Dear awesome subscribers,
As this day marks one year since my first post on Timeless, I wanted to give a mighty thank you from the bottom of my heart and soul alike. Writing on Substack has been an interesting path thus far. And a most rewarding one.
To celebrate, I went to have a few drinks along the waterside in Croatia. It fills me with joy to see how the Croats, even in today’s globalized world, remain loyal to their own cultural values and traditions. Watching as the Poles betrayed their own late last year, Croatia has given me great hope for the region and the world. Perhaps more cultures would feel loyal to their traditions if their music featured tamburitzas more often? There’s a question that’ll challenge the philosophers for years to come.
I mention this because as a way of commemorating a year of Timeless, I decided to write about something more straightforward and joyful but just as deep as some of the other topics I seek to write about. Since many of today’s events are quite dire – the collapse of the West as a civilizational sphere, for instance – I think that in my posts, I’ve made it too easy for some to believe that I’m an unhappy person bitter at the world, or something like that.
While some don’t feel that way, for a happy day like this I wanted to share the happier part of me that should come out more often. The part of me that is happier than I’ve been in years. Because let me be clear: I am not an unhappy or angry person. And I’m not just saying that.
To be sure, I won’t pretend that I am free of all negative emotions. But I have a family, including a fiancée and a daughter whom I love deeply. (and vice versa) I have good friends who are as inspiring intellectually and spiritually as they are in terms of basic loyalty. I am working full-time doing what I’ve wanted to do for over a decade: writing. I know where I stand on many things, meaning I’m not as affected by the intellectual confusion common today. And I really only have one life regret: that I had gotten my degrees in history and became an historian. But I don’t lose sleep over it, and I don’t regret my other degrees. It just means I’ll have to be known as an amateur historian if I ever publish anything like that. There are worse things to be in the world than that.
And best of all if we’re talking about the moment: I am done with my satire! Expect book length project number 2 to come out very soon. It will be a quick read, a pocket read. But a most affordable read in these economically challenging times. You’ll most certainly get a kick out of it! (It is not, by the way, a political satire)
Perhaps it is because life has been kind to me that the trials of the world affect me that much more. I come from the lowest of the lower middle class, not one of outstanding privileges. (I reject the concept of White privilege as an asinine and racist pseudo-scientific term) And I am the product of a generation that has been socially engineered and failed by a society full of homo deus hubris. Factors that influence my writing in some way or another.
But enough on that. The point I’m getting to is that for this special day, I want to write about an indubitably positive topic: the question of whether literature makes people happy.
This naturally begs the question: is literature meant to make people happy?
In its most basic form, the art of storytelling has had several particular functions in society since the earliest days: 1) entertainment, 2) spiritual sustenance (Christian or non-Christian, religious or simply spiritual), and 3) learning powerful lessons that contribute to the quest for wisdom.
In their genius, the Ancient Greeks certainly knew that to be true, given that comedies are very good at entertaining while tragedies are very good at impressing lessons upon their viewers. Sophocles’ plays about Oedipus would have conveyed warnings against fate to its viewers: Oedipus, like any one of us, had no desire to murder his own father and marry his mother. But by reacting as he did to the prophecy, he hastened its realization. He acted unwisely, even if he did for reasons you or I would understand and respect. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
While there is a macabre kind of entertainment in tragedies of this sort - Kafka’s friends, for instance, treated his stories as comedic - the lesson to be learned is a lot more obvious in tragedy. There is a reason we’ve spent many centuries memorizing “to be or not to be: that is the question.” It is meant for us as much as for our own experience hearing Hamlet’s story.
This is not, by any means, an ironclad rule. Fairy tales, for instance, feature happy endings and are also about teaching lessons. (Though it is worth noting that not all fairy tale traditions rely as addictively on happy endings as Grimm Bros. fairy tales) But a work of literature – at least one that follows a basic storytelling progression – has, traditionally, always had one or more of these directives in mind. Without them, the story has no purpose; or its purpose is lukewarm and vacuous at best, like the utterly detestable and superficial Donald Barthelme.
This includes the spiritual, as we see in Dante’s Divine Comedy. But given that most practices regarded unspiritually today were spiritual before, spirituality is never far away in any tale with, for instance, a funeral or a wedding. After all, it has been said by many great writers (Cormac McCarthy among them) that the best stories in history pertain to life or death. Literature to entertain doesn’t depend on that, but literature seeking wisdom is often never far from death.
This, again, makes the association of the quest for wisdom with tragedies very natural. This is also why it’s much harder to write a timeless comedy than a timeless tragedy.
The foundation of the modern novel by Miguel de Cervantes does not ignore these directives either: in fact, part of the genius of the novel comes from its ability to integrate all three of these directives into a single story where plays, for instance – the other prominent work of literature in Spain at that time – were singularly devoted to very specific themes: revenge plays, morality plays, etc. This is the most fundamental difference between the drama and the novel: thematic concentration.
