Note: This is the second in a series of posts that will consider the question:
What does literature have to offer (if anything) that no other art form or media (such as video games, social media, movies, TV shows, etc.) can match?
To view the first post in this series, scroll down or click here.
Literary Labor
by Bethany Wagner, APU Honors student
or TV show or video game can: the chance to kick back on the couch with a steaming mug of tea…and get to work.Work? Who would want that at the end of the day when The Bachelor is on? Yes, reading is work, oftentimes hard work. But it is not the tiresome work of scrubbing food off plates or hauling stacks of dirty clothes to the Laundromat.
It is the work of figuring out what Dickens meant by that mysterious allegory, and deciphering exactly what apozemical means, and trying to solve who killed so-and-so before Sherlock Holmes does. Most of all, it is the work of finding how your story—where you come from, who you are, what you believe—fits into the story you hold in your hands.
Would I have been able to refuse the White Witch’s Turkish delight? Would I have been unselfish enough to make the ultimate sacrifice like Sydney Carton? Do I agree with this character’s philosophy? Do I agree with that author’s depiction of religion? Some questions are harder to answer than others, one book more difficult to place yourself in than the next, but all pull the reader into the story, and all call the gears of the mind to work—not to monotonous drudgery, but to a joyous, satisfying work that engages the imagination.
Compare the feeling of finishing a movie or video game to that of finishing a piece of fine literature. At the end of the average movie, I might think something along the lines of, Well that was cool…I guess it’s time for bed. A particularly good, thought-provoking movie perhaps leaves me with stronger feelings of contentment or conviction. Finishing a video game might leave me feeling a bit more accomplished, although there is always the nagging thought in the back of my head that maybe…just maybe…all those hours in front of the screen pressing buttons might have been better spent elsewhere.
But after turning the last pages of A Tale of Two Cities, The Great Divorce, Paradise Lost—even books like Harry Potter, a little bit less of a “task” to read—I have no regrets. I did it. I read the words, entered the world, took my part in the story, added my voice, and thoroughly enjoyed it (even when I came across words like apozemical).
As I write this I am sitting on the floor in between bookshelves in one of those buildings that are testaments to the wonders of literature—a library. Books of all sizes and colors and topics, each with its own story, surround me, and though I will sadly never read them all, I feel a sort of kinship to each one. I know that if I were to pick up any one of them, crack open its cover, and begin reading, that book would allow me to enter its world as a partner in its authorship.
A movie is a two-and-a-half-hour performance where I can tune out the world and relax. A video game lets me in a little bit deeper by allowing me to press a few buttons that result in the death of an Orc or a sword fight here and there. But it is the book…and only the book…that fully engages the mind, calling me to enter into its story, and at the same time allowing me to work at telling my own.
Comments 8
I completely agree with Bethany. Watching TV or a movie can be relaxing, but it doesn’t stimulate one’s mind, nor one’s heart, at least not as much as I feel a piece of literature can. Movies can be a source of inspiration, but there is something quite different and moving about burying yourself into a book, taking the time and effort to invest in the lives of the characters and allowing their experiences and growth to move you and cause you to reflect on your own experiences, decisions, and faith.
Movies are able to do everything that books can. Their ability to personally touch, inspire, motivate, or affect a person is quite parallel to the capabilities of literature.
However, the sense of personal engagement a book provides is simply incomparable. The sense of accomplishment one has after physically finishing a book truly surpasses the end of a film, and draws a distinct division between the two. That extra push of effort required while reading drives one deeper into the story than even possible when you sit and watch. Being engaged with your own eyes and mind, the connection within the story becomes more intimate, fully involving the creative conscious. That buildup after time grows and stretches one’s imagination, which, in turn, enhances the gratification from reading evermore.
Generally speaking, I agree. Most video games can be boiled down to “kill an orc.”
However, there are some exceptions that I think blur the distinction.
