Ever since the first texts of classical Sumerian from around 2600BC, we as a species have been fascinated by works of literature. But the textual jewels that dazzle the eye in these texts are intensely subjective. What may shine for one reader may be dull or bland to another. Flaubert’s affective portraits of the human form may be sublime to some, but repulse others more interested in the disembodied and deconstructed realities of Samuel Beckett and the modernist school. But what all readers can agree upon is this: how intensely individual and pleasurable the experience of reading can be. Reading is a eudaimonistic experience: individuals are self-improved, and therefore happier, through the exploration of the written word.
Vivienne Westwood is a figure who shares the opinion of the individuality and improving effect of reading. Her son, Ben Westwood, recently commented on her eternally avid reading habits developed from childhood that she continues to share with her children. “My mother has always been a reader. Whenever she gets a break or a holiday then there is nothing she likes more than to read in bed. When we visit my brother’s place in the country, we hardly ever see her during the day.”
Speaking of her favourite literary works, it becomes clear that her love of reading is as deep and diverse as her experimentation in the fashion world. As with her movement from the eighteenth century dress to that of the twentieth century, her favourite reading encompasses many time periods and stretches as many oceans.
“My favourite book is probably one of Proust’s. I’m intent on exploring him further by reading him in French. Another favourite of mine is a Chinese book – The Story Of the Stone, sometimes called Dream of the Red Chamber. It was written at the end of the eighteenth century. “It’s fiction, but based upon real characters. It really gives you a world that is so different from mine. The people are so brilliant, you can really empathise with the characters. It’s like living two lives. Great books allow you to live many lives.” But in order to live many lives, Westwood argues that a reader or viewer of art must temporarily forget their own temporality and identity. An artist requires a blank canvas in order to leave space for a visible, lasting imprint to be made, and the mind of a reader can be seen to work in a similar way. In the same manner that one must suspend one’s disbelief when viewing a play truly to enjoy it, a reader must suspend some of their belief in themselves when reading to gain the full benefit from a text or work of art.
“A great, great work of art makes you want to get down on your knees and melt into a pool on the floor. You just can’t believe how amazing some things are. It’s like a kind of meditation. Every work of art – I’ve said this before in my blog – every painting is a vision of the world, as seen through the eyes of an individual who, living at the time of other individuals, would not have had the same view as his next-door neighbour. And he certainly would not have had the same view as someone living ten years prior to him. So if you want to understand the world you live in, you should really try to see it through the eyes of everyone who has lived before you.
“A painting, a book, a piece of music is an individual who has tried to communicate their view of the world. It’s like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. You try to see it as they did. You can manage it a little bit as we are all human beings, but you have another perspective. You’re seeing it from your own evolution, your point in time. It is your roots. You can’t understand the world you live in without it, as everything is coming from you. You become alienated. Like an older person becomes disillusioned, they don’t know what to do with themselves – they have no life.
“The answer is to follow your deep interest. Forget who you are. It’s not important. That’s why I didn’t want to do a book [speaking of her recent autobiography]. I’m not interested in me. My continuity is what I think. If I look up a word in the dictionary, that’s my continuity. Vivienne knows something more. Knowledge is something I’d call solidity. You know something, but you are not sure of it. Maybe you’ll find something else. Now I understand. You have to put things together, plot a perspective. And that’s what I mean by ‘Get a Life’ [one of her recent slogans]. If you don’t have any motivation in life, go to the art gallery.”
But like the changing of literary styles, Westwood emphasises the subjectivity of taste. As one becomes more knowledgeable, what is appreciated changes. “When I tell people to go to the art gallery, I always say to them, ‘If the fire bell went, just go from one room to the next, and think ‘which picture will I save from that room?’ Because if you keep going to the art gallery, you wouldn’t choose that one. What I’m saying is the root of our intelligence is discrimination. It’s the difference between things – what is good, and what isn’t quite so good. A painting is an idea without words. It is a direct experience.”
Literature and art are powerful weapons of change and improvement. Without them, the changing identities around us are left as nothing more than voiceless shades stretching out into the abyss. To become static brings about cultural decay. We must always read and continue to view art to ensure not only our own continuity, but that of the society around us and that which will come after us.
Westwood’s work in activism has always sought to provide the silent with a voice and improve our knowledge of the injustices occurring within society. But what should we read in order to keep our minds stimulated in this age of urban decay and flopping over computer screens. How should we attempt to ‘Get a Life’? “The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is something I would recommend to people. It’s very easy to read, but full of pertinent ideas. But they have to read stuff like Orwell’s 1984, they absolutely have to. That’s a kind of satire of the world in which we live. It’s so applicable to today and the fragile world in which we all live.”
