BOOKS REVIEWED:

Stories are probably the oldest form of popular art, and despite the myriad ways the world has changed, the intent of the storyteller and the reader has remained essentially the same: to uncover universal truths about human nature. Even as other forms of art, like painting and sculpture, have moved into rarified realms that seem intellectually and emotionally comprehensible only to the over-educated, stories—via books—have remained accessible, available, and of interest to a wide variety of people from all walks of life.

Sadly, authors often have to make a choice between writing artistically, in a more inspired literary fashion, and writing for commerce in a possibly more mundane style that will guarantee a salary. The current debate between literary and popular fiction might have people believing that there is a fence between the two styles that cannot be breached. Poet and cultural critic Lewis Hyde, writing in The Gift, proposes that writing for commerce (i.e., genre books like romances and thrillers) can never be art. Literature professor William Flesch, in his book Comeuppance, suggests that what readers of both literary and popular fiction want is a story that allows for altruism and vindication. And in Beat the Reaper, debut novelist Josh Bazell shows that books written in genre style can be just as rewarding as any difficult fiction.

In The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, Hyde begins with a relatable example. Upon entering his local drugstore, he is greeted with a rack of romance novels that have been "written according to a formula developed through market research." From the length of the books (192 pages are ideal) to the cover design (all featured "gold curlicues"), all features have been designed to appeal to the books' target market as determined by an advertising agency. Hyde speculates that most people don't consider these books art but commodities to be bought and sold. The basic premise of The Gift is that works of art are not commodities but gifts: "that works of art exist simultaneously in two 'economies,' a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however; a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift there is no art." What follows is a treatise that's half sociological history of giving and half literary criticism (with two extensive chapters on Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound).

For Hyde, the literary gift first comes from a muse or other form of divine inspiration to the author. The author then passes the gift along to his or her readers. In chapters on art and creativity, Hyde examines how often great works of art have been attributed to something akin to divine intervention, like Harold Pinter's, The Birthday Party ("[i]t was determined by its own engendering image,") and "The Dance" by Theodore Roethke, who said that as he wrote the poem, he felt a presence in the room. Hyde doesn't discount hard work in the making of the gift—the muse is the initial impetus, but the ability to labor on what was given to the writer is necessary: "No one is exempt from the long hours of practice. But to set out to acquire the gift itself through work is like trying to grow an extra hand or wings." Readers and other recipients of art keep the gift alive by "feeding them to our hearts."

But what about a book like Twilight, the idea for which author Stephenie Meyer says came to her in a dream? There's no doubt that the Twilight series is commercial fiction. Does that mean the books are not art and are only commerce, even though they may have been divinely inspired? If a book of commercial fiction is divinely inspired but still written to ring cherries for a wide swath of people, where does it fall? Although Hyde immediately sets up this schism between commercial and literary fiction, he never explores the issue of intent and opens more questions than he answers.

Inherent and extensively discussed in The Gift is the idea of altruism in gifting. Gifting is social currency that can raise or lower status within the group—look at the people who edit Wikipedia as an example. They labor for free and anonymously simply to be able to brag to friends. Some people donate kidneys to strangers, and what they get in return is intangible—gratitude and a sense of well-being. These gifts, like inspired art, are altruistically given. Non-altruistic giving is met with disbelief, as in an example of a mother who received a kidney from her daughter, who demanded a fur coat in return. Thinking about it, perhaps the mother should be glad to trade a fur coat for a kidney, but it's the demand that offends. When a gift isn't given altruistically, it seems tainted.

But Ezra Pound and Walt Whitman could afford to engage in altruism—neither had a family to support, which makes Hyde's example of these two men as altruistic givers a little disingenuous. The issue of the artist's inability to support himself through his livelihood is not addressed, leaving a gaping hole in The Gift. The writer who is living in contemporary society is essentially forced to make a choice between writing for commerce and writing for art. And although artistic writing can cross over, commercial writing cannot. But what if the two can be successfully melded?

According to Brandeis professor of English Literature William Flesch, our interest in fiction does not necessarily lay in our love of art. In Comeuppance: Costly Signaling, Altruistic Punishment and Other Biological Components of Fiction, Flesch explores what it is that resonates strongly with readers—the idea that the good people will be rewarded, and the bad guys will be punished. Readers see this in fiction books of all stripes, both commercial and literary, indicating that any story that contains these basic concepts can be satisfying.

