Most readers at some time or other confront the issue of “datedness” in literature. This book is “dated”, we say. The funny thing is that what seems dated to one person is often not so to another. So, what do we mean when we say a book is dated?
The writer Fran Lebowitz is very clear about what she means by it. In a short documentary titled The divine Jane: Reflections on Jane Austen that was produced last year for The Morgan Library and Museum’s exhibition A woman’s wit: Jane Austen’s life and legacy, she says:
Any artist who has that quality of timelessness has that quality because they tell the truth. Jane Austen’s perceptions don’t date because they are correct, and they will remain that way until human beings improve themselves intrinsically, and this will not happen.
She argues that those works which date do so because “their ideas are wrong” not because the details date. All details date she says. This has got me pondering. How often do we argue that a book is dated because of the “details” – because of their language, or lifestyles, or values?
Old books (Courtesy: OCAL @ clker.com)
It’s easy with non-fiction to identify datedness: look at this blog with its “hilariously outdated books of the week” posts. With non-fiction it really is mostly a case of the details – in some way – being wrong. The website, Education World, discusses outdated books and reports on one librarian’s “shelf of shame”. This librarian, and others, would rather have no books than outdated books. “Outdated books”, they say, “give children misinformation … we betray children when we put outdated information on our shelves”. “Outdated books keep stereotypes alive”, they say. All this is largely true, but – and here is the rub – they also say:
If you don’t have nice new books that kids want to read, they won’t read. We’re trying to get children to read more.
This feeds into other notions of being outdated, doesn’t it? Today’s children for example may not want to read my old version of The lion, the witch and the wardrobe because it “looks” old, it doesn’t accord with modern book design. They will however read a new edition, one that looks like books of their generation. I wonder if it was always thus? Once upon a time books were so precious, people read whatever version/edition that was available. But, perhaps, these people were readers anyhow, perhaps back then there were many who didn’t read and these are the people today’s librarians are trying to reach?
Enough digression, back to Lebowitz. I think about CJ Dennis’ The moods of Ginger Mick which I recently reviewed. I was initially not very keen to read it because it has, I admit it, always seemed old-fashioned, dated, to me. Its language is certainly dated – in the way that slang quickly becomes so – and the life it chronicles is certainly dated. Some of its values are too – its style of blokiness, its general attitude to race and gender – and yet despite all this it is I think also timeless. It’s timeless because it deals with humanity – with fear and bravery, with our misconceptions about each other based on superficial things (such as class) and our realisation that underneath these superficialities is what really makes a person worth knowing (such as loyalty and “grit”), with, in fact, our discovery of self. As Ginger Mick says in one of the poems:
Sometimes a bloke gits glimpses uv the truth.
Isn’t this why most of us read?
So, what do others think about datedness in literature? Is it enough to “tell the truth” as Lebowitz says – or can a truth-telling book be dated?
Whispering Gums 
Truth can date, or: what people believe to be true can date, or: what the author believes to be true can date. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, the book I’m reading at the moment, was published in 1859, and the author’s chummy truisms about the interaction of women and men seem bizarre to me, but they’re roughly the same sort of thing that Dickens was pushing in David Copperfield, likewise published around the middle of that century, so it seems reasonable to assume that they appeared good and true at the time. Essentially, Woman’s mission is to guilt men into doing the right thing, and Man’s mission is to find the right woman to be guilted by, and marry her. Ideally the woman should have Fine Eyes. She is intellectually static and a moral compass to Man. All of this is innate.
Off topic, I finally saw Bright Star. It was smart of Campion to make Fanny an artist too, and an innovator (the first triple-frilled mushroom collar in the district), Keats’ implied equal, even if they weren’t in the same field. Those shots of the needle pushing through cloth behind the opening credits were beautiful – the intimacy of them, the idea of barriers being penetrated, and of things that are tactile.
Thanks for engaging! You are right about some truths dating…and yet we keep reading some books regardless. I’m thinking that we should separate “social truths” (which we could define as being beliefs of a certain time and place and so include “beliefs” re gender and race for example) and, to be clumsy, “truths of the human heart” (that are, really, immutable). To take Keats as an example – seems appropriate – his “a thing of beauty is a joy forever” is an immutable truth I think though within it is also a “social truth” (?) in the sense that what we define as beautiful can change over time. Just think of the Renaissance notion of a beautiful woman compared to what seems to be our view now!
