Enoch Arnold Bennett was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboration with other writers), and a daily journal totalling more than a million words. He wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the Ministry of Information during the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. Sales of his books were substantial, and he was the most financially successful British author of his day. Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him into the legal profession. Bennett worked for his father before moving to another law firm in London as a clerk at the age of 21. He became assistant editor and then editor of a women's magazine before becoming a full-time author in 1900. Always a devotee of French culture in general and French literature in particular, he moved to Paris in 1903; there the relaxed milieu helped him overcome his intense shyness, particularly with women. He spent ten years in France, marrying a Frenchwoman in 1907. In 1912 he moved back to England. He and his wife separated in 1921, and he spent the last years of his life with a new partner, an English actress. He died in 1931 of typhoid fever, having unwisely drunk tap-water in France. Many of Bennett's novels and short stories are set in a fictionalised version of the Staffordshire Potteries, which he called The Five Towns. He strongly believed that literature should be accessible to ordinary people and he deplored literary cliques and 茅lites. His books appealed to a wide public and sold in large numbers. For this reason, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. During his lifetime his journalistic "self-help" books sold in substantial numbers, and he was also a playwright; he did less well in the theatre than with novels but achieved two considerable successes with Milestones (1912) and The Great Adventure (1913). Studies by Margaret Drabble (1974), John Carey (1992), and others have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work. The finest of his novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works.
"It is only in the stress of fine ideas and emotions that a man may be truly said to live" - Arnold Bennett
Favorite book I have encountered so far on the contemplative discipline of reading. If Mortimer J. Adler's book is a "work of knowledge" meant to inform, this book is a "work of power" meant to inspire; two helpful distinctions, by the way which Arnold Bennett proffers.
I gleaned a few new principles and had some budding principles reaffirmed in my own mind.
One of my favorites, every age is clouded by mediocrity until it runs its course, only then can it be examined with clarity and appreciated.
It reminds me of the biblical admonition regarding "golden ages", "Say not, "Why were the former days better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask this." - Ecclesiastes 7:10
Bennett wants to awaken you to the fact that everything is interesting and it is the makers of literature who overflow with passion for the interestingness of things. Mediocrity can be overcome by appreciation for that interestingness, something which classic literature can help you with because it is time tested and will make you acquainted with some of the most interesting things ever conceived. For this reason, he recommends reading classic literature before contemporary so that you will be better equipped to evaluate the contemporary.
He also argues that a classic is a classic not because it was popular with the masses, but because there were a passionate few who would not let the genius of an author be ignored.
Some time is spent in one chapter with convincing you to read poetry by getting rid of preconcieved notions you might have had about poetry. He recommends Coleridge and Wordsworth.
He also suggests that Spencer's "First Principles" as an important philosophical work and he says that Chamber's "Encyclopedia of English Literature" is indispensable.
The three penultimate chapters of the book lay out a plan for collecting a library of classic books, the prices he lists are completely outdated but the list ought to be referred back to.
Finally, the last chapter is most challenging and inspiring, he suggests that perhaps you have not really read at all. In fact, if you have not meditated on what you've read and taken stock of it, if you are not able to apply it and engage with it, then you have not read well. "The absence of meditation is the main origin of disappointing stock taking". You need to think about what you read and apply it, otherwise reading is just a useless past-time that will not transform you.
I suppose if you read this book and are inspired by it, you are already well on your way to developing literary taste for, according to Bennett, "a continuance of interest in literature is what will bring you to the keenest joys".
I took much away from this book. It's engaging, well thought-out, and there's so much fodder for thought. One of the main things I took away was this: Ideas are only as clear as the words expressing them. Think you have a brilliant idea but only lack the words to express it? Fiddlesticks, says Bennet. Vague words = vague idea.
I listened to this on audio twice, and also read portions in pdf online. There's a lot of information packed in, and I will likely revisit this book several more times.
The last few chapters include lists and lists of great books. This alone makes this book a gem!
"Great books do not spring from something accidental in the great men who wrote them. They are the effluence of their very core, the expression of the life itself of the authors. And literature cannot be said to have served its true purpose until it has been translated into the actual life of him who reads. It does not succeed until it becomes the vehicle of the vital. Progress is the gradual result of the unending battle between human reason and human instinct, in which the former slowly but surely wins. The most powerful engine in this battle is literature. It is the vast reservoir of true ideas and high emotions鈥攁nd life is constituted of ideas and emotions. In a world deprived of literature, the intellectual and emotional activity of all but a few exceptionally gifted men would quickly sink and retract to a narrow circle. The broad, the noble, the generous would tend to disappear for want of accessible storage. And life would be correspondingly degraded, because the fallacious idea and the petty emotion would never feel the upward pull of the ideas and emotions of genius. Only by conceiving a society without literature can it be clearly realized that the function of literature is to raise the plain towards the top level of the peaks. Literature exists so that where one man has lived finely ten thousand may afterwards live finely. It is a means of life; it concerns the living essence."
