A
'Work of Art'
MARTIN: (Turns to
his host's bookcase) I must say, John, you're certainly in possession of a
much smaller collection of books than I would have expected! Why, I'd have thought, by the many works you
appear to be familiar with, that you were the possessor of at least
five-hundred books, not a mere forty!
JOHN: Oh, I must have
collected about five-hundred books over the past six or seven years. But, eventually, I threw most of them away.
MARTIN: (Raises his
brows in surprise) Why on earth did you do that?
JOHN: Simply because I
had absolutely no intention of re-reading them.
It seems to me that unless one is going to re-read one's books - and not
just once but a number of times - there is little or no point in one's keeping
them. I have no desire, these days, to
be a collector for the mere sake of collecting.
If formerly I had a tendency in that direction, I outgrew it over a year
ago.
MARTIN: Hmm, so these
'favourite' books, which apparently constitute your chief reading material,
presumably represent all of your current literary and philosophical tastes, do
they?
JOHN: No, but they
certainly represent a sort of quintessential distillation of all the books I
have ever read. The ones you see there
don't necessarily represent all of my tastes.
For it occasionally happens that I add a book or two when I have grown
tired of re-reading everything, and I also borrow from the local library quite
regularly. But they do, at any rate,
amount to the bulk of my current tastes.
Unlike most book-addicts, I'm not interested in retaining anything that
isn't approximately pertinent to my current lifestyle. As I change, so my book collection changes
with me. Where I once grew out of toy
soldiers, water pistols, Lego bricks, bicycles, and football programmes, I now
grow out of particular books. I no
longer keep anything that isn't more or less pertinent to my intellectual
requirements.
MARTIN: I see! So Joyce's Ulysses and Tolkien's The Lord of
the Rings are both that - more or less pertinent to your intellectual
requirements or, as you also said, your current lifestyle?
JOHN: Yes and no. Though, to be honest with you, I would say
'no' more than 'yes', insofar as I make exceptions for what I consider to be
the really great books. To my mind, they
are above criticism. They deserve to be
revered as examples of outstanding creativity.
In fact, I keep them in the spirit that someone else might keep a great
painting, some expensive jewellery, or a collection of important letters. I have absolutely no desire to part with that
which, by dint of its outstanding creative ingenuity and intellectual
magnitude, must always remain indisputably great. But there aren't too many such 'classics' in
my collection, as you can see for yourself.
MARTIN: (Scans the
titles) Yes, aside from The Will to Power
by Nietzsche, Ulysses and The Lord of the Rings are
the two most voluminous-looking books on your shelf. But I am
surprised, all the same, that you should be in possession of only one book by
Gide, Hesse, and Sartre! As for Henry
Miller, Knut Hamsun, and John Cowper Powys - well, I'd have thought that you
would surely be interested in owning more than just one book by each of them?
JOHN: What you see
there isn't merely an incomplete selection from these authors but, on the
contrary, my final and complete selection.
The books representative of each author are the only ones that I can now
bear reading. As for the others, yes,
I've been through them all, I have even admired them all at one time or
another. But I wasn't sufficiently
impressed, in the final analysis, to regard them as indispensable. For example, my favourite
MARTIN: And you would
regard these as their 'best' books?
JOHN: Well, I would certainly regard them as the
ones which mean the most to me. In
actual fact, I've read about fifteen of
MARTIN: So out they
went?
JOHN: Yes. And the same principle was duly applied to
all the other authors as well! They
served my purposes for a time, but only for a time, since I was heaven-bent on
transcending them. Indeed, it was during
the course of this 'purge', if I may so call it, that I hit upon the rather
unusual idea of my book collection signifying a sort of 'work of art', that's
to say, something possessing significance above and beyond the mere presence of
a fairly haphazard collection of diverse books.
Thus this small assortment before you is, in my eyes, a kind of 'work of
art', where everything has its allocated place, its reason for being there, and
its link with the other books in the collection. But it is a 'work of art', however, that can
be changed or modified from time to time, as occasionally happens when I either
remove or incorporate another book.