Anyhow, so glad you saw and liked Bright Star. I thought the opening was mesmerising too and love your analysis of it.
I suppose the Keats line works as an immutable truth because the definition of beauty, that “social truth,” is extraneous to it. He leaves the nature of that “thing of beauty” up to you (I know a little later he starts invoking sheep, but – ignoring that). He lets you choose your beauty. You could be female, male, blind, deaf, of any race, of any age, living on Mars, or up a tree – your thing of beauty could be a person, a song, a scientific discovery – and it would still be true. The same goes for other things that could be seen as immutable truths, the idea that “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is the epitome of fairness, for example. ‘You’ don’t have to be any particular kind of person, and your fairness doesn’t have to be grand or small, or any particular thing – you’re free to adjust it to your nature. The social truths are the ones that don’t give you any wriggle room: “All women love babies,” or “All men hate to show their feelings,” the ones that try to fix the subject down to one tiny piece of behaviour.
(By the way, I realise that in my original reply it looks as if I’m ignoring your point about values dating, so I’ll add this: the values that one generation regards as “details” can look like truths to another. Meredith presents his ideas about the behaviour of women and men not as if they were superficialities but as if they were true and important. He seems as convinced as Keats. (Although you could argue that anyone who harps on these ideas so insistently is a doubter trying to talk himself into the position of a believer – but that’s speculation.) The point I should have made is this: Perhaps no writer knows whether what they’re writing the truth or not. Truth in art is a matter of effort coupled with the artist’s good luck. Personality being part of good luck.)
I think there’s a difference between “dated” and “outdated.” To me, “dated” means it’s obviously a book from the not-to-distant past. I think of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury where he repeatedly uses the word “spade” to describe a black man. That was a seriously ’70s word. I recently read (or tried to read) A Confederacy of Dunces about a very strange man in New Orleans – many of the attitudes of the narrator were outdated (racism, laughing at people’s differences.) Nancy Drew books, unrevised, are dated.
Out-dated, to me has the connotation of being not true, as in non-fiction where we knowledge has progressed beyond what was then done. “The Sensuous Woman” (by J) might be one – top seller in 1971.
Sometimes dated and outdated books become historical – like Trollope’s (or J’s some time in the future).
Bekah
Fair points too Bekah. I tried to do some “Googling” on the issue but couldn’t find anything very useful when I typed “dated”. I had trouble deciding what to call the post in fact. I think you are right about “outdated”. I guess the question is, what makes one book written in the past “dated” (say Nancy Drew) and another not (say, oh let’s just for example say, Jane Austen!)? Are there not enough “truths” in Nancy Drew for them to survive?
I don’t know if it is a question of truth or untruth, perhaps more of relevant truth. Texts that engaged deeply and intelligently with the anxieties engendered by the cold war can no longer be read in the same way; they have become outdated because the concerns are no longer our own. Austen, however, will always be current because the issues she raises are as close to universal as we can get.
I’ve enjoyed reading your posts, and therefore am passing on to you a “One Lovely Blog” award. To grab the image (should you want to post it) you can go to myshelfrunnethover.blogspot.com.
Happy reading.
Thaks Millefeuille – much appreciated. I am out of town at present in the wonderful alpine region south of where I live. Internet access is tricky so will check your blog and your lovely award when I get back home.
DKS wrote: The point I should have made is this: Perhaps no writer knows whether what they’re writing the truth or not. Truth in art is a matter of effort coupled with the artist’s good luck. Personality being part of good luck…
That’s a good point really, ie that perhaps no writer knows whether they’re writing the truth or not. Perhaps they are simply expressing themselves (those who write from their heart, from a need to write that is) and some manage to hit on or “see” the “truth” whereas others don’t – and it is only the response of we readers over place and time that in the end confirms whether they HAVE hit it or not?
(Sorry for late response – was in the mountains with tricky wireless access. Sometimes you have to give up a lot for peace!!)
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