The Usefulness of Literature??

I went to a very enjoyable Proust reading group this evening. The guy who was running it is working on a Ph.D. in comparative literature and had given some good thought to why he is pursuing a career in literary academia. All my old concerns and thoughts returned to me: why literature mattered, how anyone could justify a life studying and teaching fictional works. What he said really made me stop and think: We had been arguing for a while about the ‘usefulness’ of literature, but he paused and said that he had no problem with its lack of utility. In fact, he fully embraced the fact that literature was ‘useless’ and in no way integral to the process of staying alive. He wanted to teach literature precisely because it was viewed as useless within a capitalist society. He wanted to teach his students to stop and think and to spend hours reading just a few pages. He wanted to show them that life wasn’t all about making money and meeting deadlines. It was, more importantly, about learning to relate to other people and to spend time listening and empathizing. He believed this skill could be acquired through the process of reading (good literature) in a slow and deliberate manner. So, yet again, I find myself missing my academic life and wondering if I should return to a more creative path, or at least to a teaching career. Because I also deeply believe that people need to slow down and to spend more time really appreciating the interconnectedness of human beings, whatever their race, religion, nationality, gender….

New starts and finding the comfort of habit

Moving to a new location is always a difficult and strange experience… I should know by now! Over the last fifteen years, I’ve lived in a small village in Wales, a small village in Nepal, Oxford, Dulles in Albania, San Diego, Berkeley, New York, London and Boston and, now, Cairo. At the moment, I am in the difficult stage of transition where everything seems foreign, I have no routine and I know few people. But gradually the layers of strangeness are peeling off and I’m beginning to see the trees for the forest… I’m beginning to realize that not all the men (of course..) are hissing at me. Many are yelling at their friends or a stranger across the street. I’m beginning to notice which streets are cleaner and easier to walk along. I’m building enough confidence to start looking at people rather than just staring at the floor. I know how long the prayers will last at the mosque, at what time the people in the apartments around me will start yelling at each other or slamming their windows. I know the more comfortable side of my bed and the way to get my shower at the right temperature.
Last night, I was reading Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.” He described how his mind strained to feel comfortable in its surroundings. How, when you move to a new place, you are “convinced of the hostility of the curtains and the insolent indifference of a clock.” Finally, however, everything falls in place:
“Habit! That skilful but slow-moving arranger who begins by letting our minds suffer for weeks on end in temporary quarters, but whom our minds are none the less only too happy to discover at last, for without it, reduced to their own devices, they would be powerless to make any room seem habitable.”
I am waiting for habit to arrange my life here so that I can begin to feel more comfortable and more at home. It takes time, but familiarity always ends up arriving at some level…