MARTIN: I must confess,
this sounds rather crazy to me! I don't
see how any collection of books, no matter how fastidious its collector may be,
can possibly be regarded in such a light.
Why, a work of art involves skill, beauty, imagination, individuality!
JOHN: Yes, and so, too,
believe it or not, does this collection of books, though admittedly to a lesser
degree. However, I don't wish to seem
pretentious or to be taken too literally here.
I don't, by any means, desire to see my bookcase in a public gallery at
an exhibition of modern art or anything of the kind, since that would
undoubtedly tax the public's imagination and patience to an unacceptable degree
- at least from the standpoint of commercial sponsorship. No, I'm merely trying to impress upon you my
intention to turn a collection of books into something meaningful, integrated,
even thought-provoking. In fact, it's
just as important for one to consider what isn't there as to consider what is.
MARTIN: I must say,
that sounds frightfully esoteric!
JOHN: Perhaps it
does. But for anybody with any knowledge
of literature and philosophy, for anybody with a similar taste and temperament
to me, it is bound to provoke certain relevant speculations and thereby mean something.
MARTIN: (Smiles to
himself) Well, it was a pretty ingenious, not to say original, idea! But how on earth did you come-up with it in
the first place?
JOHN: Tentatively. I had been confined to bed for several weeks
with glandular fever. I hadn't been
feeling terribly strong, and, being disinclined to read for any length of time,
I tentatively hit upon the idea of having a clean-out with regard to my
books. Now at that time - November of
last year to be precise - they totalled some three-hundred-and-fifty, the bulk
of which was shared between famous and highly influential authors like Henry
Miller, Hermann Hesse, Jean-Paul Sartre, John Cowper Powys, James Joyce, and
Albert Camus. Well, not having much else
to do, and feeling rather bored with the painful existence I was then leading,
I crawled out of bed, slowly unloaded the shelves of my bookcase, dragged all
the books to the bedside, crawled back into bed, and with a certain
trepidation, as though I were about to embark on a very momentous undertaking,
began flicking through one book after another principally with a view to
'weeding out' what I considered to be the second-rate, the irrelevant, the
tedious, and the outmoded. After a few
days of this 'weeding out' process, a time during which my health seemed to
take a marked turn for the better, I had reduced my collection by about
three-hundred books. I had decided to
dispose of eighteen by Miller, fourteen by Hesse, eleven by Sartre, six by
Powys, four by Joyce, and so on, right the way through the entire range of my
collection, which eventually left me with approximately what you see before you
today, minus one or two late additions.
Admittedly, during the course of this 'purge', this almost pathological
compulsion to compensate myself for all the boredom I had suffered at the mercy
of my illness, I made a few serious mistakes - namely, by throwing out books
which I subsequently, though belatedly, realized I ought to have kept. But they couldn't have amounted to more than
about fifteen out of the entire three hundred, so I'm not particularly
worried. Besides, if I really felt like
it, I could always purchase them again somewhere.
MARTIN: Yes, and at
more expense! But which books would they
be?
JOHN: Oh, I can't
remember them all now ... Joyce's Poems Pennyeach, Camus' Exile and the
Kingdom, Cocteau's Opium, Powys' Visions and Revisions,
Miller's The Wisdom of the Heart, and a few more like that, I
guess. Anyway, most of those I retained
are still with me and, fortunately, they're the ones which have brought me so
much agreeable literary preoccupation.
It is a curious thing, but a majority of authors only manage to write
one really good book in their entire career, a work which seems to tower above
everything else they've written, and which one can't help regarding, in spite
of oneself, as their best book. Now one
isn't necessarily justified in regarding it so highly; for such an attitude may
often amount to little more than the by-product of personal prejudice or
taste. But there is still room for an
element of objectivity in these matters.
For instance, I sincerely regard The Meaning of Culture as John
Cowper Powys' best book. Now I haven't
read more than eight or nine of his books altogether, but, even so, those I did
read clearly struck me as the ones most worth reading. Perhaps I should qualify that statement by
underlining the difference between his fictional and philosophical
outputs. The former, from what I've seen
of it, doesn't particularly appeal to me.
