'The Whole Point of Literature'

I learned of some twits who see no reason to read Tolstoy because he was such a terrible human being, as though this constituted recently declassified information. Such an understanding of literature and literary history, if followed to its logical conclusion, will result in a reading list consisting of three titles by Sally Rooney and a reprint of What Is to Be Done? Here’s what the English poet-critic C.H. Sisson wrote to a would-be poet in 1976: 

“[I]t is the whole point of literature—or a large part of the point—that it can cure one a little of the follies of one’s own time, which one imagines at first are not follies. Thus by reading the appropriate masters one can learn that people in Roman times, in the middle ages, or in the seventeenth century, had quite different—yet related—ways of thinking about things, yet were human entirely, and as good as we are or, in the case of the surviving master-writers, much better.”

 

Reading is undertaken, especially with writers from the past, in a spirit of humility, not unlike the way a student approaches a respected teacher. Sure, plenty of wretches have written books, some of which are masterpieces. The only way you’ll find out is by reading them. Trust me: the proportion of saints among writers is infinitesimal. Here’s how Joseph Epstein ranks the author of War and Peace in The Novel, Who Needs It? (Encounter Books, 2023):

 

“Tolstoy was, in my view, the greatest of novelists, perhaps the greatest writer of all time and among all genres. Every character he created comes alive, every novel and story he wrote stirs one’s imagination, making one want to read on to learn how things will come out for the people he has created.”

 

[Sisson’s letter to Clare Holland is published in the Spring 2010 issue (dedicated to Sisson’s work) of Agenda, the English poetry journal.]