Why Literature Is Bad for You

by Peter Thorpe

As a professor of literature and former believer in the sublime and redeeming qualities of art, Peter Thorpe is now deadly serious about his disillusionment with those who live and work with literature and the other arts. His ideas here are based on two major assumptions: 1) that art is not an isolated entity but an influential part of our environment, especially for artists and scholars, and 2) that art is essentially a means of approval in that the skill and talent of the artist tend to make the subject, no matter how negative, more attractive than it really is. Since, negative subjects make for the most interesting reading, he contends that most literature is predominantly about pain and conflict and that even a happy ending doesn't offset the overall negative effect on the reader.

Why Literature Is Bad for You is divided into five sections: Seven Types of Immaturity, Seven Avenues to Unawareness, Five Avenues Of Unhappiness, Four Ways to Decrease Our Mental Powers and Four Ways of Failing to Communicate.

Each section develops a set of related detrimental effects that literature can have when taken too seriously and indulged in too intensely. Thorpe's reasoning is supported by references to the greatest works of literature and anecdotes from his own experience in teaching at five campuses around the country. They show the essential nature of art can encourage and exaggerate the worst tendencies in people, leading them to believe naive and unrealistic ideas, covet impossible dreams, rage against imaginary wrongs, etc. He is not suggesting that literature should be banished from our educational system and he certainly is not suggesting that a massive book burning is in order, what he does encourage is a closer, harder look at our beliefs about literature and art in general to see what effects they really have on us.

Examples like these are given in Why Literature Is Bad for You: the liberal, open-minded professor whose son stole a dozen cars in one night and then committed suicide; the young woman who left her husband and a series of other men while pursuing her passion for Victorian novels; the mad poet who started raving in the midst of his lecture and had to be carried away; the hothead whose accusations of racism ruined a fellow professor's career; and the hypocrite who denounced sex in his lectures but couldn't keep his hands off female students.

While the book may anger or infuriate some, no one will be able to deny that its arguments are not without merit or that a re-examination of the role literature ought to play in the educational and cultural process is out of order.

Genres: Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Becca Rehberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this book is a bit misleading, first of all. It doesn't purport giving up literature (and by extension, the arts) altogether. Instead, it points out the incongruities between the proclaimed "humanizing" effects of literature and the flawed, sometimes inhuman behavior of the people who study and teach it. This book is probably deep-cover satire--not only is satire the author's academic specialty, the examples he gives to support his points seem to be a little too on-the-nose to be taken seriously.

Nonetheless, I found this book entertaining, and to me, it reminded me of a valuable truth: getting lost in other worlds and other heads is fine, and in fact part of being human, but don't lose your sense of self or your moral compass along the way.

[Liriope · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny and unique book, made all the more interesting by being a bit dated.
Some of his points were definitely a leap, but others were useful.