I don't disagree diametrically - and I think that "good is good is good" is a much better place to start than "adults are from Saturn and children are from Uranus" - but as for elevating that default assumption into a canon, I'm not so sure.
"Good is good is good" suggests a commutativity that few would seriously defend: would you say that an adult novel that can't be enjoyed by a five year old is a bad adult novel? Lewis doesn't go that far, of course. He makes the more plausible argument that his adult experience contains his childhood experience (like a tree adding rings), and that whereas before he could enjoy lemon squash but not hock, now he can enjoy both. He contrasts this with people who think that growing up is a matter of consciously putting childish things aside, and claims that that is the truly jejune attitude. The latter point I agree with - but then I've never felt ashamed of any activity because of its childishness, and find it hard to understand those who do.
Still, I do think Lewis oversimplifies and overstates his case. For example, when he was a child he probably enjoyed playing hide-and-seek. Did he play it as an adult with his fellow Inklings? When he was a baby he was no doubt sent into paroxysms by games of peep-bo. Did that taste survive into his fifties? I doubt it. Of course, we may say that these tastes were sublimated into other kinds of activity - e.g. writing fantasy - and that the important thing is not to cut the taproot that supplies both. But to note that a fifty-year-old does not play hide-and-seek or peep-bo as his preferred leisure activity is not to say that either is a bad children's game. I think there are books that fall into a similar category - though identifying them may be more controversial. I, for example, don't get a lot out of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but I don't think it's a bad children's book. I feel much the same about The Famous Five series. And so on.
Of course, there's an "it depends what you mean by" element here. If "enjoying" a book means get anything out of it at all, then Lewis may be right: I can admire Carle's book. But that's to set the bar awfully low, and I think he had in mind a more full-fledged enjoyment including a fair degree of imaginative absorption.
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Date: 2014-03-24 12:00 pm (UTC)"Good is good is good" suggests a commutativity that few would seriously defend: would you say that an adult novel that can't be enjoyed by a five year old is a bad adult novel? Lewis doesn't go that far, of course. He makes the more plausible argument that his adult experience contains his childhood experience (like a tree adding rings), and that whereas before he could enjoy lemon squash but not hock, now he can enjoy both. He contrasts this with people who think that growing up is a matter of consciously putting childish things aside, and claims that that is the truly jejune attitude. The latter point I agree with - but then I've never felt ashamed of any activity because of its childishness, and find it hard to understand those who do.
Still, I do think Lewis oversimplifies and overstates his case. For example, when he was a child he probably enjoyed playing hide-and-seek. Did he play it as an adult with his fellow Inklings? When he was a baby he was no doubt sent into paroxysms by games of peep-bo. Did that taste survive into his fifties? I doubt it. Of course, we may say that these tastes were sublimated into other kinds of activity - e.g. writing fantasy - and that the important thing is not to cut the taproot that supplies both. But to note that a fifty-year-old does not play hide-and-seek or peep-bo as his preferred leisure activity is not to say that either is a bad children's game. I think there are books that fall into a similar category - though identifying them may be more controversial. I, for example, don't get a lot out of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but I don't think it's a bad children's book. I feel much the same about The Famous Five series. And so on.
Of course, there's an "it depends what you mean by" element here. If "enjoying" a book means get anything out of it at all, then Lewis may be right: I can admire Carle's book. But that's to set the bar awfully low, and I think he had in mind a more full-fledged enjoyment including a fair degree of imaginative absorption.