Cliches often become such for good reason. They embed a common cultural observation—a truth, even—in such a succinct manner that the phrase itself becomes a stand-in for the idea. To reach for a cliche like “the proof is in the pudding” to describe a work of high literary criticism like Joshua Hren’s More Than a Matter of Taste initially seems disrespectful. Like serving chicken nuggets as an appetizer to caviar, the dissonance is near deafening. And yet, if it’s true that cliches embed deeper truths in common language, they share this trait with great literature which, Hren insists, is more than a matter of taste. Novels, he argues, are not merely neutral ways to pass the time. They are not things only to be judged by the pleasure they elicit nor the forms they follow. Instead, they are potentially transformative encounters which can lead us to see the world more accurately. But how can one argue for this? Well, to harken to our opening cliche, it would seem that Hren has adopted an approach along the lines of, “the proof is in the pudding,” insofar as More Than a Matter of Taste is more an extended display of a moral reading of literature rather than a directly didactic argument for such readings. In essence, Hren says to readers, “let me show you what it’s like to read literature the way I believe it should be read,” and, at that, it is an excellent example.
Hren’s work is divided into three parts—though the reader may be forgiven in failing to see a great deal of difference between parts two and three, both of which are exercises in close, morally charged readings of 19th and 20th century novels, almost all of which could be categorized as “realist.” The greater contrast is between the first part and the latter two. While the first part is certainly not lacking in literary analysis—indeed, hardly a paragraph of this book is lacking a quotation or reference—it differs in that these chapters are not focused on analyzing a particular text but rather analyzing literature and the task of reading itself. It is in these opening chapters that we encounter the recurring themes which make up Hren’s view of literature. Among these recurring themes are the connection between literature and sight, such as when Hren writes, “good books are capable of increasing the depth perception of our souls” (16). Learning to read well, we also find is itself a form of moral education. In his chapter, “Educating the Emotions,” Hren states this most clearly: “Literature is a mediating moral force, a staging area where we can confront the riches and challenges of reality at second hand in a way that deepens our ability to wrestle with them and respond rightly when we meet them in actuality” (48). Here we see a characteristic insistence that one’s reading extends beyond the world of the novel and into “actuality.” It is not just a reader’s response to literature that has a moral value, however. Hren is not shy about judging the moral worth of characters, authors, and works as a whole. He laments the moral relativism that pervades novels whose authors take eschewing “messages” as the cardinal virtue of good writing (75). For Hren, “the moral realm must resonate as kalokagathos, ‘beautiful-and-good,’ and literature lit with the moral imagination can achieve this end by making goodness beautiful—by helping us to see it as scintillating” (69). Notice the way in which vision, education, and morality are all combined in this one sentence.
Despite his insistence upon the relevance of morality, Hren makes space for a via negativa approach to literature. That is, some novels can form us toward the good by showing us the ugliness of evil. However, quoting Jacques Maritain, Hren offers the following caution: “The more deeply the modern novel probes human misery, the more does it require superhuman virtues in the novelist” (59). One gets the sense that, all things being equal, a good novel with morally good characters is a safer route than a good novel with morally bad characters. In all this moral analysis, Hren is careful to distinguish between moralistic works and books with moral depth. The former smuggles sermons into stories whereas the latter displays a broader range of human experience while still latching onto our innate sense of good and evil. Of the latter, Hren writes, “Such a book can contain multitudes, but instead of reveling in some violation of the principle of non-contradiction—while also foregoing the forceful reductions and petty pressures of proselytism—it can invite the reader to feely assent to the difficult good” (79). Threading that needle is not made out to be a simple task, but it does appear to be the hallmark of great literature for Hren.
Before turning to the second and third parts, it’s worth pausing to note that the various elements looked at thus far—literature as pertaining to vision, education, and morality—are best thought of as recurring themes rather than premises in a tightly formed argument. Partially, this is due to the modus operandi of the work, which, as mentioned at the outset, is best described as “the proof is in the pudding.” However, there is another reason for this, one that readers, like myself, may arrive at belatedly. It is rare that an acknowledgements section produces a defining “ah-ha” moment, filled as they usually are with customary thanks to editors, agents, and family. However, in the case of More than a Matter of Taste, one might find this oft-neglected material to be revelatory. At least, such was the case for me when I realized that what I was reading was, in large part, a collection of essays, rather than a singular work. It was at this point that I began to better understand the occasional repetitiveness of the first part and the seeming disconnectedness of the second and third parts. The nature of the book as a collection of essays may also help a reader pace themselves accordingly. Especially in the first part, one encounters a barrage of quotations and references with which even the most widely-read audience may struggle to keep pace. The impression at times is that Hren is attempting to conduct a symphony of voices, though readers may wish to hear him solo a bit more. On a positive note, there is little in the way of filler. Much the opposite, each chapter is filled to the brim. However, that has the negative consequence of making it difficult to read multiple chapters back to back. Rather, it is a book best read one chapter at a time.
