the golden threshold

I always recognize that the best books I've read often fail to meet "objective" criteria - the ones I use to justify my criticism of "bad" books. So I argue that a good book is not necessarily something that meets all "good writing practices"; but one that has some extraordinary strength, sometimes the form, other times the content; in artistry, creativity, novelty or deep thinking.

Good reasoning; yet it rarely succeeds in convincing anyone who does not already share my opinion about a given book. And it does not predict how the next book would "fare". So my literary criticism (or that of others) appears arbitary or subjective.

What I've realized recently is that this subjectivity is nevertheless "predictable", in the sense that one seemly always appreciates an artwork intuitively first. And it is with this "gut feeling" of satisfaction (or the lack of), which apparently has some kind of threshold, does one proceed to praise or criticize an artwork rationally, or "objectively".

While this aesthetic intuition is as subjective, and unique to each individual, as it can be, it evolves with growing up, or learning. Learning from experiences. Learning of known literary standards. And influenced by others, too. Thus, an "educated subjectivity" moves inevitably closer to an "objective" judgement, which would define a more stable, rational and sophisticated threshold. Individually, your own evolving threshold is always golden. Culturally, a few recognized great minds set the bar. And historically - one may suppose - the survived is the truly great. With the caveat that not all great works make it to the day.

Les Miserables - time and time again

With this book, it has always been a chance encounter.

Qian was my best friend in the middle school. Barely 12 years old when we first met, she would tell me story after story during recess for the next three years. While dismayed by the fact that I, with a nickname of bookworm, hadn't really read anything at all, besides the few well-known revolutionary titles, I was greatly enchanted by her stories. And her insights. From books and from her difficult life, as young as she was. Now that reminds me of Cosette.

Jean Valjean was thus introduced by her. 冉阿让, its translation in Chinese, sounded impossible in my hometown dialect. So the name left a more lasting impression than the story.

The next time I heard 冉阿让 again was when my dad telling the same story to my mom. I was in high school then and immediately seized the opportunity to peek through the book and finally matched the sound of the name with the chinese character.

Years passed. Not much left except the name and the rough storyline. As famous as it is, I read the book at too young an age to really understand or appreciate.

Then two years ago, LD decided to learn French. In the excitement of the first days, he also bought the book in both French and English versions. Needless to say, neither was touched. Scanning through the bookshelf the other day, it occurred to me that it was probably meant for me to revisit 冉阿让.