Question: does anyone still write with a typewriter?
Let’s say you do, and it needs repair, where would you take it? There used to be a great typewriter repair center down the road from me. But the owner saw the future, traded his life’s work in for a Winnebago, and as far as I know, is still chugging the Interstates in search of the the ultimate RV park.
Over the next few weeks, an unusually full cornucopia of new feature films will hit the theaters nationwide. The New York Times took special note of this near-glut of plenty. Hm. Do we hear a lot of ballyhoo about this month’s novels? Or any month’s novels?
(Hello . . . ?)
A guy who blogs from the Phillipines writes this:
“Fiction just doesn’t interest me,” said Bob Ryan, 41, who works for a construction company in Guntersville, Ala. “If I’m going to get a story, I’ll get a movie.”
Perhaps that’s it. Reading as a form of storytelling has been overtaken by other forms (film and video, to name them, and perhaps soon interactive versions of the same via computers).”
And he goes on to explore a comparison between fiction and the pony express.
Well, okay, nothing is deader than a dead technology: it doesn’t move over and coexist, it’s just…gone. But fiction isn’t a technology. It uses technologies as a way of delivering a story. This is not a zero-sum game, so rather than die, fiction shares space with other, newer ways to deliver narrative. Watching its space shrink, however, is like monitoring global warming: lots of indicators, but no one can say exactly what the result will be, when, or how long before…? The outlook does seem gloomy, no matter how you look at it.
Novels and stories once held the field unchallenged. What else was there, for narrative entertainment? Now fiction has to bunk not only with movies and TV, but the flashier digital narrative attractions–your PDA, your iPod, lately even your cellphone. If you’re a Luddite or literary purist, you’ll say we’ve sacrificed the deep sophistication of literary consciousness for the dreck of eye candy, but here’s my view: with all due respect, at the turn of the 20th century, most published fiction sucked!
You don’t believe me? Read some. Not the few enduring classics that survive, but the average novel of the
90s–the 1890s, that is. I bet you’ll find it slack, sleek, fat, lazy, cloying, overstuffed, and sentimental. And I’ll bet you won’t finish it. This wasn’t a problem back when your entertainment alternatives were the Bible, the nearest Opera House, and Uncle Hugo’s Civil War stories. Fiction, even bad fiction, got you by default.
Is what we’re seeing now a shakeout or “adjustment?” A righteous reaction to fiction’s overinflated dominance?
I confess I lean toward that point-of-view. I sincerely love movies. I’ve written for them. I adore theater–my mother was a playwright. And I have a 55-inch HDTV in my basement because “quality TV” has never been better. (Will you purists ever speak to me again?) But fiction is my master game, and I love it as I love my wife–always and forever. I feel I know its true worth, so I don’t mind sharing the wealth. Movies may have cut into our audience, but they challenged fiction writers to raise their game.
And because we have to fight for our place on the stage, fiction, for those readers who stick with it, has never seen a richer age. Never.
So what do you think, my fellow fiction writers? Are we okay–or a threatened species? We’ve only been around for a few hundred years as a class of storytellers. Will we be be around for a few hundred more? Will our great-great-great grandchildren still know the experience of projecting language-based stories on the screens of their minds as they read?
Talk to me.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post!
I just got back from five days in Kenya during which I finished two novels (one of which was I KILLED HEMINGWAY) by the second day of the trip. I was so relaxed and enjoying the safari game drives during the morning and afternoon, that I had plenty of time to read before and after dinner.
I also have read about thirty more books since moving outside the United States than when I lived inside the frenetic borders (I also travel a lot more).
The Doha book club I’m a member of has not only one book, but a back up second recommended book, for each month. This is partly because they have time to read but also because they feel there are so many books out there, we just can’t get to them all.
So – is it the genre? Or the Blackberry or iPod, or keyboard keys which are keeping us away from fiction?
Or some combination of both?
My question: do audiobooks count as ‘reading’? Because on my 1 hour commute to/from work (30 minutes each way) I have added to my reading list this year considerably. Mostly non-fiction on those drives, but I feel like I’m doing something with time I would otherwise spend getting twisted up in knots of rage.
As someone who has worked for 2 of the largest booksellers in the US, I can safely say that fiction is far from dead. What I think might be dying is fiction in its traditional form. With new media sitting in the driver’s seat as of late, it feels like fiction is something of the past, but trust me, stories are still very hip. People spend a lot of money on books, and that’s a lot more than can be said for oh, say, compact discs.
