to the very idea of rich people at all, and my sense that anyone who made a lot of money likely did so by exploiting others.

Henry James: Art Lives Upon Discussion

“Art lives upon discussion,” he wrote, “upon experiment, upon curiosity, upon variety of attempt, upon the exchange of views and the comparison of standpoints; and there is a presumption that those times when no one has anything particular to say about it, and has no reason to give for practice or preference, though they may be times of honour, are not times of development— are times, possibly even, a little of dullness.”

Jed Perl quoting novelist Henry James in his excellent book Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts.

Art as a Resistance to Our Burnout Culture

In her book Monoculture: How One Story Is Changing Everything, F. S. Michaels paraphrases philosopher Isaiah Berlin, writing 

"If you look at any civilization... you will find a particular pattern of life that shows up again and again, that rules the age. Because of that pattern, certain ideas become popular and others fall out of favor. If you can isolate the governing pattern that a culture obeys, he believed, you can explain and understand the world that shapes how people think, feel and act at a distinct time in history."

Our master narrative is all about money. We have turned James Carville's simple-minded directive "It's the economy, stupid" into a motto to live by, along with Gordon Gecko's line from Wall Street, "Greed is good" and Jerry McGuire's "Show me the money!" Shannon Hayes, in her book Redefining Rich, calls this monoculture the Extractive Economy, and proposes its opposite, which she calls the Life-Serving Economy. Her book teaches the lessons she has learned running  multi-generational Sap Bush Farm in upstate New York, but I'd argue her ideas apply in many other contexts, including the theater. The book describes

how to build your work around your family and the things you love the most; how to deepen your understanding of true wealth, capital, and finances; how to extract harmony and order from the chaos and stress of farming, family, and entrepreneurship; as well as how to maximize your rest and ignite your creativity to keep going for the long haul, year after year, generation after generation, through good times and crises, until this life-serving economy is the reality for everyone.

Another book to check out is philosopher Byung-Chul Han's The Burnout Society, where he argues that our relentless "achievement society" of constant improvement teaches us to "exploit ourselves passionately until we collapse. We realize ourselves, optimize ourselves unto death." 

I would argue that such a monomyth works against the creation and appreciation of the arts, and that reading a book or poem, watching a play, visiting an art gallery has become an act of resistance to our extractive, burnout society. Even more revolutionary is to actually create works of art as an end in themselves, not as a means to fame and riches. 

More from Alan Jacobs

 Quoting Alan Jacobs may become a weekly feature! Here's the context for the discussion Cory Doctorow's concept of the Memex I wrote about below. This is J R R Tolkien's concept of "The Mathom-House" from "Concerning Hobbits."

"So, though there was still some store of weapons in the Shire, these were used mostly as trophies, hanging above hearths or on walls, or gathered into the museum at Michel Delving. The Mathom-house it was called; for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a mathom. Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms, and many of the presents that passed from hand to hand were of that sort."

Not There Yet...

 ...but I'm trying.

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
- Toni Morrison

Broadening Our Definition of Wealth (Formerly "Eating the Economic Orange")

 I posted this in 2012, and it seems particularly relevant at this time, when so many people are obsessed enough with The Economy that they're willing to hand our country over to an immoral, unprincipled, and greedy fascist.

Leo Hwang-Carlos does a great job explaining why the economy is more than the numbers reported by economists. I was particularly impressed by his description of all the ways he participates in the economy, and wonder how young people in high school or college might be educated to think of different ways of making ends meet than simply using a paycheck to pay for goods and services. A more varied approach might free up time for creativity.

It also might remind us that defining our lives according to our bank account is ultimately bankrupt in itself. I'm not talking about living on the brink of disaster, but I am talking about other ways to live an abundant life. I wrote about this in Chapter 22 of Building a Sustainable Theater, borrowing many of the ideas from Shannon Hayes's fantastic book Redefining Rich.

Peter Marks and the Need for Critics

 

Theater has become instrumental -- a means to profit, not an end in itself. This ultimately leads to stupefying shallowness. Yes, we need a new group of theater idealists who restore theater to its rightful place as an art form.