Art Objects, by Jeanette Winterson
Vintage International, 1997
This collection of essays on art and literature is wonderfully thought-provoking. Winterson's collection is a call for greater attention to art that makes a person think, that gives a person insight into a new level of reality - be it another culture or simply an alternative view of your own culture.
This book is great for writers, artists, and musicians in need of inspiration -- or a kick in the trousers. It defends the noble pursuit of art for art's sake, and challenges readers to demand more of their writers than purely story-driven plot.
Winterson devotes entire essays to the works of Gertrude Stein ("Testimony Against Gertrude Stein"), and Virginia Woolf ("A Gift of Wings"), which unfolds before us the beauty of Woolf's Orlando.
At times, Winterson admonishes those who read purely for escapist reasons with the excuse "oh, I don't want to have to think at the end of the day." Score one against television escapism, as well. There are severe consequences to the dumbing down of literature, as seen by the demise of independent book stores thanks to the likes of Borders and Barnes and Noble. As Winterson states in her essay "Writer, Reader, Words":
"If the reader wants the writer to be an extension of the leisure industry, or a product of the media, then the serious writer will be beaten back into an elitism beyond that necessary to maintain certain standards; it will be an elitism of survival and it is happening already . . . We seem to have returned to a place where play, pose and experiment are unwelcome and where the idea of art is debased. At the same time, there are a growing number of people (possibly even a representative number of people), who want to find something genuine in the literature of their own time and who are unconvinced by the glories of reproduction furniture."
While there are views expressed by Winterson that are even a bit too radical for me, she is always very logical and thorough in backing up her views.
Anyone who enjoys reading serious literature or collecting original works of art (by either well-known or local artists), will be enthralled with this book. All others may find a serious "talking to", a tsk-tsk, and some food for thought.
