Page 10 - Lamplight Magazine (1)

II

O ne of the p o w er s of the writ er is, with languag e, t o cleave op en p a ths of
thinking and feeling p reviously over gro wn by silenc e. T his is the ac hievemen t of
Louis ’s w ork. He fills wha t may have remained shame f ul silenc e with languag e. W ith
w ords, he has armoured the unp ro t ect ed who live amongst the p oor, rur al French: the
homose xual, the e ffemina t e, the in t ellectual – all those who shrink t oo f ar f rom the
rep ulsive ideal of this br and of masculinity. Louis ’s lit er ary p roject is p rimarily a
(suc c essful) p olitical one. Henc e the languag e he and his admirer s use t o stir up z eal:
revolution, c oup , resistanc e, objective truth. Ye t it does no t aut oma tically follo w tha t
it is suc c essf ul in some artistic senses. O n the p lac e of the p olitical in art a long
discussion w ould be needed. Louis himself thinks all art is political and tha t dissen t er s
think o therwise because of a bour g eois de tac hmen t f rom p olitic s and life. It’s probably
true tha t there is no such thing as art which is non-p olitical. A nd if there w ere suc h a
thing as a c ulture whose art had bec ome non-p olitical, p erhap s c onc erning itself
inst ead p urely with the en t ertainmen t of its p ublic, then w e w ould feel suc h artists
had degr aded themselves. Ye t it is also the case tha t art is no t, or needn’t be,
primarily p olitical. T here are de tails whic h do no t regist er on any party line in all grea t
novels. T he move Louis is mak ing in all his media c ommen ts about art and p olitics is a
p olitical one itself. It is (hyp oc ritically) a rip ost e against those he feels have silenc ed
him for so long: in crea ting a sp ac e in lit er a ture for the p olitic ally op p ressed, he
op presses o ther s righ t back. Poli tics is ne c essarily division, and it is imp ossible t o
ever be neutr al, t o ever truly be free of this need t o p ut ano ther group do wn and feel
your o wn t o be on t op . T hankfully, art need no t p lay this game, and those who have
c ome t o lit er a ture f rom p lac es of op pression and silenc e should be the grea t est
p ro t ect or s of this f act. For Louis, he has the habit of iden tif ying the socio-political in
every line of p rose. It is one which de tr acts from his art bec ause these c onnections
must be sough t out where none e xist or, w or se, where they are so obvious tha t the
novel gains no thing by including them.
Politically, I am no t f ar f rom Louis. He is a liber al, though a r adical one; and I find
many of his sociolo gic al in t erp re ta tions re asonable , though he is also a
de t erminist and his disagreeable habit of e xp laining every thing via the
socio-p olitical I find p a tronising. Ho w ever, I rec o gnise this habit as a s y mp t om of
curiosity and a resistanc e t o obscur an tism: bo th things I am f undamen tally
c ommitt ed t o. Politic s, I am sure Louis w ould agree, is a s y st em of languag e and
though t denied t o the p o w erless p recisely because it is an instrumen t for gaining
p o w er. C uriosity, which does ba ttle with ignor anc e, lies, e xhaustion or ap a thy, is thus
insep ar able from p olitical strug gle and the asp ir a tion for egalitarianism and
ac c ep tanc e. Ye t for all this agreeableness I c anno t say I rec o gnise an aesthe tic merit
in Ed dy which rivals my p olitic al s y mp a thy for its author. A nd the question of
enjoymen t, some thing else w e migh t hop e for in the books w e admire, doesn’t c ome
in t o it. T here isn’t a p ag e writt en tha t c ould, in the absenc e of masoc hism, be enjoyed.
Reader s do w ell t o resist the mistaken belie f tha t art which is p olitically p o w erf ul
canno t be enjoy able or aesthe tic ally p leasing.

09