CS Lewis: Everybody stand up. Renowned literature professor, brilliant religious essayist, cartographer of grief for the death of his wife (A grief under scrutiny), fantasy narrator of The Chronicles of Narnia, knowledgeable and innovative literary critic. From this last direction comes La experiencia de leer, a short- and long-term work that has become a classic since its publication in 1961 and that Alba Editorial has now saved with a translation by Amado Diéguez in the Tránsitos collection. A work loaded with fluency and wisdom that remains relevant and perfectly applicable to contemporary literature.
Lewis (Belfast, 1898-The Kilns, 1963) proposes an experiment: “Normally and by tradition, literary criticism books are devoted to judgment. Your view of the way or ways readers read a particular book is nothing but a corollary of your judgment about that book. Thus, almost by definition, having bad taste would be the same as loving bad literature. And the author reverses the process: “Let the distinction between readers or ways of reading be our starting point, and let the distinction between books be its corollary.” “The goal: to discover the extent to which it is reasonable to define a good book because it is read a certain way and a bad book because it is read very differently”.
Majority and minority. remote areas. “First of all, most don’t read anything twice.” On the other hand, “in his lifetime, admirers of great works can make them ten, twenty, and even thirty times.” Many “do not place great value on reading. He sees it more as a last resort. As soon as an alternative hobby emerges, she happily abandons it. “Written” people, on the other hand, “always seek a moment of silence and stillness in order to read and be able to do it with full attention.” And those who enjoy literature experience the first reading of a work as an intense experience. What happens to other passing readers? Of course: “literary” people always keep what they read in mind.
Numbers don’t count: “The important thing is that some don’t read like others. There are critics, the majority of whom belittled: illiterate, vulgar, barbaric with rude and vulgar responses. A permanent ‘danger’ for civilization. As if reading popular literature was a “moral disgrace.” Lewis denies this: “In this majority, there are certain individuals who are equal to or superior to some members of the minority in sanity, moral virtue, practical prudence, manners, and adaptability.” And be careful: «All literary lovers are aware that among us there is not a small percentage of ignorant and scoundrels, vulgar, deviant and violent people». It is better to forget those who practice this apartheid.
And snobs? What a danger: “They are completely under the influence of fashion.” The devotee of culture is “more valuable as a person than a snob.” Let’s go to university. Lewis writes, “The sad consequence of making English literature a ‘course’ in both colleges and universities is that in the minds of these obedient and conscientious children and youth, from the very first lessons, the reading of great writers is linked to the reading of great writers, the concept of ‘merit’».
Attention: «The true reader always takes his reading seriously, because he reads with self-sacrifice and dedication, and as objectively as he can. However, precisely for this reason, it is not possible for him to seriously read all the books he reads. You will read them in the same spirit in which the author wrote them.
This is where the Puritans fail miserably: “They’re too serious to take reading seriously enough.” Lewis delves into the differences in reading habits and the biases that derive from them, the different ways of reading, and the different satisfactions each receives from this experience. There are readers who criticize the slowness, there are those who seek the facts of life like a fist, and there are not a few people who read to give themselves a polish of prestige. Everything goes, everything gives news. As expected of a writer who shuns harshness and seriousness, the work exudes humor, takes a precise and elegant approach to the word, and reveals his thoughts with playful clarity.
The literary experience, Lewis says, “heals the wounds of the individual without undermining its privileges. There are collective feelings that heal that wound but destroy privilege. In literature, “as in faith, love, moral action, and knowledge, I transcend myself, and when I do that I can never be more than myself.” .” A complete statement of the great principles inherent in a great creator.