Take Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. The main character is a dead ghost (gotta love needless repetition) who wants to solve 2 important questions: Who was I in life? Why was I killed? The point is to solve the mystery. The game is very text heavy, so it could arguably be called literature. Yet, gameplay is involved. The player actually does important things to progress the plot. Characters are also developed really well, and it’s easy to get fully engaged. Since it’s a video game, beating it takes time close to reading a book rather than 2.5 hours.
The player is also the main character, which brings a level of engagement that movies lack.
Other examples of video games, or video-game like things, are Umineko, Touhou, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and 999. The youtube channel Fuandon has a few more of such games.
People have called these games inspirational and thought-provoking. I know Ghost Trick has influenced me in ways similar to a really deep book.
There is a lack of imagination in video games, though. You don’t really have to imagine what’s going on.
Hwaet! And I agree but I disagree it does seem that you can read a text like a film or a video game or music as deeply and satisfyingly as a book if it is wellmade and true but somehow the tactility or touchableness of a book that maketh it more realer is not touchability the realest form of realness or else why travel when pictures will do the touchableness of the book gives it a greater depth of being verily verily I say unto you physics comes before metaphysics does it not it is the sacrament both plainest corporeality and deepest mysteriousnessness that makes it seem better and truer and too does not the medium itself furthest from a natural representation of reality make it most convincing not trying to pull something over on us its mimesis most honest and unhypocritical it is touchable language that only claims to be itself and not a film or a videogame that would aim to mistake us for living and there is much to be said too of the smellinghood of books they are very much something special language in some sense a dictator of reality incarnate with touch and smell and pregnant with words your eyes will see is there not a reason we have much of our Scripture in book form is it perhaps all poorly done philosophy aside as you said Bethany perhaps that there is more a labor to it in reading than in watching and the self is not displaced but is engaged and melded Apollinarian heresywise and the act not of forgetting but communing brings us the satisfaction of bookreading that is not to be found elsewhere or are we maybelike just as a literate society biased against texts not written with printed words because we are intellectuallyisb and we think books wiser but that is a sad thing to think we want to say that there is something more to books than to other texts and perhaps it is the labor and perhaps it is the honester mimesis and perhaps it is language as our primary means of transmitting reality is more real than a digital representation or even an analog representation that we may see in film but yes yes it is convincing also apozemical apozemical aposemical aposeminalaposemikallpozemic
Most sincerely,
The Semi-Reverended Tyler F Shattuck
“I grow old . . . I grow old . . . / I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” J. Alfred Prufrock understands something about books, I think. There is this freedom to read and think and not to act, to think and read and wait for more understanding. There is time to THINK . . . Of course, JAP goes too far into his own head. He probably doesn’t get to the party. But I like reading T. S. Eliot’s poem on pages I turn myself whenever I want to and in whatever order.
I completely agree with Bethany Wagner. One thing that truly caught my attention from her response was the fact that the sense of achievement an individual has after completing a piece of literature surpasses the satisfaction of completing any other form of media. After reading the fiction book “The Hunger Games” this past summer, I steadily realized that through literature I am able to explore the creativity of my imagination. However, with the movie premiere also came the downfall of many creative imagaination. In any other form of visual media, the images are solely shown, and there is no room for individuals to experience a whole different perspective and scenery than which the movie portrayed. Movies, video games, pictures, etc. is no comparison to the vivid images I experience when reading literature.
In addition, literature also strengthens an individual’s writing skill by enhancing vocabulary, discovering different writing styles, and improving grammar.
Ultimately, although literature may not be a necessity in today’s society due to technology and other means of entertainment, reading literature captures many benefits in which other forms of media cannot achieve.
A agree with your statement that a book “fully engages the mind” and THAT is what separates literature from other forms of media or entertainment. We can experience music and video outlets through our senses of seeing and hearing, but literature activates the brain. We soak up all the facts and clues the author gives us, then the rest of that new universe is up to its readers to create. As being created in God’s image, we too like to create, and literature is perhaps the best outlet for it.
I agree*