The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent: Selected Essays of Lionel Trilling

I'm an English major, and last year, in my third year of university (I'm 27, however), I purchased this book, struck bythe title. I'd read a couple of Trilling's essays several yearsearlier and liked them, but I was put off by his tendency to relate literature to moral and political issues. "Boring," Ithought, having had my ideas of art formed in high school by Oscar Wilde and, later, Camille Paglia. But I've become moreopen-minded since then, and when I started reading this book I couldn't put it down--I read 80% of it in one weekend of doingnothing else and the rest of it by the end of the month. Trilling is a fantastic essay-writer who knows how to draw thereader in with his rhetoric and draw everything towards aresounding, moving climax. Most of the essays in this collectionare less works of criticism than erudite ruminations to whichTrilling has been moved by specific works of literature or byconsidering literature as a whole. He comes up with simplyfascinating, extremely suggestive ideas; for example, in "TheFate of Pleasure," one of my favourite essays in the volume, hesuggests that pleasure has fallen out of favour in the modern era. Like many of his other intriguing ideas, it is the sort ofthing that rings generally true without really being susceptibleto proof; nor is Trilling that great at arguing his positions oreven defining his terms. However, he offers lucid and passionatediscussions of ideas, drawn from his study of literature, thatare generally only found in dry or head-breakingly difficultphilosophical works. These are essays for the dabbler in philosophy, but that's not to belittle them: in one of the essaysTrilling complains that in the modern era (naturally) philosophyhas become a subject for specialists rather than for the person of "ordinary strong intelligence" (I'm quoting from memory, but that's the idea). Even if he's not always successful in focussing his argument or proving his thesis, he'll start yourmind going on broad, fascinating topics (pleasure, the abyss,the will, "being," "mind"), and you can pursue the ideas in greater detail on your own, at your leisure. Also, like CamillePaglia and Harold Bloom, Trilling loves to play the devil's advocate, and he therefore loves to criticize liberalism although he was himself a passionate liberal. This will probablygive him an unfortunate appeal for conservatives, but the peoplewho will get most out of the book are liberals who enjoy havingtheir assumptions questioned. That constant questioning of hisown assumptions, when they are shared by the reader, is one ofthe things that makes Trilling such an electrifying writer.

Our literature choices is one of the vehicles where we can show how intelliigent we are. But, a quick glance to the charts shows well, other choices. Trillings book demostrate that we do not have the choice of NOT being intelligent; we have to understand the beauty and the complexity of different authors and enjoy throughly the experience of life.But, how can we judge other's choices? We are opinionated, and that is fine, because we have the base to explain our own catalog of likeness, but the world continue to turn wtihout the population reading Ulysess, Pride & Prejudice, The Turn of the Screw or any other work of art of the sort.We do not have the obligation, but Trillings shows us that it is much better to be intelligent, to read books that will have more questions than answers, more ways than dead ends.Excellent essasys, that permits an approach to the magical world of exquisite literature

On Sunday 7/30/00, The New York Times carried a review of "The Moral Obligation to be Intelligent" -- an article by Edward Rothstein entitled, "Dated? Perhaps, But His Insights Remain Powerful" -- Rothstein's insights are useful and I agree with most of them, but I found more than Rothstein had space or inclination to address. Trilling's essays cover the core moral issues 19th and early 20th century writers addressed--fascism, communism, pornography, evil, the nature of beauty, the existence and nature of God. While the book focuses on the thoughts and writing of mostly dead white males (and Jane Austen), the struggle continues, and we all have a moral responsibility to be actively informed. I bought this book because it contained two essays on Jane Austen of whom I am excessively fond. One of these essays, "Mansfield Park", addresses her most controversial book. Trilling wrote "Mansfield Park" because he believed the book has had been mischaracterized by those who disliked Fanny Price. Trilling discusses a major moral issue in this essay--one many "sophisticated" people deliberately ignore--irony can be evil. He says that "In irony, even in the large derived sense of the word, there is a kind of malice." He suggests there may have been malice on the part of Austen when she engaged in irony. But, he suggests, there are two kinds of irony--the detached kind and the engaged kind. It is the former that is evil because it takes place at the expense of others, i.e. is not charitable. The other kind of irony is involved, the user is attempting to meliorate a painful situation within which she or he finds himself. An example of the latter is the narrator's comment in "Pride and Prejudice" -- "it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single young man in possesion of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." An example of the cruel kind of irony occurs in "Mansfield Park" via Mary Crawford's comments meant in jest. Trilling suggests the greatness of "Mansfield Park" is "commensuate with it's power to offend." He says whereas "Pride and Prejudice" celebrates the "traits of spiritedness, vivacity, celerity, and lightness" and "associates them with happiness and virtue" Mansfield Park does the opposite. "Mansfield's Park"'s impulse is not to forgive, but to condemn. Its praise is not for social freedom, but social constraint. The condemnation is of the wrong kind of irony, the hurtful kind of irony, the irony of the uncharitable toward Fanny Price. "The virtue of Fanny Price is rewarded by more than itself." It is beyond the pleasure principle. Remember duty, honor, sacrifice? In the end, Trilling suggests Fanny Price is a kind of Christian saint like the pale Milly Theale in James' "Wings of the Dove." Does it matter? Are those who seek goodness fools? He raises this issue and shares what he believes to be Jane Austen's thoughts on the topic, which he latter expands in "The Fate of Pleasure." Is there som

Okay, so it isn't precisely beach reading, but this collection of literary and cultural pieces by one of the most influential critics and essayists of the 20th century belongs on the bookshelf of every literate person. The essays on Wordsworth, Twain and Austen's "Mansfield Park" are minor masterpieces. Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, contributes a fine introduction.