In a recent post that can be found here, I mentioned that writing a book that can only be labeled as "literature" (as opposed to thriller, detective story, romance novel or some other popular genre) is a kiss of death in the current milieu.
I mention that because in a letter to the editor published in the May 6, 2016 NYT book review section, William F Wallace, of Brandon, Miss., concludes his missive as follows: "so readers don't buy too many books they suspect are 'literature.' Have you noticed that?"
Well, I'm sure The Times, along with the publishing industry has, indeed, noticed that.
Which begs the question "why don't people want to read such books?"
I have thought that with declining attention spans and too much competition from a plethora of other options, readers don't want to have to "work" when they read, and traditional literature, perhaps because of it's intellectual content (real or perceived), is viewed as a struggle. More than ever, it seems, consumers want easy reads -- page-turners in other words.
Mr. Wallace, however, has another explanation: an absence of happy endings in faction considered to be literature.
"People buy romance novels, sci-fi, and other genres because they know they will encounter no unhappiness, no angst, no killings, no family conflict, etc., the way they will in all of modern fiction. They know what to expect from these books, many of which are formulaic, but many display really good writing, too," he says.
"It's as if there were some rule that literature cannot have happy endings because those other genres do and it would taint a true work of literature to have them. And readers now this," Mr. Wallace says.
While I do not agree with all of what Mr. Wallace says, his contention ties in with another recent post of mine that can be found here -- that something is missing from many contemporary novels.
I think its the the trend. The attention span of an average human is deteriorating because of many readily available content like movies etc. Now in the past books severed the similar purpose of an escape from the mundane existence. No matter how hard or difficult a book might have been people took the time to read it as they had no other viable alternative for escape. So naturally they had a good attention span which built up with every book they read.
ReplyDeleteBut nowadays we have different media to quench the thirst -movies, internet, youtube in which people can find many short things of escape. So if they encounter something which is good ( which hardcore literature fans read) they simple cannot handle the language and content.