I
read an excellent book by John Sutherland, A
Little History of Literature, which shared a historical perspective on
novels that covered an array of topics, from book clubs and best-seller lists
to great writers, censorship, books turned into movies, poetry, and
mythology. But the most revealing
chapter was its last one, about the fate of literature.
The
author notes the marketplace is flooded with too many titles, that we suffer
from “too-muchness of literature” and it’s expanding all of the time.
He writes:
He writes:
“This
mind-crushing plentifulness creates whole new sets of problems. There are those still living (and I am one)
who were raised in a cultural environment whose central features were scarcity,
shortage and inaccessibility. If you
wanted a new novel, you had either to save up the money to pay for it, or put
your name down on a waiting list at the local public library. It was annoying. But, in a way it made things simpler. You had fewer options. In a single lifetime –
mine, for example – shortage has been replaced by an embarrassment of choice.
So how is one to navigate the onslaught of books?"
He later notes: “In
Shakespeare’s day, there were, it has been estimated, some
2,000 books available to a bookish person like him. You could be, as the phrase was, “well
read.” That is a description for which
no one in the future will qualify.”
Today
the book industry easily produces more than 2,000 new titles every single day,
365 days a year. How can one keep up
with what’s new, let alone visit the millions of volumes stored online and in
libraries?
People
read books based on the time available to them.
Will they form a literary diet of the classics or of what a review,
friend or store recommends? Will they
experiment and diversify, or will they read more of what they believe they like
to read, sticking narrowly to one’s specific genres?
And
how will people consume their literature – with a paper book or a digital
scroll on their smart phone?
“The
printed book,” writes Southerland,” a physical thing made up of paper, type,
ink and board, has been around now for over 500 years. It has served literature wonderfully: packaging in cheap, sometimes beautiful forms
that have helped to sustain mass literacy.
Few inventions have lasted longer, or done more good.
“The
book may however, have had its day. The
tipping point has come very recently in the second decade of the twenty-first
century, when e-books – digital things made up of algorithms and pixels – began
to outsell the traditional book on Amazon.
An e-book, as it’s currently marketed for handheld tablets, looks eerily
like a ‘real’ book just as the early printed books such as Gutenberg’s looked
just like manuscripts.”
There’s
still evidence that paper is favored over digital. E-book sales have dropped much of the past
four years while print has risen. But
there’s no doubt the digital world is creeping into every aspect of our lives.
“Literature,”
concludes Sutherland, “that wonderfully creative product, of the human mind,
will, in whatever new forms and adaptations it takes, forever be a part of our
lives, enriching our lives.”
Amen.
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