An Experiment in Criticism

An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my second read of this book, though the first was my freshman year in college, so it might as well be my first.

Lewis argues that it’s better to judge a book by its reader, than to judge a reader by his book. The point isn’t to say definitively that a work is “bad literature.” Rather, do we find people reading certain works over and over again? If so, why? Are they just using the book to get certain emotions, or building ego-castles in the air, etc.? Or are they receiving the book, surrendering to the art, the message, suspending disbelief to let the art make its impression on them, before making any judgment? If it’s the latter, and many such readers keep going back to it, you have good literature.

I can’t decide if this book is genius, or if it’s Lewis caving partly to the literary deconstructionism, which was just starting to make waves in his day. It’s one of those books of his, like “The Discarded Image,” or “Pilgrim’s Regress,” that shows Lewis to be way beyond the intellectual caliber of 90% of the population. So I hesitate to render such a judgment.

I do think he is right to say that there is better and worse literature, determined by whether it more or less compellingly moves the reader to receive the work itself, to be moved by its events and message. The Odyssey has you experience Odysseus’ anguish as he returns home, in a way you don’t in a throw-away detective story. Evaluating the truthfulness of the work’s worldview or moral message is a different thing.

But this creates a huge problem, one that Hollywood’s role in our culture wars of the last 50 years exemplifies well. What if a wicked message is portrayed attractively and compellingly? Lewis seems to give little or no thought to that danger. (He died in 1963, right as that became a major problem in Hollywood.) He asserts only that literature should not be judged by any moral message in the work.

I can appreciate the cinematography of a movie that prompts me to delight in wickedness – to a point – without approving of, or even being influenced by, that work. And the converse is also true. A book or movie (Left Behind; Fireproof) with a moral message doesn’t automatically make it a good production/work of art. To be controversial, The Godfather is far better art than Remember the Titans.

Two personally humbling points, to close:
1. I understood only about half of Lewis’ literary references. I guess this shouldn’t bother me, as his career was literature, and he was a Cambridge professor, writing mainly to his academic colleagues. Still, I wish I knew what he knew.

2. I realize every time I write, how hard it is to clearly and compellingly and concisely state my thoughts. Lewis does this so well, both in non-fiction prose here, and in children’s fiction like Narnia. He’s like an athlete who can far outperform me in any event. My only hope is to keep practicing and training. At least he gives me some sense of the goal.


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