I speak mainly from the standpoint of the latter. And The Meaning of Culture, regarded
as a theoretical work, seems to me to fairly dwarf his other philosophical
creations. I absolutely revere it for
its wonderfully-flowing prose, its imaginative, expansive and skilfully-handled
vocabulary, its profound insight into culture, especially literature, and its
general outspokenness as, to me, the 'bible' of an important new creed. Take away every other Powys tome if you will,
but leave me this one!
MARTIN: (Looking at
the shelf upon which the tome in question stands) It appears to be the only
one of his works that you've got anyway.
How many times have you read it, by the way?
JOHN: About six times
in the past two years.
MARTIN: And would that make it your most re-read book, then?
JOHN: No. Being a comparatively recent acquisition, it
probably still has a number of re-readings to go. But since I'm only twenty-five, I haven't
really had the time-span, as yet, in which to re-read certain adult books all
that many times. Still, if memory serves
me well, I must have read Sartre's Nausea at least eight times, Wilde's De
Profundis and Other Writings seven times, Baudelaire's
Intimate Journals six times, Hamsun's Mysteries five times, Henry
Miller's Tropic of Cancer four times, and Bertrand Russell's Unpopular
Essays three times. And
I dare say that, if I live to be much older, I shall occasionally read them all
again! However, the most sensational
enthusiasm induced by any book led to my re-reading Montaigne's Essays
five times in the space of three months and, scarcely less sensationally,
Joyce's Ulysses three times consecutively! I was so disheartened when I first got to the
end of these two books that I just had to go back to the beginning and start
all over again. And each time I re-read
them, I seemed to enjoy them more and more!
MARTIN: I'm certainly
surprised to hear that you read Ulysses three times consecutively. Why, I couldn't even get into it once, at
least not properly! But being of Joyce's
nationality, I suppose you were better able to appreciate it than me.
JOHN: Well, that may or
may not be. But I could only really
appreciate Ulysses. You won't find any of his other writings on
my shelves, though, to some extent, it's basically a question of personal taste
again. However, as to what I was saying
earlier about a majority of authors only doing one thing really well, it seems
to me quite indisputable that the books I have mentioned, i.e.
the ones on the shelves, mark a high-point in their respective authors'
careers. As long as they've each written
at least one work which I can regard as outstanding, then, as far as I'm
concerned, they have justified their reputations as great authors. But it's almost inevitable that, no matter
how good a man's writings may generally happen to be, there will always be
something which stands apart from the bulk of his work and demands our
acknowledgement of its greatness. And
this exceptional book will fairly dwarf all the rest!
MARTIN: (Briefly
scans the shelves) Yes, that may well apply to Hamsun's Mysteries. But as to Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer,
I'm not so sure. But you evidently have
your reasons ...
JOHN: One need only
compare that with a majority of his subsequent books, to acquire a fairly
accurate scale of relative values.
Almost everything of any importance after Tropic of Cancer,
with the notable exceptions of Quiet Days in Clichy, The Colossus of
Maroussi, and The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, was based on
reminiscence or autobiography appertaining to his pre-Paris years - a thing,
you'll doubtless agree, which can't help but 'tone down' a writer's enthusiasm
and creative inspiration. But in the
first published book, one finds, curiously enough, a level of enthusiasm and
creative inspiration - not altogether dissimilar, incidentally, from the qualities
to be found in Hamsun's Hunger - which he was never able to equal, let
alone surpass, in his later work.
Admittedly, he was getting older all the time, so it was only natural
that he should increasingly reminisce.
But, as far as the literary side of his work is concerned, his greatest
literary achievement was consummated in Tropic of Cancer. For me, that epitomizes the genius of Henry
Miller!
MARTIN: Hmm, every
person is entitled to his views, I suppose.
Nevertheless I do sympathize with your choice of Gulliver's Travels
for Jonathan Swift. Very few
people would disagree with you there!
JOHN: But, then, very
few people really know that Swift wrote anything else anyway.
MARTIN: That strikes me
as a palpable exaggeration!
JOHN: Well, have you
read anything else by him?
MARTIN: No, as a matter
of fact I haven't. But I don't see how
that can have anything to do with it.
