The Extension of Our Sympathies

[osprey_archer]

"The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies." - George Eliot

I've been reading Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch, which I must confess to enjoying more than Middlemarch itself. I've always admired Eliot's literary goal of extending her readers' sympathy, but I find her hard

Comments

[samgrass]

You make a pretty cool point here that I wouldn't have thought of re. Middlemarch -- I enjoyed it a great deal the last time I read it, but we were also discussing it in a classroom situation and it was a real strain to get people to really dig in. (Also I totally hear you re. Lydgate -- his views on women are narrow and unpleasant, and while I found I could relate to him, that didn't really mean I came to like him. Despite this, your commentary here makes me really want to pick up My Life In Middlemarch, the question of how readers relate to Casaubon is something that definitely interest me.)

Maybe I should pick up Lord of the Rings again too -- the last time I read it I was really young, and my sympathies weren't the most developed thing in the world.

[osprey_archer]

I read Middlemarch on my own, but it's definitely a book that would be improved by class discussion - I think that's one of the reasons I'm enjoying My Life in Middlemarch so much, because it's sort of providing that discussion after the fact. And discussion would also facilitate the whole "expansion of sympathies" aspect, because other people will see things that I wouldn't.

[samgrass]

I really appreciated the classroom discussion once we got into it, in particular re. Casaubon -- it was useful to get over my initial cringe reaction and to compare him with other characters who are defined to one degree or another by the potential for greatness, real or imagined.

[asakiyume]

You think we were supposed to feel sympathy for Casaubon? I thought that we were supposed to see what naive Dorothea found attractive, but to very definitely have the sense of stultification and pedantry be MUCH stronger.

I don't think that art necessarily enlarges the sympathies. In fact, I think there are certain kinds of art where the fact that one's sympathies will remain comfortably unenlarged is part of the appeal --I think you're so right here. And now you've really got me thinking about if, and how, a novel can enlarge our sympathies if we start out unwilling to have them enlarged. I'm trying to think of a case when I've had my sympathies enlarged when at first I didn't want them to be...

[osprey_archer]

I think Dorothea was definitely supposed to be the locus of our sympathies, but not to the exclusion of Casaubon. There are a lot of passages where Eliot basically says "While of course this was terrible for poor Dorothea, let us not forget that Casaubon was also a suffering human being etc. etc. They're both suffering! Let us sympathize with everyone!"

I felt rather crabby about being requested to sympathize with Casaubon, and I suspect a lot of readers feel the same.

I think if a reader is dead-set against sympathizing, then there's not much a writer can do - there needs to be that initial willingness, even if it's grudging. But I can think of times that I've started out resistant but ended up interested in and/or sympathetic to something: In the Land of Invented Languages made Klingon speakers sound fascinating, and there was an article in the Smithsonian (IIRC) a few years ago that made me rethink my received opinion of Norman Rockwell, for instance

[asakiyume]

Yeah, I think it's easier seeing it happen in nonfiction, where things are more up front, and the writer can state explicitly, even, what they'd like to do. I guess with fiction, if it happens successfully, we maybe don't even notice, because our mind does change. I think the times I notice it are when it *doesn't* work for me, and then I have a conversation with someone, and they explain to me their viewpoint, and I think, "Huh. Well, maybe. . . " and I can feel myself slowly, if not completely changing my mind, at least allowing for the possibility. Things opening up a little. Like in my recent entry, where I was ranting about My Dinner with André, and then rachelmanija said some things in its defense--or not even in its defense, exactly, but just, her more-positive impressions. And man, I still don't think I'd like the film, but *maybe*? At least I have an impression of something that I could maybe be more in sympathy with.