Against the flurry of obligation and the jagged pain of isolation, art recalls us to shared sublimity.
In her essay Upstream, poet Mary Oliver writes, "Attention is the beginning of devotion." Instead of a rigid framework of immutable concentration, to her, devotion is one characterised by the standard of time and care given to it. The pursuit of the sublime.
This sublimity is in the battered paperback I flick through on the crowded train in the sticky daze of summer, occasionally flipping it back and forth to fan my face. It is in the flecks of dust that placidly lie atop well-loved classics that hum in anticipation of being re-discovered. It is in the quiet smiles of elderly librarians who are somehow always more up-to-date than you on current releases. It is in dog-eared pages, coffee stains, spilt lipstick, scratches and claw marks. It is in the paper shreds of Swann's Way that encircled my dog Pumpkin, who evidently had a taste for French Literature. It is in the bookshelves of my grandparents, in between the technicolour pages of my Nana's aged and yellowed knitting patterns, in the complete box set of Tintin they bought for my ninth birthday so I would have something to read when they picked me up after school. It is in the puffy waterproofed pages of 'The Rainbow Fish', where tiny mould spores have sprouted between. It is bookstores, those public spaces of communion.
It has taken me twenty years to learn that such attention is not innate. Perhaps I realised this later than others, since attention, or lack thereof, has been a characterising force in most of my life. Before I had memorised my multiplication tables, I was already infamous among my peers for barreling into the classroom ten minutes late every single school day. The ladies at the office wrote my name on the late slip, etched into their muscle memory. By year three, my classmates had collectively enacted a ban on loaning me stationary due to my horrific track record of losing them. For a long time, I was consumed by the idea that the only way I could genuinely live or learn to do anything worthwhile was through the solitary compression of attention. If I could channel all focus onto a blade of summer grass and gaze at it, zen-like, for hours, I would brush against the edges of normalcy that fluttered away each time I tried to catch it. How could I control this part of myself who darts from the thought of the emails I must send, to the unread piles of books on my dresser I must read, to the news articles to which I must pay attention, the freeze-dried angel hair and romaine lettuce I must buy at the supermarket for dinner?
Rather than my understanding of attention as an innate lack, a personal fault, I have begun to learn that it is a form of mindful and embodied dedication. The potentialities for my devotion are not dissuaded by absent-mindedness but can be accomplished by encouraging this innate desire for understanding. This is the fulfilment I discovered in literature.
The pursuit of understanding imparts the enlivened pleasure we feel when exposed to something novel. A work of literature is abundant, glitters in opulence, weeps uncontrollably, sits awake with you all night and forgets to turn the light off, dries your tears, offers you an alter ego, an escape plan, a signpost. The inexhaustible sublimity of art is a powerful rejuvenation for an exhausted earth. When we devote attention and let ourselves respond to poetry, music, and pictures, we are clearing a space where new stories can root, new stories about ourselves, others, and the world around us. There is magic in these raw spaces for introspection, unable to be tabulated or analysed. Against the monotony of monoculture, great works of literature herald obscurity, diversity, difficulty, and pretension. A profound encounter with art entails transformative qualities other than an abstract, algorithmic calculation, where aesthetics outweigh authorship. Rather than the frictionless consumption pushed by algorithms and short-form mass consumption, literature is a passage of communal joy.
For example, progression is a feature inherent to the novel’s construction. I'm not talking about acts or chapters but the two characteristics a book must have: a distinct beginning and end. These definite boundaries are a salve for the untethered. Online interaction is a purgatory of infinite suspension. There is no tangible progress to endless scrolling, feeling trapped in this numb liminal space with no bottom. You are always in the middle. The contrast between digital liminality and the act of reading is stark. Being able to read even five pages is still tangible progress. You can feel the pages between your fingers. It can be frustrating when struggling to progress in a book, resist other distractions, and wrestle with complex and ornate language or abstract concepts. But this frustration is the catalyst for learning. Frustration opposes commodification, through continually evading passive consumption. Letting ourselves be shaped by understanding, our boundaries pushed, and the borders of our minds traversed and profoundly altered is the reward for our attention.
That's not to say that this particular form of attention comes easily. In the haste of life and the press of action, it is challenging to devote specific attention and learn to examine our feelings in the way reading provides. Most of us are now complexly enmeshed in the overarching digital fabric of the hungry attention economy and the implications of personal performance online. The relation of attention between oneself and literature offers an alternative framework, a complete and fully realised vision in a chaotic unrealised world. This may be why so many see literature as an escape. It satisfies the desire for shape out of the omnipresent hailstorm of media and advertising shards constantly hurled our way, a ladder out of the amorphous hole of digital relations. Whilst the familiar dread of the sheer magnitude of data online is comparable to the realisation of one's own small stature in the face of centuries of art and history, the project of knowledge is an undertaking within our control. It entails a sense of progress, of purpose. This pleasure of understanding is earnt piece by piece, the electric thrill of a connection uniquely exciting.
In my hands, there is something more than simply words on a page. Open the book, and in the city's bustling traffic, the place is suddenly still. The movement of literature is imaginative, the secret pathway connecting body and book, the points of jointure known only to you. Intimate illuminations when the reader and what is read are both unaware of the hands of time.
Here in your hands, a book that was in another’s. Given to you, fully formed, across the negligible years of time. To time, art is entirely indifferent. If you want proof, you have it right in front of you. Drift in and out of attention as you, please. Fall asleep before you place your bookmark in between pages.
It will still remain, waiting.
the pleasure of understanding is earned piece by piece :) lovely