JOHN: On the contrary, it has a lot to do with it! If you haven't read anything else by him,
then you don't really know what he wrote.
After all, what's in a title?
Would you know what Tropic of Cancer was all about just by
knowing of the title?
MARTIN: No, I suppose
not. Though, in getting back to the
subject of Miller's book again, I'm quite surprised that you can apparently
appreciate both that and works like The Meaning of Culture, De Profundis
..., and Unpopular Essays. For there would seem to be little or no
connection between them.
JOHN: I can assure you,
Martin, that there is a very strong connection between them! For a cultured taste
doesn't 'beat about the bush' where intimations of creative greatness are
concerned. And such greatness has
many diverse and apparently contradictory manifestations! To stick to one manifestation for too long
would eventually prove insufferable. But
each man is quite different. Wilde has
his views on art, Powys has his, and so does Miller. Now when you've read them all - and quite a
few others besides - you select what is relevant to you, what will augment,
corroborate, and clarify your own views - assuming, of course, that you happen
to have any. But if you expect the views
and technical approach of one man to be exactly the same as another, then
you're going to be somewhat disappointed!
Similarities, extensions, affinities there will always be. But if one man were to say it all, if one man
were to provide a definitively sacrosanct treatise as to what art should or
shouldn't be, who on earth would possibly have anything else to contribute
after him? It's not for the writer of
today to repeat the aesthetic or moral views of the writer of yesterday, still
less for the writer of tomorrow to copy those of today! There is no eternal art, no more than there
is any eternal science, politics, or religion.
Where a theory applicable to the works of a former generation is no
longer applicable today, it must be swept aside to make way for the new. Human attitudes change, even if the basic
human archetypes remain the same. And
although, contrary to Spengler's prognosis, art is unlikely to become entirely
obsolete, it's certainly likely to be modified in the course of time.
MARTIN: Yes, I see your
point. And I also see that you are more
of a thinker than an artist, more conceptual than perceptual. Which is why, I suppose, you can appreciate
such seemingly unrelated books as Tropic of Cancer and De Profundis....
JOHN: You are indeed
right to say 'seemingly'. For, in
reality, there exists a great deal in common between them. It seems to me that you are inclined to allow
style, epoch, class, and nationality to override the profounder affinities
which exist between such books.
Nevertheless, what you say about my being more of a thinker than an
artist is really quite true. In fact, I
would even go so far as to say that I'm not really an artist at all. For my real allegiance is to the
philosophers, which is probably the main reason why I now admire the
philosophical side of Wilde's work, including such lesser-known writings as The Rise of Historical
Criticism and The Critic as Artist, more than any other. But since I don't generally
prefer the Hippogriff or the Basilisk to the Truth, so I'm not opposed to a
certain amount of crude realism.
When, however, I've had enough of Miller and Joyce, I am glad of Tolkien
or Wilde. And when I've had enough of
them, I am glad of Schopenhauer or Russell.
There is nothing odd about oscillating between one type of influence and
another, from truth to illusion and back again.
But there is certainly something odd about being too wholly partial to
one or the other. For man is definitely
not meant to live by truth or illusion alone!
MARTIN: Then you must
be a philosopher-artist, and not just a philosopher.
JOHN: Maybe, though I
don't, as yet, see any strong evidence of art - aside, that is, from the
technical considerations which I choose to maintain in my writings. I have absolutely no intention of writing a
poem, a play, or a novel - not at this stage in my career, anyway. But if I aspire to recording philosophical
truths in my working hours, that doesn't mean to say I can't appreciate
aesthetic illusions in my spare time. As can be verified by my collection of books, and not only in the
sense that I have endeavoured to turn it into a sort of 'work of art'.
MARTIN: (Scans the
bookshelves anew) Hmm, I can see that your little collection is a mixture
of fiction and philosophy, so it would appear to confirm your intentions or
predilections fairly conclusively. I
very much doubt, however, that there are all that many people who would care to
read philosophy all the time, even among the philosophers themselves. The four books here by Camus, for instance,
provide one with a perfect example of the philosophical artist, even if the
four titles by Nietzsche don't.