According to Flesch, the issues of altruism, cooperation, costly signaling (essentially a "tell" of status or strength, like the tail feathers of the male peacock) are fundamental to understanding what does work in fiction. Feelings of like or dislike will be elicited through the readers' observation of the characters' merit: are they altruistic and pro-social, is there overt self-sacrifice, do they have a desire to promote human society? Flesch says the sympathetic characters "need not be innocent, but they must be on the side of the innocent."

This is where the most important idea of the book comes to play. The most appealing characters are those who are "altruistic punishers"—people who heroically pursue the bad guys, often at personal cost. These characters exist in all forms of popular entertainment; Spider-Man and the Bride from Kill Bill come to mind. Both the altruist and the altruistic punisher show evolutionary fitness through costly signaling—the "price" of the act, whether physical, emotional, or monetary—but the punisher is imperative for readers to get a sense of justice. According to Flesch, "The first aspect of plot—report and establishment of good or ill reputation—is not itself enough to satisfy our sense of justice or injustice in a story. … We may hate the villain, but our hatred is meaningless. We want to see him unmasked to people in his world." Additionally, readers will need to see vindication. "It's not enough for an audience to know that someone is innocent. The very idea of vindication in fiction tends to mean that we know that someone is blameless…but other members of the social group deny this."

One particularly pointed example Flesch uses is a headline from The Onion's September 26, 2001 issue "Hijackers Surprised to Find Themselves in Hell." He points out that surprise is exactly the emotional response that would satisfy American readers. Indicating that they were horrified to find themselves in Hell would humanize them, and American readers would want to keep their distance from the hijackers and not see them as human. "Their surprise at being in hell is about the most our vindictiveness can consistently contemplate with gratification," he says in the book.

Altruism and altruistic punishment are found in even the most complex contemporary novels, although they may be more difficult to unpack. Flesch spends quite a bit of time discussing Hamlet, but readers could apply some of what he says to Peter Brown, MD, the protagonist of Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper. In the book, a former hit man named Pietro Brnwa, who looks like "an Easter Island sculpture of a longshoreman," has reformed and now gives to his community by ministering to the sick as a hospital physician. Pietro was fortunate enough to meet a man who recognized his talents and ushered him out of a life of killing, into a life of healing. An MD and a name change later (via the witness protection program, of course), Peter Brown encounters an old adversary who is about to get surgery, and naturally, hijinx ensue. With its fast-moving plot, and funny, believable dialogue, most readers will find Beat the Reaper to be an excellent gift from Bazell—engaging escapist fiction.

To be perfectly honest, Beat the Reaper is more of what contemporary readers consider commercial fiction than literary fiction. The characters are well-drawn but not overly complex, and the plot relies on a variety of twists that are not 100 percent believable. But as a young hired killer, Pietro positions himself as an altruistic punisher—he will only take jobs targeting the worst scumbags: the people he thinks killed his grandparents or guys who are running a sex-slave ring. Readers can identify and root for the altruistic killer. On the other hand, his best friend, Skinflick, is a loose cannon who can't follow directions, and it's Skinflick's error that gets Pietro into hot water in the first place. The clearly written story allows readers to identify easily with Pietro's almost blind allegiance to Skinflick and also understand why Pietro needs to ends the friendship. When Pietro is subsequently arrested but gets off on a technicality, it's also easy for the readers to feel good about that, especially when he chooses to atone by becoming a doctor.

Bazell alternates between the past and Peter's current reality as a doctor trying to deal with a mob patient who recognizes him, showing how his unusual career path unfolds. He writes in an intellectual tough-guy style that will appeal to readers of all stripes: After describing the complex mechanism that is the human elbow, Dr, Brown deadpans, "It's a shame to tear these ligaments apart." Bazell also offers humorous footnotes to explain medical terminology. Beat the Reaper hits all the notes outlined in Comeuppance, and even some of those from The Gift—Dr. Brown is a true altruist, ministering to the sick, much like Whitman when he worked as a battlefield nurse during the Civil War.

It seems unlikely that Hyde would consider Beat the Reaper a part of the "art" genre—doctors and mobsters are generally genre material, written for profit. But Flesch makes no such distinction, allowing the reader to decide whether a book like Beat the Reaper speaks to him or not. As the old saying goes, "I don't know about art, but I know what I like."

(February, 2009)