Also, that rant. Sometimes I think about some of those things while travelling around, but honestly, it's a bit like going to China and expecting everyone to have read 孫子's Art of War; or going to Russia and expecting everyone to have read Tolstoy's War and Peace; or going to the USA and expecting everyone to have a detailed understanding of the principles behind their Constitution (or even Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History); or going to the UK and expecting everyone to have a detailed, working knowledge of the Magna Carta; or going to Germany and expecting everyone to know what happened with Luther and the Reformation (for a later example, Clausewitz's On War); and so on. I'm substituting cultural undercurrents for historical events/texts that have had some bearing on that country's future since they happened/were produced, but you get my point.
... Completely irrelevantly, Alex Kerr's Lost Japan was a good read. His second book was a little too emotional for my taste, though.
...or going to Russia and expecting everyone to have read Tolstoy's War and Peace; ...
I share the overall sentiment, but I have to note that this particular expectation is somewhat reasonable, because War and Peace is included in the mandatory middle school Literature course for a very long time (last 50 years at least, probably more), along with Crime and Punishment, Fathers and Sons and other classics. However, well, of course about 80% of my peers, myself included, gave up on that in favor of condensed summaries explaining the plot and main ideas in enough detail to write the essays - who the hell even expects teenagers to have enough time to actually read through those four volumes. I actually made an attempt, but couldn't muddle through Tolstoy's writing in the beginning, with goddamn untranslated French interjections in every third sentence...
I share the overall sentiment, but I have to note that this particular expectation is somewhat reasonable, because War and Peace is included in the mandatory middle school Literature course for a very long time (last 50 years at least, probably more), along with Crime and Punishment, Fathers and Sons and other classics. However, well, of course about 80% of my peers, myself included, gave up on that in favor of condensed summaries explaining the plot and main ideas in enough detail to write the essays - who the hell even expects teenagers to have enough time to actually read through those four volumes. I actually made an attempt, but couldn't muddle through Tolstoy's writing in the beginning, with goddamn untranslated French interjections in every third sentence...
Oh dear, and here I thought that Shakespeare's King Lear and Julius Caesar were bad enough.
Oh dear, and here I thought that Shakespeare's King Lear and Julius Caesar were bad enough.
Shakespeare is something you get into fairly quickly, or at least, I got into. As you get into it, the context of what you see makes the speech and euphemisms clear. It helps to watch them as plays, though, rather than as annotated stage notes and scripts. You can just go on YouTube and find all of Shakespeare for free put up by the BBC or something, and it's a better way to experience it. (Literally, the way it was meant to be experienced.)
Tolstoy has gripping themes, but with him, like other "doorstopper" novelists from over a century ago, I confess I have trouble getting through his works, as well, just due to the sheer rambling, even before you get into language. It's something that really does benefit from an abridged version, although full-on Cliff's Notes is never a good way to experience something. I remember reading a "kid's version" of books like Sherlock Holmes or Moby Dick when I was in elementary school, and enjoying it, but my brother lamenting how having to read Moby Dick was one of the worst experiences of his life when reading the full version in high school. I know a purist would scoff at that idea, but after a point, you can just stop paying attention to it when you see something you don't quite get out of frustration, and that actively undermines what you get out of it. It's better to read a bastardized version and get 90% of something than throw it down in disgust and get nothing at all.
To me the best writers are ones who can present a complex message in the minimum of words, only extrapolating to clarify any misconceptions they anticipate in their readers. My perspective is that writers back were verbose because if one could afford free time and books, generally there was much time but little to do. A large book would ensure plenty of entertainment and people probably read it multiple times (helping to understand the story) since there weren't as many books.
I think Shakespeare writings are significant because he is of the few people who understood that if you want to send a message, it has to be simple enough for the rabble to understand easily, and concise enough that you don't lose their attention. Part of the problem is that his works are so old that we have problems just understanding the language used.
