Does it Matter?

In the film 1,000 Times Goodnight a war photographer is dedicated to carrying her cameras into the heart of ongoing war zones. In E-Team, a Neflix produced film, a group of emergency investigators for Human Rights Watch report on their visits to warn-torn battlefields of Syria and Libya.

In both films there are scenes of total destruction, weeping survivors, unexpected onslaughts of bombing attacks or marauding warriors. Photographers take their pictures, investigators write their reports.

I ask what does it all matter? Do the photographs affect anyone? Do the reports decrease the frequency of human rights violations? Where is the evidence that either have any influence? Wars continue. Human rights violations continue. Whistleblowers come forward. Nothing seems to change.

The courageous chroniclers return to their glamorous homes, devoted husbands and children. Then they head out again to the war zones. Are these people heroic communicators or danger addicts? Do they even measure the impact of their work?

Or are they under no illusions about the difference they make? Perhaps they view their task as making public what the perpetrators seek to keep secret. They judge their work in terms of newspaper reports, blog hits, tweets, and minutes on the nightly news.

I am continually asking the same questions of others form of communication—television, newspapers, literature. Consider the influence of reading literature on an individuals beliefs or behavior?

Perhaps reading a book or set of them might change the behavior of some individuals, but for others, perhaps the majority of readers, it has little or no effect. Even some writers lament how little influence their work has. Within a day or two of each other, I read the following confessions:

“Although I’ve spent much of my life writing and speaking in opposition to the corrupting influence of money on medicine, I find doing so increasingly pointless because it seems futile.” Marcia Angell

“[Barbara] Garson has similar doubt about the value of her work. Talking in a restaurant booth with Alice Epps, who is bravely fighting foreclosure, she suddenly gets up, goes around to sit down beside the woman, and begins to cry, because my books never do anyone any good.”

A while ago, this issue became the question of the moment on the Web. It was initiated by Susan Elderkin and Ella Berthoud’s new book, The Novel Cure. They write about how reading novels can overcome a variety of mental ills, suggesting novels for depression, anorexia, bulimia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc.

The novels they recommend are designed for adolescents, the middle-and-old age. Elderkin and Berthoud are widely read, the novels they discuss are among the best and most well known. However, they don’t provide any evidence for the effectiveness of reading them.

Not long after The Novel Cure was published, the results two studies one in the US and the other in the Netherlands provided some relevant data. The methodology in both studies was roughly the same. The results indicated that individuals who were asked to read from literary works of fiction (Chekhov, Munro, DeLillo etc) for only three to five minutes scored higher on measures of empathy than those who were asked to read “popular fiction” or nonfiction books.

The authors suggest that reading fiction exposes us to the perspective and emotions of individuals who may be quite different from ourselves, at least for a short period. This leaves open the duration of this effect or how a longer reading period, including a lifetime of reading literary fiction influences empathy.

But I do know that reading literary fiction or an appreciation of the arts in general does not guarantee a strong sense of empathy. One only need look to wartime Europe for evidence that well educated individuals who appreciate Beethoven or Goethe can be entirely indifferent to the suffering of others.

Literary Chat

What is there to watch on television these days? No literary talk shows, that is for sure. So I turn to the evening news. There is a murder, followed by a calamity on the freeway, and then an ad for this and then another for that, and then several more before, it’s back to the news.

There is a war, there is a rebellion, and then there’s an ad (“Talk to your doctor.”) and then several more of them. Then there is more on the war, horrible scenes of death and destruction, and then there’s a flood and a fire and then the collapse of a bridge and the collapse of a marriage. And then more ads (“Ask your doctor.”)

But there is nothing about the poetry written that day or the symphony that excited the matinee crowd or the forthcoming literary festival in Memphis or the movie festival down the way and nothing about the new novel that is exciting the public and lo and behold, also the critics. Obviously they are not as newsworthy as a fire, flood, lost child, or serial murderer on the loose.

What is one to do? The other day I read a long article by Vanina Marsot about the literary talk shows on French TV. I was bowled over by their number and variety; I counted at least eight (8) that she described. In one way or another they are modeled after what Marsot calls “the golden age of Bernard Pivot and his legendary Apostrophes.”

There are the shorts (2)— two to five minute author interviews, or a passage from one of their books, or a short biographical sketch. Then there are the longs (6) that involve a range of formats—hour long literary discussions with a single or a group of writers or critics, some interspersed with biographical films, some with a studio audience. Others consist of more general conversations about literature or cultural issues. Debates are the format of one, another is designed for high school students who are invited to question an author.

Marsot wonders if people are watching these television shows and if so how many. No one seems to care, the ratings are irrelevant. Discussing literature is sufficient. “But maybe their very existence makes the most French of points: literature, and by extension and association, philosophy, journalism, and the arts, are important and are to maintained, period.” Please, put me on the next flight to Paris.

Still Marsot confesses she “often found her patience tried while watching the long programs, but I have to wonder how much of that is about my TV viewing has been trained by our infotainment culture, as opposed to the content of the shows themselves. Concentration is required…” We all know what has happened to that.

And then in a brilliant psychological insight she concludes, “In retrospect, I feel more fondly about my experience of watching them than I did while actually watching them, which may speak to the notion that having knowledge may be more agreeable that acquiring it.” However, I don’t think this reflects anything about the programs themselves.

Rather is it not often a feature of any human experience? Traveling can often be a tedious experience until you come back home and realize wandering around all those musty museums and steep hill towns of Italy was the best trip you ever had. Or that terrible statistics course you took from that boring old professor at 8 am every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a lab at 8 on Saturday is, on reflection, the most useful academic experience you ever had.

Do literary talk shows have any future in this country? At least one is about to give it a try. Known as Amateur Thursdays, its producers say it will be a five minute segment with writers that will be posted each week on its website. “We want to make a show as mesmerizing and fun as reading is to us.” I truly wish them well. But I wouldn’t bet the family jewels on its success given the recent history of Titlepage, a similar Web-based book discussion group that was dropped after only a few episodes were shown.