Sun Oct 5 00:19:47 BST 2008
I was walking around an art gallery not so long ago when I noticed something interesting about how I was looking at the art. Specifically, I was approaching each piece via the little bit of descriptive text on the wall. I'd read that text and be told what to think about the piece before actually looking at it. Of course, I'd almost certainly think what the blurb told me to think. Then I'd move on to the next bit of text on the wall.
This would seem to be an analogue for how a lot of art is approached now. In an age of abundant information there is no need to experience any art without some form of preparation; some kind of preconception about what to expect.
In some respects this can be seen to be a good thing. For example, I'm not sure I'd want to go to see a Shakespeare play in the theatre without having read it beforehand, if only so that I could immerse myself in the poetry of the live performance without worrying too much about wrangling with the language in order to understand what was going on with the basic plot.
For other cases I'm tending toward the view that exposure to any digested view is a distinct drawback in the enjoyment of the piece. I think this is especially true of novels, where in many cases the blurb on the back of the jacket essentially lays out in a couple of glib paragraphs a plot that took the poor novelist - well - a whole novel to convey. To me, this seems to devalue not only the efforts of the writer, but also the intelligence (and delight) of the reader, who after all, now knows what's coming before she's even cracked the spine of the book.
Of course - yadda, yadda - you need some blurb to be able to sell books to people browsing round bookstalls in railway stations and airports across the land, and without these sales the authors whose marvellous plots we delight in might never have had the motivation to put pen to paper in the first place.
This may well be true.
However, I'd like to invite you (dear reader) to undertake two challenges. First, imagine you're a publisher, and you've just got the manuscript of, oh, A Confederacy of Dunces across your desk with no preamble whatsoever. Imagine flipping through the typewritten sheets, your professional detachment turning to genuine engagement as an hour slips by. Imagine missing your coffee break and a meeting or so, burrowing through the sheets like a mole through rich loam. Envisage emerging, blinking, hours after you were supposed to have left the office, a changed person.
Second, try reading the next few books in your input queue without reading the blurb first. See if you enjoy them any less. More pertinently, take a look at the blurb after you're done with the book. Try to figure out whether it was a handy synopsis that helped you remember what was going on while you struggled through all those long words; or alternatively a plot-spoiling, sales-enhancing waste of your time.