When I posted my thoughts on The Awakening I had a feeling that a lot of people would not agree with my rather lukewarm feelings, and it was interesting to read other people's views. Amateur Reader posed a good question though - how important is it to sympathise with a main character to enjoy a book?
I found myself wondering about this after I replied - I responded that without empathy for a character in a book like The Awakening which is, in essence, about one person's feelings and experience, it makes the reading experience hollow.
First though, there is a need to think about the words. Sympathy and empathy are not quite the same things, although I may at times use them as synonyms. Sympathy is the ability to share someone else's feelings, empathy is the ability to understand them and relate them to your own. So I didn't really answer Amateur Reader's question; in truth I don't think it is important to necessarily sympathise with a character, but I do think it is important to at least be able to empathise.
And I just couldn't empathise with Edna in The Awakening. It felt like I was viewing her from a distance most of the time, this capricious selfish woman was incomprehensible to me. But, because of the structure of the book framed so tightly around one person, it felt that the distance was not great enough, a bit like being trapped in a lift with someone you don't like or comprehend.
I found myself, while thinking about this point, comparing Edna in The Awakening with Anna Karenina which I am also reading. The plot concerning the two women is extremely similar, Anna goes through almost exactly what Edna goes through, and yet I am not so dissatisfied with this book. This may just be the writing, and creation of the character, I do like Anna better than I liked Edna, but I would say in terms of empathy I probably experience about the same level. So why am I not giving up on the book, surely 800-odd pages is too much to feel like that?
And I think that 800 pages is precisely the reason. Anna Karenina is not about Anna; she is one of the main characters, rather than the main character. This book includes a number of strong characters with differing emotions and feelings. There is such a range that dislike or lack of comprehension of one character will not make the experience a disappointment. For instance, I would say I have sympathy with some characters (e.g. Dolly), empathy with others (e.g. Levin) and some I have neither but like (Oblonsky) and some I have neither and don't like (Vronsky). I would probably equate my feelings for Vronsky with those for Edna, but because the book is wider in its range than The Awakening and establishes a community of characters, taking you into their thoughts and feelings, allowing comparison and providing context for them, it is not stifling. That space is important. I am not stuck in a lift with Vronsky, I am in a town where I bump into him at times, but this doesn't spoil my enjoyment of the book.
Thinking back over the books I have read recently, a novel such as A Rebours by J K Huysmans, which is one character's thoughts and feelings almost to the exclusion of even having any other characters, was enjoyable because I both sympathised and empathised with the main character (although I didn't like him - which I define simply as would you want to spend time with the character if they were real?). I can imagine that this book may be quite dull and incomprehensible to anyone who does not have at least some empathy for the character.
So after this meandering I think I come to the same point. If a book encloses you with one person so tightly that there is no escape from them, I think generally some liking, sympathy or at the very least empathy is necessary or it will be a detached and unengaging experience. However, liking, sympathy and empathy for a particular character all become less important in books which expand away from that single viewpoint.
Except… I've just read through what I've written here and the thought struck me: 'what about Lolita?' Absolutely no sympathy, no empathy and no liking, yet in the mind of one character throughout. That's a difficult one, and makes me wonder if perhaps the quality of the writing can override this need sometimes? I'd be interested to know what others think.
I found myself wondering about this after I replied - I responded that without empathy for a character in a book like The Awakening which is, in essence, about one person's feelings and experience, it makes the reading experience hollow.
First though, there is a need to think about the words. Sympathy and empathy are not quite the same things, although I may at times use them as synonyms. Sympathy is the ability to share someone else's feelings, empathy is the ability to understand them and relate them to your own. So I didn't really answer Amateur Reader's question; in truth I don't think it is important to necessarily sympathise with a character, but I do think it is important to at least be able to empathise.
And I just couldn't empathise with Edna in The Awakening. It felt like I was viewing her from a distance most of the time, this capricious selfish woman was incomprehensible to me. But, because of the structure of the book framed so tightly around one person, it felt that the distance was not great enough, a bit like being trapped in a lift with someone you don't like or comprehend.
I found myself, while thinking about this point, comparing Edna in The Awakening with Anna Karenina which I am also reading. The plot concerning the two women is extremely similar, Anna goes through almost exactly what Edna goes through, and yet I am not so dissatisfied with this book. This may just be the writing, and creation of the character, I do like Anna better than I liked Edna, but I would say in terms of empathy I probably experience about the same level. So why am I not giving up on the book, surely 800-odd pages is too much to feel like that?
And I think that 800 pages is precisely the reason. Anna Karenina is not about Anna; she is one of the main characters, rather than the main character. This book includes a number of strong characters with differing emotions and feelings. There is such a range that dislike or lack of comprehension of one character will not make the experience a disappointment. For instance, I would say I have sympathy with some characters (e.g. Dolly), empathy with others (e.g. Levin) and some I have neither but like (Oblonsky) and some I have neither and don't like (Vronsky). I would probably equate my feelings for Vronsky with those for Edna, but because the book is wider in its range than The Awakening and establishes a community of characters, taking you into their thoughts and feelings, allowing comparison and providing context for them, it is not stifling. That space is important. I am not stuck in a lift with Vronsky, I am in a town where I bump into him at times, but this doesn't spoil my enjoyment of the book.
Thinking back over the books I have read recently, a novel such as A Rebours by J K Huysmans, which is one character's thoughts and feelings almost to the exclusion of even having any other characters, was enjoyable because I both sympathised and empathised with the main character (although I didn't like him - which I define simply as would you want to spend time with the character if they were real?). I can imagine that this book may be quite dull and incomprehensible to anyone who does not have at least some empathy for the character.
So after this meandering I think I come to the same point. If a book encloses you with one person so tightly that there is no escape from them, I think generally some liking, sympathy or at the very least empathy is necessary or it will be a detached and unengaging experience. However, liking, sympathy and empathy for a particular character all become less important in books which expand away from that single viewpoint.
Except… I've just read through what I've written here and the thought struck me: 'what about Lolita?' Absolutely no sympathy, no empathy and no liking, yet in the mind of one character throughout. That's a difficult one, and makes me wonder if perhaps the quality of the writing can override this need sometimes? I'd be interested to know what others think.
4 comments:
I haven't read The Awakening, but I've read Madame Bovary and AK and enjoyed them both (AK much more though). But really I had to comment about Lolita, because I feel it poses the same difficulty! I've only listened to it on audiobook, and the language is just so beautiful, and so convincing, that it draws me in at the same time that it's creeping me out. For me, then, it's definitely the lyricism of the language that makes the book so appealing.
You've identified one of the most important ethical aspects of "Lolita". Reader after reader is seduced by Humbert. The novel is partly an argument about the dangers of the sympathetic response to the narrator's voice.
Much though I loved the Awakening most of my sympathies were with Mr Montparlier. Edna was discovering herself and her new life and was totally focussed on it with no thought at all as to how it was affecting anyone else. I think we are meant to find her husband boring and repressive, but he strikes me as being a perfectly ordinary man, good husband by his own standards, good father and suddenly he is faced with this bewildering change in Edna. No wonder he is puzzled!
Even though I cannot sympathise with the heroine, and I do agree that a book is enjoyed much more if the reader can engage with the characters, I love this book. I find its slow, languid writing and atmosphere very seductive, which is the whole point of course, and the ending took me by surprise.
This sympathy point is a tricky question which I'll keep thinking about as I read. Lolita is such a difficult, troubling, but silmultaneously beautiful book that it is perhaps an exception to the norm in a number of ways.
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