On reading books and the danger of being an aesthete

[tarigwaemir]

Ad Mundo Exteriore,

I've decided to re-evaluate the purpose of this LJ. Recently, I think I've been rambling a little too much about the boring, humdrum events of my daily school life, which fascinating as they may be to me are mostly your average college student whining. Furthermore, I usually think of this LJ as a "fandom LJ" or a "reading log LJ"--although I've been behind in downloading anime and manga, and I definitely haven't been reading lately (no wonder I'm so irritable lately, classic withdrawal symptoms).

The thing is, I feel that I need to spend any spare moment I have reviewing chemistry, and it's much easier to keep saying, "I'll go over chemistry after I check this email or this forum", than "I'll go over chemistry after I finish this book". Also, I lack the presence of a public library with a decent mainstream fiction collection in my life. ;_;

I want this LJ to be entirely public, and I want to feel comfortable with the idea of anyone, whether I know them in real life or not, reading its entries. It's not so much that I want it to be impersonal, just...I would like to look back at my entries and not be bored by it. >_< So, from now on, I'm going to try to post LJ entries when I actually have something to share, not just when I need to complain to someone and have no one around to conveniently vent at, or when I want to procrastinate on homework.

With that in mind...

I'm reading Northanger Abbey for expos, and I'm so pleased now that I'm taking Gothic Fiction because I feel like I haven't read a novel in ages. I've read most of Northanger Abbey before, after kaydeefalls recommended it way back when, but I never actually finished the last third or so (I think I got up to her first few days staying with the Tilneys, but after that I got distracted with schoolwork and other books--ah, the story of my life). It's such a comfortable read, and I love Henry Tilney's flamboyant sarcasm. The only quibble I have with his character is that he falls in love with Catherine mainly because she flatters his ego so much. I have a feeling that if there's any truth to that particular pattern, I'm probably going to fall for a dumb boy who inflates my sense of self-importance and never understands anything witty I say but finds it all incredibly brilliant anyway. Well, I suppose that kind of relationship wouldn't be so bad, but I'd feel kind of guilty for my utter selfishness. Also, I could see it evolving into something like Mr. and Mrs. Bennett's marriage from Pride and Prejudice. Ick. I have the feeling that the reason why Pride and Prejudice is the most satisfying of all of Austen's books is that the main couple has such a good power dynamic. Both Darcy and Elizabeth are equally intelligent and capable of asserting their own will, so it feels like an ideal relationship. Almost all the couples in the other Austen books I've read (not that much, I know) are...well, less than ideal, usually with the male being much more competent and sensible, which drives us girls up the wall. Or at least me.

I'm really looking forward to The Mysteries of Udolpho--I'll bet it's unintentionally hilarious, just from the references to it in Austen. And despite all her satire, Austen really has a fondness and even a sort of indulgent respect for the Gothic novel--kind of like the way I think about watching Asian dramas and reading bad fanfiction. ^_^ It's not just that they are amusing in a "hah, that's so stupid" way, but there's a kind of sincerity to these genres that makes the clichés sound less stale and even meaningful. You do have to admit, as brilliant as more "highbrow" genres may be, all that complex architecture of intentional subtlety can make them feel rather artificial. Real classics should have that perfection of form (à la Callimachus and Daedalus) but that form cannot be empty. As much as I value aesthetics, there's a point where you have to say that beauty is not sufficient for art. I said to lush_rimbaud once that I felt that you couldn't create art until you found the misshapen dwarf-child (in "The Birthday of the Infanta", Oscar Wilde fairy tale) as beautiful as the princess.

And all this in itself is pretty much repeating the obvious, and Oscar Wilde--that king, or shall I say queen, of aesthetes--himself says it much more nicely (in both senses of the word) in "The Star-Child" (yet another fairy tale). Still, we all need reminders, especially academic aesthetes like me, who tend to be distracted by the frivolous. We were discussing the other day in seminar that the bias towards the aesthetically pleasing created a terrible flaw in theoretical science--good science, Professor Hoffman reminded us, is born from tension between theory and observation. Too much theory, and science becomes nothing but an exercise in pure logic, deducing the consequences of a set of axioms (he pointed out, interestingly, that theology does exactly this, with a different set of axioms). Einstein with his thought experiments opened up a whole new way of doing physics that is perilously close to no longer being science (although all his theories were ultimately testable). Science is an inductive process, and while the aesthetics of theory may provide the force, the observation of real phenomena is the inertia that keeps it moving. Hm...kind of antiparallel metaphor there. Oops. Oh, and too much emphasis on observation alone leads us to Hume and his inability to conclude anything other than immediate sensory impressions. (Actually, to phrase Professor Hoffman's point in another way, science is neither wholly rationalist or empiricist but rather born from the constant conflict between those two epistemologies. That is to say, scientists must be schizophrenics! Or at the very least, people who are condemned to never know what they are capable of knowing.)

...Tari

Post-script: Self, if you look back at this entry and wonder what the heck you were thinking while writing it...being hit on the head repeatedly will do that to you.

Comments

[rimedragona.livejournal.com]

... but I always read and enjoy your posts. Even when they are so long they border on small novels. *pokes gentle fun* You always have something insightful to say, even if I haven't always read the book or what-have-you. ^_^ But you shouldn't procrastinate on your homework by typing in your LJ. *whistles innocently*