Mohana, audiobooks absolutely count. If you are hearing the words the author wrote, that’s all that matters. I’m not purist about “consuming” fiction. For instance, I can’t get excited by the controversial status of eBooks. People moan about inks and papers and how the book ain’t what it used to be! I’m over in the corner rereading War & Peace on my Palm Pilot. And why not? If they are the words the author wrote….
“Is fiction dead? Oh yeah it be – don’t tell me you people read that crap people write down just ’cause they can. Them folks that write that stuff, they don’t care about you – why you think dey use all dem big words, make you feel stupid, make you think like you don’t speak no English?”
I think that whether fiction lives or dies in this language will depend very much on our culture. In many places, parents never encourage their kids to read and then the schools can only assign “literature” that is read grudgingly, if at all. I have to agree with Mohanna and Jeremy that there are many, many distractions inside the US that prevent reading, and I also agree with Bill that today’s fiction is better than the fiction from before the age of television. But I think we need to push good literature into the schools and get the kids “hooked” on stories before they become too old to really learn how to read. I’m afraid that if we don’t, fiction will slowly become the interest of a narrowing segment of American society, and that this will limit the expressive range of the written word. Just take this other example:
“Man, I ain’t got time to read fiction. Biography, maybe – that at least is real. I suppose next you’ll want me to listen to NPR – you know that’s all a bunch of socialist propaganda, right? Fiction’s a lot like that, too. Seriously, if J.K. Rowling really knew how to write, she’d find something a little more relevant than some boy wizard to write about, don’t you think? Hell, I’d like someone to write a good set of instructions for that dish in my yard – three hundred channels my butt, I’ve got a game to watch.”
IS FICTION DEAD? It sure is to me, when the logic is off. FICTION IS DEAD WHEN IT’S DEAD AND LIVE WHEN IT’S LIVE. You can quote me on that. It’s live when the author is dead, because it was live when he (or she) was. And when it’s dead and the author’s alive, the auther is dead, as an author. He may be a bore in the flesh, but okay in a rowboat. Fiction is live when you want to read on, even though you’ve already read it ten times. Fiction is dead where your mind starts to wander–––at all. The great thing about it, is if it is alive, it will stay so, but I think this is all true for any three words.
One more thought: are people aware of Shelfari? It’s an online book community. If you look at people’s bookshelves (around the world) you’ll see that fiction – reading in general – is in no dire straits….
Check out mine, for a sample, if you like: http://www.shelfari.com/mohanalakshmi/shelf
YES, AUDIO BOOKS COUNT!
I think audio books have given us reading lovers another venue to read (or listen in this case). We can read “I Killed Hemingway” — which I’m reading now, buy the evening and listen to “Snowflower and the Secret Fan” by day while in your car.
I doubt fiction will die because we all want and need the escape. We need to live vicariously in someone elses shoes. We strive to be as good as some protagonists and even as evil as others — at least for a moment or two of our day.
What I can’t see is the reading of books online as ever becoming popular. It is too damn hard on the eyes and if I’m going to print it out, then I might as well go buy the darn book at Borders.
One way to know just how popular fiction remains is iTunes. Now you can download your new favorite book to listen to on your iPod. If Apple says fiction is thriving, then shouldn’t we believe as well?
Lastly, if what I witness this morning doesn’t convince you “naysayers” out there, then nothing will. It is book fair week at school (I have 3 children) and this morning was Donuts for Dads. In 20 minutes we sold over $5,000 worth of books. And, I might add, the Hannah Montana and High School Musical books were in the minority. Authors such as Gary Paulson, Madeleine L’Engle, Lois Lowry, Phyllis Naylor, & Wilson Rawls were flying off the shelves along with a whole host of Newberry winners. It was wonderful see! A whole generation of readers coming up in the ranks, dissing the junky books in favor of good writing!!!!
On that note…I look forward to finishing I Killed Hemingway.
I sure as hell hope fiction is not dead because I am working like crazy on my 1st novel and am planning my 2nd one. And I’m not getting any younger here!
Seriously, I don’t think fiction is dead. We humans have been making up and passing along stories since we squatted around the fires in front of our caves. It’s how we articulate and solve our dilemmas, how we gain insight into our fellow humans, how we see ourselves dancing our dance and come to understand that we’re all the same in the midst of our great individuality. Fiction is the vehicle that carries a thousand variations of the same human drama – entertaining, teaching, and healing us all at the same time.
It will never die. The form may change, but who cares? That’s just technology. We don’t draw our stories on cave walls any more or write them out in longhand. We don’t even use typewriters any longer. As long as the stories keep being created and told – that’s what matters, and my money is on it still being done when the last human turns out the light.
