Sunday, September 26, 2010
The Rise and Fall of Fiction: Part 2
Sad to say but I think the glory days of fiction are over. There's just too much digital content, too many platforms and devices to compete with. People are losing their attention spans, and then there's the Gen Y'ers who are basically illiterate. They will only read if it's a necessity like getting through a course at school. (For more on Gen Y, check out Jason Calacanis's piece: http://calacanis.com/2010/04/27/red-jackson-gen-y-loyalty/). My prediction is that only blockbuster novels from major authors like Jonathan Franken will survive. The smaller literary writers like Sam Lipsyte, of whom I'm a big fan, will struggle. E-books are taking over, bookstores are dying. When I was a student I remember standing between the towering stacks in the library thinking: If no one ever wrote another word, it would be ok. So much already written, too many great works to even list, what more is there to say? I may be taking this to an extreme, there will always be books, new masterpieces and writers, just a lot less. Culture is on the decline and it's too late to turn back the invasion of the barbarians.
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But don't you think the burgeoning of e-reading devices and digital formats means more novels, easier and cheaper to obtain? Maybe the days of paper books are nigh, but the glory days of the 'new' novel may yet be ahead of us. And I've been wanting to ask, how you like your Kindle? Thinking of taking the e-leap myself. I'm tired of having four novels stacked up on my bedside table all the time.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm just using myself as a benchmark -- I've been getting anxiety attacks reading Freedom knowing that I have all these podcasts to catch up on. I've even watched a bunch of lectures at MIT on Physics -- stuff I'd never get to experience otherwise. So much knowledge to absorb, not enough time. Fortunately I'm an insomniac so I need content to keep my sanity. As for the Kindle, I like it for outside reading and for getting free samples. It's like having a bookstore in your hands and much better than reading paper, but not as good as the iPad. Guess I'm becoming too digital these days. Got the iPad (as a gift) and that reading experience is even better than the Kindle if you read indoors at night in bed like I do because you don't need a reading lamp. And you can set the light and background colour so that it's not too harsh on the eyes. Now I don't have to go read in another room. You also get the free samples and tons of free classics. I reread Prufrock on my iPod Touch, something I would never had done otherwise. Suffice it say that I would never go back to paper and this is coming from a book junkie, someone who won't even lend out books. If you can cough up the $ for the iPad, you won't regret it. If Wordsworth was alive today he'd have written an Ode to Steve Jobs. If you see the free content you can get off iTunes and the iUniversity, you'll want to spend every woken moment on it...
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