"I say that if a man does not spend at least as much time in actively and definitely thinking about what he has read as he has spent in reading, he is simply insulting his author. If he does not submit himself [pg 143] to intellectual and emotional fatigue in classifying the communicated ideas, and in emphasising on his spirit the imprint of the communicated emotions鈥攖hen reading with him is a pleasant pastime and nothing else."
I can't shake entirely a sense that it might be partially out of weakness that I keep listening to this book over and over on librivox.org. Part of the attraction is the excellent recording by Timothy Ferguson, who captures Bennett's humor well. But one thing I am sure of is the book offers a lot of sound advice about becoming a serious reader. I think I will eventually listen to it again though this may be the sixth or seventh time I have listened to it, booklists and all. Strange that he likes Spencer so much but irrelevant to the substance of the book's message.
Literary Taste: How to Form It by Arnold Bennett is delightfully didactic for us smart people. "You occasionally buy classical works, and do not read them at all; you practically decide that it is enough to possess them, and that the mere possession of them gives you a *cachet*. The truth is, you are a sham." Yes, you are, you great goof, but Arnold Bennett has something of a programme to solve that, which is different to other programs, because Arnold Bennett knows that you said to yourself, "I am going to read ten pages of Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire every day" and you failed. Arnold Bennett's program is halfways to "...surround yourself with books, to create for yourself a bookish atmosphere. For the present, buy鈥攂uy whatever has received the *imprimatur* of critical authority. Buy without any immediate reference to what you will read. Buy! Surround yourself with volumes, as handsome as you can afford." Then you can begin to read the classics. "A classic is a work which gives pleasure to the minority which is intensely and permanently interested in literature." He presents a plan for reading enjoying, with Charles Lamb as a gateway drug and Wordsworth as a waystone. But: "You need to think about what you read and apply it, otherwise reading is just a useless past-time that will not transform you." Arnold Bennett ends his essay with a comprehensive list of classic books one can purchase for the total cost of 拢26 14s 7p and, "When you have read, wholly or in part, a majority of these three hundred and thirty-five volumes, *with enjoyment*, you may begin to whisper to yourself that your literary taste is formed; and you may pronounce judgment on modern works which come before the bar of your opinion in the calm assurance that, though to err is human, you do at any rate know what you are talking about."
I read this book as part of the Librivox book club. At first I wasn鈥檛 quite sure what to think about it, but I am so glad that I read it. Bennett was intensely passionate about enjoying your reading, expanding personal horizons, and relishing the art of literature. I鈥檒l keep this review short, because instead I鈥檇 like to share some of my favorite quotes with you, and you can decide for yourself whether you should read it.
鈥淭he makers of literature are those who have seen and felt the miraculous interestingness of the universe. And the greatest makers of literature are those whose vision has been the widest, and whose feeling has been the most intense.鈥�
鈥淭he aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; it is to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify one's capacity for pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension. It is not to affect one hour, but twenty-four hours. It is to change utterly one's relations with the world. An understanding appreciation of literature means an understanding appreciation of the world, and it means nothing else. Not isolated and unconnected parts of life, but all of life, brought together and correlated in a synthetic map! The spirit of literature is unifying; it joins the candle and the star, and by the magic of an image shows that the beauty of the greater is in the less. And, not content with the disclosure of beauty and the bringing together of all things whatever [pg 8] within its focus, it enforces a moral wisdom by the tracing everywhere of cause and effect鈥�
鈥淔ame of classical authors is originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few鈥nd it is by the passionate few that the renown of genius is kept alive from one generation to another. These few are always at work. They are always rediscovering genius. Their curiosity and enthusiasm are exhaustless, so that there is little chance of genius being ignored鈥�
鈥淎s Lamb sat in his bachelor arm-chair, with his brother in the grave, and the faithful homicidal maniac by his side, he really did think to himself, "This is beautiful. Sorrow is [pg 42] beautiful. Disappointment is beautiful. Life is beautiful. I must tell them. I must make them understand." Because he still makes you understand he is a classic.鈥�
Se h谩 um livro que explique de forma objetiva e l煤cida as condi莽玫es para se formar o gosto liter谩rio, este livro 茅 o de Arnold Bennett. Sua abordagem vai desde a import芒ncia da literatura at茅 os livros que devem constar na estante do leitor, mostrando que a forma莽茫o do gosto liter谩rio n茫o 茅 simplesmente uma manifesta莽茫o de cultura ou uma distra莽茫o, mas a condi莽茫o sine qua non de uma vida plena. Uma leitura altamente recomendada para aqueles que desejam desenvolver a aprecia莽茫o certa pelos livros certos.
The aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; it is to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify one's capacity for pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension. It is not to affect one hour, but twenty-four hours. It is to change utterly one's relations with the world. An understanding appreciation of literature means an understanding appreciation of the world, and it means nothing else.
It is well to remind ourselves that literature is first and last a means of life, and that the enterprise of forming one's literary taste is an enterprise of learning how best to use this means of life. People who don't want to live, people who would sooner hibernate than feel intensely, will be wise to eschew literature.
But the greater truth is that literature is all one鈥攁nd indivisible. The idea of the unity of literature should be well planted and fostered in the head. All literature is the expression of feeling, of passion, of emotion, caused by a sensation of the interestingness of life.
Literature does not begin till emotion has begun.
It is extremely important that the beginner in literary study should always form an idea of the man behind the book. The book is nothing but the expression of the man. The book is nothing but the man trying to talk to you, trying to impart to you some of his feelings. An experienced student will divine the man from the book, will understand the man by the book, as is, of course, logically proper. But the beginner will do well to aid himself in understanding the book by means of independent information about the man. He will thus at once relate the book to something human, and strengthen in his mind the essential notion of the connection between literature and life.
My second consideration (in aid of crossing the gulf) touches the quality of the pleasure to be derived from a classic. It is never a violent pleasure. It is subtle, and it will wax in intensity, but the idea of violence is foreign to it. The artistic pleasures of an uncultivated mind are generally violent. They proceed from exaggeration in treatment, from a lack of balance, from attaching too great an importance to one aspect (usually superficial), while quite ignoring another.
You do not exist in order to honour literature by becoming an encyclop忙dia of literature. Literature exists for your service. Wherever you happen to be, that, for you, is the centre of literature.
There is no surer sign of imperfect development than the impulse to snigger at what is unusual, na茂ve, or exuberant.
Honesty, in literature as in life, is the quality that counts first and counts last. But beware of your immediate feelings. [...] Demanding honesty from your authors, you must see that you render it yourself. And to be honest with oneself is not so simple as it appears. One's sensations and one's sentiments must be examined with detachment. When you have violently flung down a book, listen whether you can hear a faint voice saying within you: "It's true, though!" And if you catch the whisper, better yield to it as quickly as you can. For sooner or later the voice will win. Similarly, when you are hugging a book, keep your ear cocked for the secret warning: "Yes, but it isn't true." For bad books, by flattering you, by caressing, by appealing to the weak or the base in you, will often persuade you what fine and splendid books they are. (Of course, I use the word "true" in a wide and essential significance. I do not necessarily mean true to literal fact; I mean true to the plane of experience in which the book moves [...]).
My second counsel is: In your reading you must have in view some definite aim鈥攕ome aim other than the wish to derive pleasure. I conceive that to give pleasure is the highest end of any work of art, because the pleasure procured from any art is tonic, and transforms the life into which it enters. But the maximum of pleasure can only be obtained by regular effort, and regular effort implies the organisation of that effort. [...] Your paramount aim in poring over literature is to enjoy, but you will not fully achieve that aim unless you have also a subsidiary aim which necessitates the measurement of your energy. Your subsidiary aim may be 忙sthetic, moral, political, religious, scientific, erudite; you may devote yourself to a man, a topic, an epoch, a nation, a branch of literature, an idea鈥攜ou have the widest latitude in the choice of an objective; but a definite objective you must have.
Great books do not spring from something accidental in the great men who wrote them. They are the effluence of their very core, the expression of the life itself of the authors. And literature cannot be said to have served its true purpose until it has been translated into the actual life of him who reads. It does not succeed until it becomes the vehicle of the vital. Progress is the gradual result of the unending battle between human reason and human instinct, in which the former slowly but surely wins. The most powerful engine in this battle is literature. It is the vast reservoir of true ideas and high emotions鈥攁nd life is constituted of ideas and emotions. [...] Literature exists so that where one man has lived finely ten thousand may afterwards live finely. It is a means of life; it concerns the living essence.
Bennett sermonizes with a bit too much confidence, especially in the last chapter, and he snubs Oscar Wilde and a number of other authors in a very ostentatious and cutting way, but he has some worthwhile thoughts on the process, practice and value of reading. By the time you finish this book, you'll be well versed in the prices of bargain editions in Britain around the turn of the century (thank goodness for Gutenberg and Librivox - they're now probably all available for free to anyone with Internet access), and will have some quite useful lists of English literary classics that you might want to refer to in drawing up your own reading list.