What Good Are The Arts?

Here's a review by British novelist David Lodge of What Good Are The Arts? by John Carey, in the Sunday Times. I couldn't buy the book at Manchester Airport's Waterstone's while delayed changing planes for seven hours. But the review really makes me want to read what Carey has to say. Here's Lodge's plug:

The fact that some of the worst Nazi war criminals, including Hitler (fascinating evidence for this coming from a book by Frederick Spott), were connoisseurs of music, visual art and architecture demonstrates that high culture does not necessarily have an ennobling effect on those who appreciate it. The writer George Steiner, who wrestled long and hard with this paradox, came to the conclusion that ultimately art cannot be justified by purely secular criteria — that it is essentially a religious activity, since the artist seeks a kind of immortality through his work. Carey will have none of this: “talk of the immortality of art, in the absence of a belief in God, is childish and self- deceiving”.

I hope they put out an American edition, soon...