Reading Those Classics #3

Classic Nonfiction. Walter Kerr (1913 - 1996) was an American writer, playwright, and theater critic. He also taught speech and drama at the Catholic University of America. Fans of Buster Keaton and Roscoe Arbuckle may remember his homage to the comedians of his childhood The Silent Clowns from 1975.

The Decline of Pleasure - Walter Kerr

Kerr sounds teacherly in this book of cultural criticism from 1962.

His thesis is that we Americans hold pleasure in little regard not only due to our puritan heritage but also to our thralldom to the idea that value depends on utility. For British utilitarian philosophers of the 19th century, pleasures are different in quality; that is, some pleasures are “higher” or “more useful” than others. Kerr blames for them for rendering us incapable of savoring small pleasures like a walk, a nap, a boat ride, or fiction because they serve no “useful” purpose. They don't make money or further our careers or make us more influential.

For instance, explaining why she reads only nonfiction a reader who values usefulness may say, “If I can read history, journalism or travel narrative or an expert, I feel much more prepared to deal with the world and feel I've used well the time I've spent reading. I see myself as a productive person and I feel useless sitting around reading stories.” Begone fiction!  

Kerr would probably not be surprised that American culture has embraced walking as a cure-all for what ails the soul and the cardio-vascular system instead of just a pleasurable thing to do. We Americans, he suggests, must learn how to take it easy. We can stop craving by just throwing the towel as along as we are moderate as to how often and how much we give in to temptation. Kerr says that if we have a yen to read a comic book, we should just indulge ourselves. Doing so, we will become sated with the so-so and turn to the better stuff such as Sherlock Holmes and then tiring of formula, move on to Shakespeare.

Hardcore readers like us have always valued the pleasure we get out of the act of reading and accept that reading contributes to our cognitive and psychological well-being. Relaxed about what genre and how much we read, we don’t feel the need to defend our taste or the time we use on our own preference.

Since the pandemic, it seems lots of people want to return to the reading that they gave up during 2020 and 2021. They ask on the internet for life hacks as to how they can pick up a book and return to being constant readers. One wishes they would go easy on themselves. We have to stop beating ourselves up as to whether we spend our free time, energy, patience and mood in the most productive ways. As Lin Yutang said in his masterpiece The Importance of Living culture is essentially a product of leisure, “The art of culture is therefore essentially the art of loafing.”