Don Quixote, in contrast to the playwrights of Cervantes’ day, is both comic in its telling of the hilarity of the Don’s madness and tragic given the Don’s fake knighthood. While Don Quixote was not interested in the spiritual apart from the lost spirit of chivalry (one of the earliest works to seek spiritual sustenance in artistry itself) St. Teresa of Avila compensated for that with her Autobiography, the other half of the dualism from which the novel emerged.
Novels in the future have, for this reason, included spiritual themes alongside both of the others; but due to this history there is a kind of “secularism” that has often prevailed with the novel. This is both a necessity and a tragedy, and both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and the novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky are great examples of why that division is tragic for novels not like theirs. Whether he intended to or not, Tolkien’s example highlighted what so many novels have lacked by eschewing a spiritual dimension from their multitudinous fabric. The simple, Christian way of putting it is: by using storytelling to also pursue God – who exists outside time and space – the artist pursues that place outside time and space professionally. With a few exceptions – like Shakespeare, whose spirituality is, I believe, anyone’s guess (correct me in the comments if I’m wrong, Shakespeare nerds!) – the greatest artists who endure to this day in a state of timelessness do so because of how they fuse the spiritual with the basic act of storytelling. I do not at all mean this in any simple way, like throwing in religious terms and things like that. Again, I cite Tolkien as a success story in this respect: never in LOTR is Christian terminology explicitly used.
Even so, a spiritual component remains optional depending on the novelist’s artistic needs. Because every story is different. Ultimately it is the story that, like a hungry baby, demands a directive from the author. Not vice versa. If Shakespeare’s plays aren’t what we think of as deeply spiritual, it is because neither his storytelling artistry nor his projects in and of themselves demanded a spiritual dimension the way that, for instance, Dostoyevsky’s novels have. Even so, Shakespeare is never far from the supernatural: one need only ask Hamlet’s father’s ghost. And like in the novel I reviewed earlier, Veli Joze by Vladimir Nazor, folklore and the supernatural can also function as an adequate substitute for the more sophisticated spirituality of a major world religion.
With these directives in mind, we return to the question: does storytelling, in its pursuit of these directives, guarantee happiness on the part of the reader and/or play viewer? Let us go through each one.
Entertainment
It hardly need be said that to entertain someone is to make them happy. It is natural that in the United States, Americans have discovered entertainment to be in their blood. It is a peak expression of the American pursuit of happiness.
Much American entertainment has, historically, been lacking in depth. I don’t say that to be high and mighty: most entertainers have simply followed the buck and learned that entertainment focused more on popular appeal is more lucrative than entertainment meant to convey deeper themes at the expense of big bucks. That is not to say Americans cannot create deep culture: just that as a commercial culture, Americans are not incentivized to create deeper culture whether they want to or not and must face greater hurdles in breaking out of that culture. The existence of several waves of “lost generations” isn’t all that much of a head-scratcher: the best American writers understood that to be artists, they had to learn what that meant elsewhere in the world. To be a good marketer is not the same as being a good artist: only Americans believe that fairy tale.
With all that being said, storytelling for entertainment does succeed at keeping Americans happy irrespective of the quality of the art. True, American culture is heavily lopsided in this respect. But by servicing the “happy directive,” literature as entertainment is a smashing success.
Of course, people are entertained only as long as they are entertained. It is when they’re not entertained that problems emerge.
Literature In Pursuit of Wisdom
There is no shortage of brains and intelligence in America, even if the “dumb American” stereotype also isn’t unfounded. But the same cannot be said about wisdom. Again, this isn’t personal or an anti-American slight: a society that isn’t structured to both enable wisdom and empower its bearers simply isn’t going to have a lot of wise people, any more than a landlocked country without waterways is going to have a lot of sailors. A culture that venerates physical youth over elderly wisdom incentivizes people to try and preserve their youth instead of preparing one’s brain for the elder days of wisdom. This isn’t controversial.
Increasingly in the Internet Age, there is also a shortage of readers of la haute litterature. While some might object to me using that term here - I know that high culture does include comedies - a lot of the famous works of high literature are either tragedies or stories that don’t adhere to the “happy directive” very much and don’t feature tons of smileyness and more smiles. High literature also isn’t always interested in entertaining, although it can (and should) entertain.
The overlap of literature in pursuit of wisdom and the term “high culture” isn’t a fluke. The high/low division of culture is a leftover from the time of the higher and lower classes in Europe. Today, most of us have a natural sympathy with the lower classes; this in turn sours our perception of high culture as something only elitists dabble in.
That perception isn’t totally wrong. But the fact remains: the aristocracy had a culture that prioritized intelligence and - by default - wisdom. It was, in some sense, a luxury: poorer classes didn’t need to read books when they had enough hard experiences teaching them unambiguous lessons. They also had an oral, music-based folklore. But high culture was also a series of cultural advances that benefitted all of humanity, not just the nobles. Reading good books - fiction or nonfiction - increases one’s intelligence no matter one’s background. And high and low culture have a long history of informing each other. Making the high/low division simultaneously redundant to our lived experience and crucial to a healthy, cyclical flow of artistic thought, trends and ideas. Goethe would not have written Faust if he hadn’t encountered it as a lowbrow story told among simple people. In turn, anyone and everyone can appreciate Faust despite its elevation to the realm of high culture.
