Saturday, June 16, 2007
True?
"The best protection against propaganda of any sort is the recognition of it for what it is. Only hidden and undetected oratory is really insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business. Propaganda taken in that way is like a drug you do not know you are swallowing. The effect is mysterious; you do not know afterwards why you feel or think the way you do." from How To Read A Book
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Well, it seems to me that literature is a form of art, and that well-executed art will bypass the conscience mind in what it communicates. Thus one can enjoy a book as one enjoys music - what good would music be if the hearers were required to understand the theory of it before being allowed to rightly enjoy it!
As in music, however, it pays to be sensitive to what messages are being communicated - even if these reveal first themselves in this "bounce back" effect. I will grant as well that if there is one art that lends itself to analysis, it would be literature. This is probably because literature cannot be appreciated at all without some degree of education.
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