It’s a good day for an Auden nugget. This nugget comes from his essay “Reading” in The Dyer’s Hand
Pleasure is by no means an infallible critical guide, but it is the least fallible
This sort of ties in with trying to figure out what makes a bad book, doesn’t it? While I personally concluded that it is possible to make an almost objective determination on whether a book is bad – it seems most people agree on “higher level” considerations of what makes a bad book but the subjective part comes in when determining whether or not the book mets the criteria (one person’s cliche plot and language is another person’s poetry) – I think the element of pleasure is entirely subjective.
As a critical guide for choosing books to read, it is indeed least fallible. If a book gave someone else pleasure, it is more likely to give you pleasure too. As long as you both have the same taste in books. There is always a caveat, yes?
In terms of being a critical guide in a bigger context, like for determining whether a book is a “classic,” not one that will be taught in schools, but one that will still be read in 25, 50, 100 years. There are lots of books that give pleasure but won’t be read even ten years from now, or if they are, it will be by very few. This doesn’t mean they are bad books, they did give pleasure in their time after all, but maybe it means that it lacks some sort of element that transcends a particular milieu in a particular time. Even though I have not read Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, for instance, a lot of people did. And they liked it. But I doubt that in 25 years there will be many people reading the book and in 100 years it will be a footnote in bestseller history. Da Vinci Code is not Pride and Prejudice or even Woman in White.
Do you think there are times when pleasure can lead one astray? For instance, say you read a scifi novel thinking you’d expand your reading horizon but you ended up hating it. A friend says you should really read a certain book she just devoured, you’d like it. And when she gives you a plot synopsis you think, yeah, that sounds good. So you are out and about and stop by the bookstore and discover the novel your friend recommended is scifi. Given your last venture into the genre, do you hesitate? Do you put the book back on the shelf, determined never to read it in spite of what your friend said? Or do you buy it, rush home and start reading it right away? Maybe that isn’t the best example, but I hope you can see what I’m trying to get at. Does using pleasure as a critical guide ever keep us from trying something new and different? If we aren’t sure ahead of time whether we will like the book, are we less likely to read it? Do we have to watch out so we don’t find ourselves in a sort of rut, reading the same kinds of books over and over?
I’ve not come to any conclusions on those questions yet. If you have thoughts and opinions on Auden or my questions, I’d love to hear them.
What an interesting post! I think pleasure in all things can be stumbled upon, but it is hard to assure from the outset. It’s like going to a party and thinking, boy I’m going to have me a good time! But then so often the party is fine but events just don’t fall into place the way they should.
I’m always on the lookout for pleasure in my books, though, and ready to be entertained and amused. I wonder if it depends on whether the reader has an open frame of mind, or whether they approach the book feeling critical? Although again, I tend to think human nature is fundamentally perverse, so I know I am at my most dangerous, critcally speaking, when I really, really want a book to please me. Then the least little mistake it makes, I’m ready to cringe and be annoyed. I suppose the more open you are to pleasure, although without needing it, the more likely you are to find it. Hard to be such a paragon all the time, though!
Litlove, I like your party analogy. I too can be my most critical when I really want a book to entertain me. It, as you note, so easy to be annoyed with the little mistakes. I suspect you are on to something with being open to pleasure but not needing it. We all need pleasure, but in needing it in such a way that I try to force the book to conform to fit my desire or what I think my desire is, makes me less likely to find pleasure or be satisfied by the pleasure I do find.
I’m a pretty forgiving reader I think–and sometimes I think maybe I shouldn’t be so much so, but I usually pick up a book wanting to love it, or at least really like it. It has to be a really bad reading experience for me to not want to pick up an author again or a book in a particular genre. But I can see how wanting to read for pleasure and then being disappointed about someting sort of sets you up to being more critical than you might have otherwise. I think that happens to me more with books I ‘think’ I want to read to expand my horizons. I might have false expectations and that doesn’t seem fair to the book really. This sounds like an interesting set of essays you’re reading.