This historical view of high culture - as well as the aforementioned conditions of American culture - has blinded most Americans to the benefit of reading the best works of literature, in particular the best tragedies. But while many works of high literature might not bring immediate happiness as would a TV sitcom, the knowledge and wisdom garnered from high literature - as well as the emotional intelligence only it can convey - brings happiness to its readers in the long term.
High literature is an investment. We invest our money as much as we spend it willy-nilly. Why shouldn’t we also invest in literature? Like money, high culture should be thought of as something that is achieved when one defers a bit of gratification. The plus, however, is that it’s much easier to do this with high culture than with money.
The Spiritual Directive
Giving a simple answer here is difficult. For while the main purpose of most spiritual traditions isn’t to simply put a superficial smile on people’s faces - something many don’t understand when they encounter serious Christians - greater spiritual health does lead to greater overall happiness. Many studies confirm this.
The spiritual directive overlaps most frequently with literature in search of wisdom. A spiritual quest is more often than not a search for wisdom as well: to know God. Less so with entertainment: most people (though not all) don’t want God in their comedy. Especially today. But a comedy can have its spiritual side: a marriage comedy, for instance. Hollywood movies tend not to emphasize the sacred side of the rite that has been taken for granted worldwide since the beginning of time. Then again, it is worth asking: how many of these movies will most of us go back and watch fifty years from now? Not a lot of them, I suspect.
The best example I can give for the connection between the spiritual dimension in literature and literature as a means of happiness can be found in my favorite novel - The Count of Monte Cristo.
Many readers do not consider The Count of Monte Cristo to be spiritual. And at first glance, it is easy to see why. Add to that the author Alexandre Dumas’ epicurean love of the good things in life and people will start to wonder what I’m smoking. But in the novel the knowledge of the treasure of Monte Cristo island that changes the course of the entire story comes from a scholarly priest, the Abbé Faria. The reader therefore understands that the association of knowledge and wisdom in Monte Cristo is synonymous with God. Later on, when utilizing his disguises, Dantes would sometimes appear as a man called Abbé Busoni. Usually to gather information from the world when he needs it. When elsewhere Dantes - as the Count of Monte Cristo - represents himself as an outstanding nobleman who generates awe, the Abbé Busoni is a listener who does not generate awe but who draws the knowledge of people to him. It is not about him, Dantes, but about others: this is especially poignant in the first appearance of Abbé Busoni, when Busoni/Dantes learns of his father’s death and the successes of those who wronged him and his family. Even as a revenge story, The Count of Monte Cristo is very much about the last being the first, while the first will be last. But as those who have read it know all too well, the novel has strong moral virtues.
And best of all: it is an entertaining novel that also guides us in the search for wisdom. A perfect synthesis of all three directives.
Conclusion
Literature at its best is not only designed, but guaranteed, to bring happiness to its readers. But that happiness is not always what people in the world of popular culture expect it to be. Patience is definitely a virtue here.
What great novels and other works of literature have made you happy in a lasting way? Can literature that originally seeks to only entertain transcend its origins? And is it a happy thing to be wise? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
And thanks again for your support! Here’s to year two!
Congratulations Felix
Congrats on staying the course, Felix! This is smart commentary on the "why" of literature. Horace's dictum, that literature ought to both instruct and delight is serviceable enough for most explanations, but I like your more nuanced examination.
One thing I might add to your notes on wisdom and spirituality is the Emersonian view of the poet as an emancipator who reveals us to ourselves. We are half ourselves, half our expression, and the great writer gives voice to something we've always known but could not say ourselves. In some cases, the writer expresses truths we've never apprehended at all.
I used to meditate on this with my students while traveling to Red Cloud, Nebraska, at the end of my senior seminar on Willa Cather. I know of no better illustration of the transformative power of literature than that sleepy Nebraska town. Cather knew Red Cloud through the people who settled there -- the diverse immigrant communities, the businesspeople and laborers. But she also knew it through her reading. She had the benefit of some private mentors, who introduced her to Greek mythology and the ancients, and so she perceived her life in Red Cloud through that long historical lens. In circumstances that others might have found trivial, she saw timeless truths, echoes of the Greeks and Romans. You hear this in her Nebraska novels, and her art has proved so enduring that the only major economic engine in Red Cloud now is the National Willa Cather Center. And so now Red Cloud is known by all through Cather's understanding of it through literature.
Every place has its own genius, its own kinship with other epochs and empires. A great writer reveals these affinities and thereby transforms the individual's and the community's understanding of its own worth.
https://www.willacather.org/visit/national-willa-cather-center