This anxiety has been around a long time: “recent” fiction has always been on the way out. Folk in the 19th century were conflicted about what literature is/was. Upstanding gentlemen had a tiny canon to choose from – and that did not include Dickens or Trollope or Austen or Eliot. Contemporary writing was for WOMEN and children and common folk who could read: remember, literacy rates were so tiny that we aren’t talking about a lot of folk. Austen’s combined readership during her lifetime was but a fraction of Karen Joy Fowler’s today. The bookseller is right: More people read now than ever before. Or at least more are buying books. Sure, Dana Gioia’s National Endowment report is chilling (“Reading at Risk” 2004), but when you compare it to the historical facts, good new fiction is not in danger. Really. Not by a long shot.
I just got off a plane, flying cross country. These new big boys have videos on the back of each uncomfortable chair. You can watch HGTV, ESPN 1-50, TNT, HBO, or play games, or pay $3.95 for a movie that was in theaters in June. However, when I went to the bathroom, I saw on each lap (that didn’t hold a laptop): a book. I saw: Water for Elephants, Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, and several obvious fantasy titles I’d never heard of, but the jackets were sexy. So were some of the readers. What does this mean? Not much. But I do believe that writing still competes powerfully with the seductive moving images that talk. Words do something else. Picture makers should have the anxiety (and they do, believe me). What will they do when the power goes off? Proust still works by candlelight.
Oh, and by the way, television is, at this moment, undergoing a historic aesthetic renaissance. By this passage this observation is fact. The Sopranos, The Shield, Six Feet Under, The Riches (why so many “The”s?) I like Dexter a lot. This week’s New Yorker magazine (10/22/07) has a wonderful piece about The Wire (another damned THE). Shelby Foote and Walker Percy use to be obsessed with The Guiding Light, a soap opera. The great Garcia Marquez has written for telenovelas. It’s good stuff. It’s a powerful form. But forms of artistic expression don’t necessarily have to battle for eye-time. They can make love. We can all get along. In the words of that great American philosopher, Martha Stewart: It’s a good thing.
Consider: 1941: In movie theaters, Citizen Kane. It bombed. Dumbo did better. So did The Maltese Falcon. In bookstores: Mildred Pierce; The Screwtape Letters; Vladimir Nabokov’s first novel written in English; Eudora Welty’s Curtain of Green. Ann Tyler was born that year.
Relax.
Fiction will be dead when dreams are dead, when stories no longer move us, when there are no writers left in Chapel Hill, NC – and when will that be? Never. Or maybe I’m just stubborn. It’s too bad, however, that most people come home from work too tired to read. Perhaps writers should band together and protest the 40 hour work week. Or is it 60 now? I guess what I am saying is that it’s not fiction that is the problem, or even television and movies. It’s that as a society we work too many hours, and too many people have started to think that they are their jobs. Uh oh – I feel a rant coming on.
Audiobooks are still books, still novels, though I’d rather read than listen, so that I can enjoy my daydreaming woven in.
But I do wish audiobooks weren’t (mostly) abridged.
I’m still irked that the Count of Monte Cristo and Lorna Doone I was assigned as homework in seventh grade were trimmed-down versions.
A couple thoughts here…
1. Fiction is alive and well. All you have to do is walk into the library or a Borders and see the bussle. Fiction’s medium of delivery, however, has altered with the times, but this isn’t a bad thing. Audiobooks keep me sane during rush hour and have a few of my friends who never liked “reading” engrossed as they listen to the narrator dish the story.
2. Fiction’s getting sized up by non-fiction. The “For Dummies,” “KISS” and “Idiot’s Guide” series are on fire. Customers flock to books on entrepreneurship, web design, home decorating, dieting, golfing, antique collecting, and you name it. These books have more pictures and fact boxes than every before, and scream user-friendliness, attracting people who may never have cracked open a novel.
3. Fiction is not dead, but often dormant. As for those people who’ve never cracked open a novel, I’m afraid that list may be growing for our youth. Just the other week, a cousin of mine who’s an art teacher did a unit on fairy tale art. To launch the unit, she gathered her group of 9th grade nightmares for a reading of “Rumpelstiltzken.” To her surprise, most of the kids had never heard of common fairy tales like this. The happy ending: Those rowdy kids had her undivided attention for the whole reading, soaking up the literature like dry sponges and begging her to read them another story tomorrow. Remember these are 9th graders, not 4th graders.
So the fiction lover’s seed of interest is present in everybody– something (like an audiobook) or someone (like a teacher) has just gotta tap it.
Fiction isn’t dying. The intelligent reader is dying.
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