Understanding the nature of the work is even more essential for the second and third parts. Though each chapter is valuable—chiefly as an example of the kind of reading Hren champions and secondarily as direct support for his thesis—the reader might exercise a greater liberality in choosing which to read in what order or at all. For instance, if a reader has read Demons but not In Search of Lost Time, she need not feel the need to read the chapter on Proust for fear of somehow missing the overall thrust of Hren’s work. Indeed, parts two and three may be best filed away for later for many readers and picked back up shortly after reading the works in question. They are, in some senses, more standalone works of criticism than load-bearing portions of the argument for understanding the moral imagination of literature. Though noted in passing at the beginning of this piece, it is worth revisiting here the relative narrowness of scope these works represent. While few would argue that each of the authors Hren engages belong firmly in the canon, they are sufficiently similar that you could ask whether they are a representative sample of the novel as a medium It would please few people in the marketing department, but a more accurate subtitle might have been, “The moral imagination and the spirit of 19th and 20th century realism” rather than the spirit of, seemingly, all literature. But this is merely a minor quibble.
A greater concern about Hren’s work has been raised by a recent reviewer, Isaac Kolding writing in The Republic of Letters. Thus far, I’ve described Hren’s approach to literature as “morally charged.” Hren’s Catholicism is evident both in how he conceives of right and wrong and in the copious quotations from MacIntrye, Maritain, Pieper, and others. In his review, Kolding fears that Hren’s focus on morality—and perhaps specifically his particularly Catholic morality—causes his interpretations to be one-dimensional, flattening the merits of a novel into a simple binary of morally good and morally bad. And thus, “aesthetic value here is essentially conflated with moral value.”
While Kolding is certainly right that Hren places a premium on the moral value of a work, it’s not quite right to say he conflates the two. Hren’s own words can help here: “The question is twofold: Has the writer made her morality appear in a way that is artful? And is her morality a true account of the real all around us?” (98). While both questions insist upon the morality of the writer, the first stresses the artfulness. In arguing against the sentimentalists, Hren insists that good morals do not alone make a good book. Kolding shares this assessment. However, Hren does not think that artfulness alone makes a good book either. Furthermore, in constructing these two crucial questions, Hren shows that, at least in his view, morality and artfulness cannot be divorced. But that is not to conflate the two. Hren’s Catholicism leads him to believe that Beauty, Truth, and Goodness ultimately converge in God, but here on earth, they are refracted in such partial ways as to be incomplete and distinguishable. And so it goes for novels. Indeed, Hren argues that we should notice the beauty before reflecting on the morals:
As we enter into a given work of fiction’s imaginative rendering of human nature, we cannot help delving into what it implies or indirectly indicates about good and evil or God—but amidst these explorations of the moral imagination, and well before we make sense of everything, we should remember, with thanksgiving, the sheer joy of inhabiting a well-made work of art (98-9, emphasis added).
In fairness to Kolding, the selected essays in this volume may not always practice what is preached here—at least not explicitly. We must take Hren’s word that he first experiences the joy of art before evaluating the message. Insofar as something like this can be read between the lines, Hren’s passion for the subject seems to point to a man who delights in literature. But the task of the present work is showing the moral side of literature specifically.
It is not merely the conflation of morals and aesthetics that Kolding takes issue with, but also the confidence Hren places in his own ability to distinguish “the real.” Kolding writes, “By identifying his religious and moral beliefs with “reality,” rather than understanding his views as one perspective on reality among others, Hren can have his cake and eat it too: he can evaluate literature on a moral basis without opening himself up to the criticism that he is evaluating literature on a moral basis.” It is a fair criticism to say that Hren assumes the veracity of his Catholic moral imagination rather than proves it. However, it is more than a bit strange to charge Hren with trying to avoid criticism for evaluating literature on a moral basis. Again, Hren insists he’s not evaluating literature based on moral merits alone, but if anything is clear in More Than a Matter of Taste, it’s that moral evaluation is happening!
Finally, at the end of his review Kolding writes, “All I can say is that, when I encounter a work of literature, I do my best to understand it on its own terms—to inhabit the world of another person, even and especially when they are very alien to me and my own beliefs.” While this is meant to be said in opposition to Hren’s project, it’s not clear that this approach is extended to Kolding’s engagement with More than a Matter of Taste. Indeed, if Hren is offering us a work in which the proof is in the pudding, if it’s more a matter of showing than telling, then it would seem the best way to engage it would be precisely how Kolding says works of literature ought to be read. More than being an argument for the Catholic moral imagination or even the moral nature of literature and reading, Hren’s book might be best understood as an extended case study in reading literature as a Catholic. And if it is that, readers do not have to agree with Hren’s views to get something out of the book. Rather, they can “inhabit” this way of seeing literature and test whether or not it allows them to see things they wouldn’t have seen otherwise. If Hren is right, there is more to great literature than aesthetics, more than moral reflections of the author’s view, but instead, there is in fact an opportunity to glimpse the nature of reality itself such that we walk away changed. And, if there’s even a chance that’s true, it’s worth finding out.
