This post started off being a comment on a post by Jabberwock It ended up this way and I thought it best to use my own space, instead of infringing on his. To fully understand what stirred me out of my 4-month long inertia you may want to read this and the comments that go with it.
What is a good book? What is a good movie? For that matter what makes any piece of work good bad or indifferent?
We have had yardsticks, defenses, fine tuned barometers, and postmodernists thrown at us, depending on who is doing the throwing. High art, low brow, cutting edge, mass appeal, entertainment, great literature, pulp fiction…. Words.. pigeon-holing words. Then these are stacked in ascending order. Have your pick they will tell you, and stick to it. And if you were to be waylaid at a party completely inebriated or woken up from the deepest slumber, or caught returning from a football game you must have it ready… the reason for your chosen taste.
I protest. I have several persons living in ‘I’ and I love them all dearly. I will nourish them equally. They have various moods. I will indulge them all. My cleverness then will be in picking the right treat for each unique mood. My good luck then will be in finding that this treat has been treated well. If it has been made with care and integrity it would probably satisfy my specific craving.
What I look for in a piece of work is that I should feel an empathy with its intent to begin with and be satisfied with the integrity of the maker. If there is an extraordinary evidence of skill or inspiration, I am naturally elated.
But to question a maker’s basic intention? I have never understood this one. What makes anyone think they can dictate intention to someone undertaking any work. You must seek to entertain. You must seek to educate. Your work must work like a vise on my brain. Your work must leave me numb with fear or titillation. Who? Who are we to make these demands? I understand annoyance with presumption, disappointment with shoddy distraction, or contempt for a spineless second-guesser. But to tell somebody what he ought to set out to do? Surely, that’s a bit much. And if a person clearly states his intention in public (as against through his work) then surely we can believe him? Instead of concluding that it is the defensive crutch of a lesser or lazy mind or prejudging him to be pretentious upstart or such (as the case may be).
To move then to work that has made it out there into our sphere of consciousness. We have options you know. Approach it now, put it off for a more empathetic frame of being, or decide that you have nothing in you that will appreciate it. If you do approach it, the only yardstick to measure its success was how close it came to fulfilling its root intention. My criterion then for a good piece of work is “Integrity with Intent”.
Also, I see no reason why any one should have to explain their taste, least of all justify or defend them. I see no reason why someone should not have an absolute plethora of moods and corresponding inclinations. I don’t see why we would want a rulebook telling us what we might, may, or ought to enjoy, appreciate, know and (god forbid) feel! I see no fun that way, no plurality.
That way I might look but never never see.
PS. something related that I came across on ‘good taste':
Good taste is the most obvious recourse of the insecure.
People with good taste eagerly buy the Emperor’s old clothes.
Good taste is the first refuge of the non-creative.
It is the last-ditch stand of the artist.
It is the anesthetic of the public.
- Harley Parker
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4 comments:
Very nicely put Shweta, thanks for the link. It’s so true that we all have many different selves, which respond in different ways to different stimuli. I think we really do lose sight of that sometimes in our eagerness to compartmentalise/define ourselves as THIS or THAT sort of person.
One of the problems I face as a reviewer is that one tends to trade in concepts like lowbrow and highbrow, art and entertainment. But fundamentally I don’t believe in those divisions.
Well said. Yes, the multiple-personas issue is certainly something most would agree with. But one isn’t quite sure if integrity is a suitable criterion. A writer may put his heart and soul into churning out what most people would describe as utter twaddle.
Thank you Jai. I think maybe I understand what you mean. When your work has constantly to do with discerning details, articulating nuances, then maybe you tend to develop a system of codification for easy reference. And perhaps it is difficult to remember always that these boundaries are most interesting when transcended. I face the lure of hierarchies in my work too (I design), I am often tempted to go for what I think is brilliant instead of what is better.
Gracias The One! I should perhaps state that when I talk of ‘the maker’s integrity...' I mean it to include the kind of personal integrity, which would tell him if he was a talent-less twit. It would take enormous self-deception to continue to work in a field for which you have no aptitude. Of course, there are degrees of talent that perhaps distinguish the sublime from the good.
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