On Developing Taste (and the Death of Surprise)

Some thoughts on developing great taste—and the price of refinement

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1. Is Great Taste Something You Are Born With?

Is good taste in art something you are born with? I don’t think that’s the case.

When I think about great literary taste, I think of Jorge Luis Borges. Not just because of the wonderful stories he wrote, the dazzling poems and essays. When I think of Borges as a taste maker I remember something he said in many interviews: despite his literary work, despite acknowledging that he had indeed written a few worthy pages (a tremendous feat given his literary heroes), in the end, he was far prouder of the pages he read than those he wrote. He was proud of being a reader. And what a reader he was. It seemed impossible to catch him off guard, simply because he had read everything.

During the long years he worked at the provincial library in his home city, which he described as a kind of metaphorical descent into the inferno (Borges loved Dante more than any other poet), his colleagues made it clear that his cataloging speed made them all look bad. So, he would finish the required quota early in the day, and for the rest of the time, he simply read everything he could get his hands on. Across all fields, in every direction. Of course, certain works rose to the surface—the great works, even those not necessarily recognized as such. There, in reading, he found the best school for writing. That’s where he developed and refined his taste.

Yet, there is some risk in developing taste, won’t you agree?

One of the warnings about developing good taste in art is that you may no longer be able to look at the same things the same way. Think of a talented chef—can he or she still enjoy a mediocre restaurant? Wouldn’t they actually suffer there? The danger exists, of course, but I think it’s often overstated. Great taste, which often comes with an understanding of the medium, theoretical and practical learning, and critical observation, can—and inevitably does—enhance the enjoyment of consuming the thing we’ve developed a refined taste for.

The more I learn about storytelling, the more I can appreciate fresh, unexpected creative choices, even when the twist a creator adds isn’t particularly major. When Miles Morales, in the second Spider-Verse movie, defies the idea of a canonical event in Spider-Man’s life, all to save his father from certain death, he challenges everything I thought I knew about superheroes, and about the hero’s journey, that oh-so-sacred concept of Hollywood movies. I could also appreciate that this choice was part of a broader trend in cinema and television, where those who are supposed to be heroes are revealed as villains precisely because of their insistence on righteousness. Just like Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, is actually good, while the Wizard of Oz is the real villain. Just like Nimona isn’t the great and terrible monster the Institute for Elite Knights claims she is. Just like the ruling council in Arcane isn’t as pure and virtuous as it likes to think.

2. Good Taste Is the Ability to Make Connections

The one major step in developing good, and even great taste is to begin to understand the broader tradition and the specific traditions that branch out from it—the tradition to which a particular piece of media, a piece of music, or a dish belongs, speaks to, and builds upon. How do you develop this connectivity? By consuming a lot. A lot. There’s probably no such thing as too much when you want to develop good taste in, say, classical music—after all, there’s a finite amount of music that fits into this category. And yet, a finite but vast amount.

Another recommendation: see what people you consider to have good taste recommend and love. In the first year or two of my acquaintance with Borges’ work, I read his stories over and over, especially from the breathtaking collections The Aleph and Ficciones. Then I realized I was doing him and his work a disservice if I didn’t read the things he loved, the works that inspired him. Every name of a book or writer he mentioned opened up an entire literary encyclopedia for me, and every name within that encyclopedia opened yet another.

In my years as a student of writing, I had to learn the hard way: there are no short cuts to great writing. Now, and more than any “how to” book for writing better you can find out there, I much prefer to read or watch a detailed and thoughtful analysis of the great works. Whether literary or cinematic, learning from the best is first of all learning the choices the best chose, why they chose them—this is where understanding artistic traditions is extremely helpful—and how you can choose better next time you want to write something (this last one is for the people who wish to create).

3. Good Taste Is Also Personal

There are things I will never understand or connect with. Victorian poetry, for instance. I just don’t get it. Even the moments I do manage to enjoy—like with William Blake (who is a bit earlier, but still)—I appreciate only because they capture something I can think about in prose. I don’t make it hard on myself or beat myself up about it. I love prose. And the poetry I love is epic: Homer, Dante, Orlando Furioso.

I also allow myself not to like things that others adore, even if I’m supposed to like them. Take Virgil, for example. Sure, there are some very beautiful moments found in The Aeneid, but overall, I’d say that for me, at least, it’s mostly just... dull.

4. Taste Evolves

Once, I thought Eminem was the greatest rapper of all time. Today, I’m not so sure. He might be the greatest rapper when you’re a brooding teenager whose youthful rebellion finds expression in his venomous lyrics, but not now—not when I crave more love and acceptance than songs about murdering my mother and humiliating my wife. These days, I’m more into Tupac. Yes, he also raps about all the women who want him, but he never forgets to weave in real hardship and pain. The emotions he expresses in his songs feel far more genuine to me now.

As a grown-up with less angst than before, I find myself drawn more to depth of feeling than sheer technical skill and bravado. What once impressed me as sharp, fast, and rebellious now feels less essential than something that speaks to the complexity of lived experience.

5. The Double-Edged Sword of Taste

Developing taste is important—whether you want to enjoy what you love or if you want to create within the same tradition, to join those who inspired you and expand the tradition from your own perspective. But it’s also crucial to see the other side of the coin. Taste is inherently about selection. It’s inherently about judgment—even if you’re on the side of appreciation rather than merciless critique.

Borges tells a beautiful story about his childhood library. It belonged to his father, who had also dreamed of being a great writer but failed in that dream. The library was filled with works in many languages: adventure stories, epic poetry, philosophy, linguistics, and more. Borges recalls the time he first discovered this library, at the age of five, and how he spent entire days there—pulling books from the shelves and reading them with no particular order or guiding principle.

These were the reading days he remembered as the ideal of his life—when he read whatever he wanted and judged no word. And all of this happened before he developed such refined taste.

So, in a way, I contradict what I wrote earlier. Yes, there’s something to consider when embarking on the journey of developing taste: the sharper it becomes, the more we lose the innocence of first experiences. Someone who has seen and read much is harder to surprise—Yet, when something does break through, it strikes with the force of revelation.