WHY YOU ARE HOPELESSLY ILLITERATE
INTRODUCTION
by BORING OLD WHITEGUY
The novel you hold in your hands is surely one of the great masterpieces of literature. I should know, because I have written not a few such great masterpieces of literature myself. And I would not have written them without first having been profoundly inspired and thrilled by the book you hold in your hands.
Take Margate, the main character. (At least some believe he is the main character.) He is boring, but that is part of the atmospheric charm. You think you are being bored, and you may even (epistemological considerations aside) be in fact bored, but unknown to you you are being set up for the entrance of Pat, surely one of the great comic entrances in literature. The scene is so richly comic that when I first read it, at the age of three, I must surely have spat out my oatmeal. Schopenhauer himself, the master humorist, acknowledged his indebtedness to this scene. But surely the scene would not be half so effective--not a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth so effective--but for the eight chapters that preceded it. The reader with the fortitude to navigate them (and surely it takes fortitude to do so) is surely one of literature's most well-rewarded readers.
For that is surely the essential nature of all great literature. It does not come to the reader. It puts the reader to work, first as a journeyman doing the filing and dumping the wastepaper baskets, then as a bound apprentice, then as a clerk, all the while throwing tedious difficulties in his path by way of improving his character. If, for instance, you yourself feel the difficulty of reading this, surely there is some deficiency in your moral or mental makeup, as I assure you I have been writing great books for many years and know what I am doing. You may even feel some improvement in your character from the task. That is only to be expected. For the test of great literature is its capacity not merely to entertain, but to
by BORING OLD WHITEGUY
The novel you hold in your hands is surely one of the great masterpieces of literature. I should know, because I have written not a few such great masterpieces of literature myself. And I would not have written them without first having been profoundly inspired and thrilled by the book you hold in your hands.
Take Margate, the main character. (At least some believe he is the main character.) He is boring, but that is part of the atmospheric charm. You think you are being bored, and you may even (epistemological considerations aside) be in fact bored, but unknown to you you are being set up for the entrance of Pat, surely one of the great comic entrances in literature. The scene is so richly comic that when I first read it, at the age of three, I must surely have spat out my oatmeal. Schopenhauer himself, the master humorist, acknowledged his indebtedness to this scene. But surely the scene would not be half so effective--not a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth so effective--but for the eight chapters that preceded it. The reader with the fortitude to navigate them (and surely it takes fortitude to do so) is surely one of literature's most well-rewarded readers.
For that is surely the essential nature of all great literature. It does not come to the reader. It puts the reader to work, first as a journeyman doing the filing and dumping the wastepaper baskets, then as a bound apprentice, then as a clerk, all the while throwing tedious difficulties in his path by way of improving his character. If, for instance, you yourself feel the difficulty of reading this, surely there is some deficiency in your moral or mental makeup, as I assure you I have been writing great books for many years and know what I am doing. You may even feel some improvement in your character from the task. That is only to be expected. For the test of great literature is its capacity not merely to entertain, but to
posted by archer at 4:47 AM
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