Column:

Short attention spans rarely allow for substance

By John Hendel

Published April 3, 2007

LONDON — The modern reader can't sustain interest. Flash and sex appeal draw people in, and substance loses priority. I'm not going to cry over that reality, though I will consider it in light of another entirely different arena. And that's art.

Art's a tricky term — not to mention a loaded one. And by loaded, I mean potentially really pretentious. Too many people rattle on about art in such pompous language that the listeners rightfully deem them to have a stick up their ass and want them to get off their fucking high horse. Art should never justify grand standing and serve as an excuse to be an asshole.

I should also clarify what I mean by art here, which is not simply paint splattered on a canvas. I'm using the term broadly to refer to the media of literature, film, painting and potentially most forms of expression. Yet I'd also argue that the majority of products in those categories — most books, most movies — fail to live up to the definition of art I'm using, but not to say they're useless. By art, I mean the focused application of real thought to a work. Simple enough, right?

I'll throw out some examples for good measure: This classification would put a Stanley Kubrick movie such as "Dr. Strangelove" or even "Lolita" into the category of art, but "Dodgeball" would be closer to pure entertainment. Chick lit. and many thriller novels also fit the entertainment label. Even many paintings, I would argue, fail to be real art. When there are about 10,000 "Madonna and Child" paintings from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, I don't credit the painter with much particular insight. The dividing line can be somewhat arbitrary, and I wouldn't strictly hold to any categorization, but I think the conceptual separation between art and just entertainment is important.

Another important sidenote is that I'm not saying that any of these things are lesser. Entertainment matters. I loved "Dodgeball," and there's not a thing wrong with that. But I do differentiate. Art plays a vital role in the human conversation, to use a pretentious phrase, and if a work combines a statement with its entertainment, I'll give it more respect.

For the most part, this thought-out, so-called art flourishes. People love to think and be arrogant these days. Just look at the indie scene for an immediate example of pseudo-intellectual chatter. There's a particularly strong following for experimental films, including "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "Requiem for a Dream."

But to return to my opening comments about attention span, the one medium I worry about is literature. A lot of great literature continues to thrive, but society sharply marginalizes it. I adore writers like Dostoevsky, Faulkner and Joyce because they had something to say, but I think it's too often overlooked. Ages ago, literary magazines serialized the novels of the greats like Dickens, and people ate it up.

Reading for pleasure has become an oxymoron for many these days, and if people do read, the stuff tends to be more trash than substance.

Society loses out if it loses its books. I'm not confident another Shakespeare would be recognized in a world this fast-paced.

It's impossible for this column to not be really pretentious, isn't it? Damn.