Comments on Pippin on James

Abstract

There are a large number of people in the world today whose sense of who they are is bound up with novels that they read when they are young. When they think about the sources of the ideals they cherish, and of their sense of what a perfect human life might be, they remember the worlds into which certain novels introduced them, and the people who inhabited those worlds. If they are asked to talk about their moral development, they are more likely to mention novels than to mention religious or philosophical books. Literary tradition and ine uence are of course largely national affairs. But certain novelists have become objects of adoration by cults whose membership is not restricted to nations or regions. Members of these cults are bound to one another, despite differences in ethnicity and nationality, in the way that Christians from Brazil and from Denmark, or Muslims from Morocco and Indonesia, are bound to one another. When they are thrown together in foreign parts, they rejoice to e nd a fellow-worshipper, someone who cherishes the same texts that they do themselves. Two novelists of this sort are Henry James and Marcel Proust. By many people, including myself, the books of these two authors are remembered as central to our process of maturation. They helped make us the people we are, and our gratitude remains intense. Jacobites and Proustians are inclined to think that the moral and spiritual education of the young might better be entrusted to novels than to religious traditions or to works of moral philosophy. For they believe that anybody who has been caught up in the work of either author is likely to be exceptionally sensitive to the dangers of egotism. More specie cally, readers of these men become aware how easy it is to describe other people in ways which suit our own needs, rather in ways that respect theirs. These readers are both more likely than most to be aware of the needs of others, and more likely to aspire to the sort of experience sometimes