Had a special event today. After classes finished at 4pm, I made my way down to the New York Public Library again to attend a forum on the role of the written word in today's media-rich environment, involving two literary critics, James Wood (author of the newly published How to Read Fiction) and Daniel Mandelsohn. But the real reason why I went was because Pico Iyer was mediating the talk.
When I got there, though, the tickets to the event had already been sold out, and I found myself in a standby line, wondering whether I'd wasted a trip downtown. However, New York hasn't disappointed me yet, and this time was no different, because I managed to strike up a conversation with another elderly lady who was lining up in front of me. Firstly, she very kindly informed me that there was a waiting list on which we had to put our names; without that hint, I would have been standing uselessly in the line. And then we struck up a long conversation to pass the time, talking about magnificent libraries in the world, college life and even US politics. I count it as a minor achievement to be able to carry out a reasonably coherent and substantive conversation with an American about the elections; and of course, last week's ServiceNation event came in useful too.
Then, as luck would have it, someone with a ticket shows up at the beginning of the line, and offers to sell his ticket at a discount to my new acquaintance. And to my utter surprise, she declines the offer and asks him to sell it to me instead, saying that she was already second on the wait list and was thus almost certain to get a standby ticket. It was an offer that was too good to refuse, and I took the ticket off his hands. I have to say that I was really touched by the gesture; here is a degree of generosity that I have never come to expect from a stranger, and what are the odds that I would be the lucky recepient of such a gesture?
So, after offering to wait with her anyway (which she graciously declined, telling me to go get a good seat instead), and thanking her profusely, I made my way down to the basement auditorium of the library's new wing, and it wasn't long before the conversation began. And it is an interesting setup, this kind of public conversation, for although the proceedings were definitely not scripted, there was a distinct feeling of theatricality. As the three of them talked, they were always aware of the audience who was also listening in, and they also frequently broke the fourth wall, much to our delight. There was that special self-consciousness when you know that your conversation is being eavesdropped upon; there was an edge of contrivance and conscious self-censorship (or at least spontaneous self-editing). This is clearly a dimension of conversation that can be successfully investigated by a piece of theatre.
Anyway, the important thing is that their self-consciousness did not stop them from making very good points. Two of them are professional critics, so the topics ranged around the role of the critic vis-a-vis the author and the reader. One good point that came up was about the motivations of critics, that they see themselves as sort of gatekeepers of the literary canon and the defenders of that canon's integrity and quality, and because they feel possessive about this canon, they can be rather vicious with pretenders to literary greatness. In other words, the nastiness that critics may display towards a literary piece is not personal, but stems from the defence of a higher ideal. And it also follows that it would be unprofessional to temper their words out of consideration for the author's feelings.
Another interesting point was whether critics should also be masters of the medium before they criticise works in that medium. Basically it is the argument that only writers have the right to criticise writers, because then they know the hardship of writing. And Mendelsohn made a great point about how this viewpoint tends to belittle the audience, effectively denying that the audience has any right to criticise or even appreciate a piece of art, because surely an audience member cannot write or paint or compose like a master. There is certainly a place for admiring the technical mastery of the creator in his medium, an admiration that will surely be enhanced by one's own visceral experience of operating in that medium. But I think these people rightly place the emphasis on effectiveness of communication rather than technical excellence, for at the end of the day, a work of art is not meant to showcase technical skill as much as to communcate an idea.
And they also spent considerable time decrying the proliferation of opinion through new media, especially the internet. They made a rather good point about the act of commenting, actually (as in what you do when you tag a tagboard or add a comment on the end of an article). In it, they characterised commenting as an evil, basically throwing words around cheaply and disrespectfully (both to the writer and to the use of language itself). They rightly point out that commenters (and most online content producers, like this journal's writer, for instance) are exempt from the standards of rigour and responsibility that professional critics subject themselves to. Consequently, it would be premature to assign authority to these unchecked, anonymous opinions, as opposed to the rigorously regulated expressions of a critic or a writer. This is not to say, of course, that there is no good material on the internet and in mass media; indeed, the panel agreed that there are probably more good pieces of writing out there now than ever before, due to the artistic liberation enabled by technological and social changes that only occurred recently. Rather, it is to say that the amount of rubbish has also risen dramatically, and the scope of information that anyone reading this journal is likely to be exposed to is probably also too wide for him to accurately get an impression of what is valuable information and what is not. So, relatively trivial works get undue emphasis while relatively worthy works are underrated.
But all these valuable insights aside, I actually got to talk to Pico Iyer himself! It wasn't for very long, but it is immediately apparent that this person is cuttingly insightful, acutely sensitive and deeply considerate. This is not a person with a big stature, but he fills the space with serenity and enthusiasm for interaction. When one speaks with him, one is aware of great intelligence, and one is accorded a courtesy so great that one feels unworthy. I mean, he actually took the time and effort to converse with me, rather than simply throwing a few perfunctory phrases around, which was what I expected, and which is the most one can really expect for some of the artists and writers from home. Maybe it has something to do with worldview; maybe conceit and self-satisfaction are incompatible with a wide experience of the world.
And, like I said exactly a month ago, The Lady and The Monk was the only old book that I indulged myself in bringing over here from home (for my old students, reread the passage I extracted from it for our Travelogues worksheet; for G in London, interestingly, he says that this is his favourite book among his own works). It represents my favourite Iyer book so far; and as luck would have it, I was able to personally meet its author. And I was able to get a signature on it, thereby making it the most valuable possession in my room at the moment - at least on a symbolic level.
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And after I came back from the Library, floating in a haze of incredulity and euphoria, I reread the last part of that book, where Iyer describes his leave-taking from the city of Kyoto. And for one breathless moment, I thought of where this book had accompanied me on the travels of the last year, and how I had been introduced to Iyer in the first place, and the people I know who are now in Japan, and - by implication - all the people I know. It was a moment that stunned me, that awakened a powerful yearning in me. These are people that I want to meet again; more importantly, these are people who I think deserve to have a chance to experience what I am able to experience now.
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