Probably the biggest cancer is the "symbolism" trend of modern writers where they believe they have to give a perception of complexity and abstractness in order to become a great writer. If you are writing for entertainment (like Spice and Wolf) then an obscure style is appropriate. However, if the goal is to sell an idea, then it is stupid to be vague, and even more stupid if you don't put a author's note summary clarifying the main point like in Aesops fable. If the writer does not make it clear what the morals are and X and Y represent, eventually it comes down to the reader choosing the intended interpretation by chance (after all, do people interpret a painting the same way?). This also opens doors to corruption of the message simply if the popular consensus supports an interpretation, even if it wasn't the authors message. For example, I see symbolism applied to many works to derive the exact opposite message of a book, some unintentional, but a lot done intentionally because they can't accept the original message of the book (1984).
In the modern day, I think a well educated person should read summaries first, and read the summaries of many books in order to get the benefit of many concepts. However, you have to trust the source of the summary just as you trust a news reporter to report an events facts only, and not give any opinions. This of course, cannot always be depended on, so reading the original controversial books are critical in my opinion to form your own perspective on the work, and not a parrot of a popular but potentially false interpretation.
Then again, the books really worth reading for knowledge are rarely fiction, and usually non-fiction. In my opinion, fiction is just a dressed up version of the themes from reality.
For example, I see symbolism applied to many works to derive the exact opposite message of a book, some unintentional, but a lot done intentionally because they can't accept the original message of the book (1984).
Yes, I mostly was talking about how writing styles have changed over the past 100 years. "Purple Prose" was just lauded then, in an era of less information overall, as opposed to the infinite-reading-material-at-your-fingertips modern era. Hemingway (referenced earlier in this comic) did a lot to counter that idea... although Hemingway is also not a person whose words you can take for granted. His writing style was notably concise and "punchy", but also deliberately left out the subtext to the point that readers would have to reread passages to understand their actual meanings, because he wouldn't spell his themes out.
For the quoted line in particular, though, I have to say there is merit to alternate interpretations of works. To use Shakespeare as an example since we're on the topic, The Merchant of Venice carries severe antisemitic themes, but may have also been a bold attempt to portray a jewish man as sympathetic in a severely antisemitic time. Perhaps antisemitic themes were part of the play to avoid hysterical claims of favoring Jews, or perhaps even when trying to write a character sympathetically, those stereotypes had been internalized in Shakespeare. How people view it changes based upon the context of their own lives, and how they view the context of when it was written. There are assumptions and biases and themes that every writer carries and doesn't question, and it's valid to point out they exist, even if the writer themselves doesn't acknowledge it.
There is a problem with people wanting to create "mystery" for its own sake, because being obtuse can generate more attention than the actual merits of the writing. (*cough* Lost *cough* Ending of Sopranos *cough*) However, there's a danger in relying upon this argument too heavily, where it becomes easy to dismiss any meaning in a work or someone doesn't want to acknowledge the point someone is making to dismiss the argument out of hand because ALL symbolism is inherently flawed.
But look at what they're wearing.I don't know if I could call that "disgusting" anymore.Mishima Yukio's poems.What do I... little late now to say that, isn't it?Where's the tea spirit of Rikyu?Nagai KafuuNow, Japan, who possesses the greatest power in the world, are trying fix their self-contradiction by showing their child sexual abuse for the whole world to see!Where's Confucius' way of moderation?Since we are here to see that, aren't we?Where have all the subtleties of concealment that were cultivated over the months and years in those works gone?Tanizaki Junichiro's "In Praise of Shadows".Their military are trying to escape from their responsibility!They continue to get fat while taking post-war aid from us for several decades, and now even their military has caught some allergy that made them forget their pride!Isn't this supposed to be a country of Wabi-sabi?Yosano Akiko.It's exactly because they keep giving a bunch of powerless kids power, that this country has become distorted like it is now. And they just kept quiet about it until everything is over and done with!They only look a little more than a bunch of showgirls in a seedy part of town.If it was me back in high school, I would scream if anyone told me I'd have to wear that!