JOHN: Yes, Camus was
more of an artist than Nietzsche, who, by contrast, you might refer to as an
artist-philosopher. Still, it's very
easy to be misled by what a man does and thinks, considering that some of the
time one thinks exactly the opposite of what one is doing, if you will permit
me a double paradox. But whether a man
dupes himself into believing the contrary or not, we are all dualists, we all
live according to the dictates of opposing influences. So if we aspire to the wine of truth in one
context, we must pay for it with the bread of illusion in another. The philosophical artist and the artistic
philosopher aren't necessarily more dualistic than either the philosopher or
the artist, though they may well appear so at face-value. Give a philosopher too many sober truths to
deal with, and he will soon turn to illusion for that nepenthe which the truth
is denying him. Give an artist too many
beautiful illusions to create and he will soon seek oblivion in truth! There is no getting away from that fact, and
that is the main reason why Steppenwolf has become one of my favourite
novels. For Hesse knew only too well how
human nature must forever oscillate between two poles or, rather, numerous
antitheses, and that a man shouldn't allow himself to become unduly annoyed or
worried by the fact. However, in the Steppenwolf,
poor Harry Haller was almost continuously divided against himself and suffered
accordingly. Instead of the cultured man
and the philistine changing places in a more or less natural fashion, the
change-over - to the extent it happened at all - took place against Herr
Haller's deepest wishes. For, ideally,
he would rather have remained the cultured man.
But the philistine, or beast in him, refused to be cheated out of its
legitimate influence, and continued to intervene nonetheless. In short, Herr Haller's personality was
insufficiently integrated, his dual components rarely worked together as a
team; for the one attempted to destroy the other, and the resulting conflict
would perhaps have led him to suicide, had he not stumbled upon the courtesan
Hermine who, together with Pablo, Maria, and the Magic Theatre, duly brought
about his psychological re-integration and self-acceptance as a whole man. All men are dual-natured, but the Steppenwolf
signifies the crisis of a man whose dualism has, largely through force of
circumstances, lost its 'harmony' and consequently become an insufferable
discord. It was indeed necessary, in the
end, that Haller's personality, which included his specific obsession with himself
through the way he had come to view his plight, be left behind when he entered
the 'Magic Theatre' of his unconscious, in order that his instinctive
inclinations and archetypes, so long bottled-up, might subsequently manifest
themselves in their rightful, albeit duly-distorted, perspective.
MARTIN: How
complex! Fortunately for me, my
knowledge of dualism is mostly confined to the practical rather than the
theoretical sphere. I can certainly
recall having seen the film of that novel though, and a very excellent
production it was, too! There aren't too
many films that I would rate above it.
JOHN: I entirely agree
with you. For here was a film that, with
due respect to
MARTIN: It is certainly
more contemporary than ... Dorian Gray, not to mention Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,
which is another of those novels treating of the human dilemma in relation to
split-personality, or the dualism within the self, and probably remains the
all-time classic in the genre, transcending even Goethe's Faust.
JOHN: An enterprising suggestion, but one which, in my opinion,
rather exaggerates the literary importance of Stevenson's tale, which lacks the
moral and metaphysical sophistication of great philosophical literature. Still, an interesting analogy nevertheless,
even if less pertinent than The Picture of Dorian Gray which, on account
of the importance I attach to The Steppenwolf, is now
absent from my book collection.
MARTIN: (His eyes
scanning the shelves again) As I can see.
JOHN: Well, I should
think that you are fairly tired of this subject by now. We haven't been in each-other's company all
that long and all we have discussed, aside from 'Steppenwolfian' dualism, is my
collection of books!
MARTIN: On the
contrary, it is a subject that deeply interests me. When I return home, this evening, I shall
wade through my own books and duly dispose of those which I consider to be
superfluous to my needs or designs. Then
I shall be able to create my own 'quintessential distillation' or, to quote you
again, 'work of art' for future discussion with somebody else. This is an approach to collecting which is
rather appealing, you know!
JOHN: I only wish it
would appeal to more people. For I'm
pretty sick and tired of wading through other book-collectors' mounds of mostly
third-rate works!
