THE NOVEL IS DEAD!
The novel is dead---or so I keep hearing! In fact, I've been hearing and reading about it quite a lot lately, in newspapers and magazines, in trade publications, in online writers' groups and blogs, and from editors and colleagues.
The hard, cold fact is that young adults don't read much literature anymore. Rather, they watch movies and television, surf the Internet, and play video games. I know this is true of my own teenage son, Shane, and his friends---that most all the literary reading they do is confined to what is required for school. I still hope that this is a passing stage, that Shane will eventually discover and appreciate the thought-provoking flights and engrossing delights good novels have to offer; and every now and then, I see glimmers of that happening.
Still, it's an uphill climb---because unfortunately, young adults are not the only segment of the population whose reading has greatly declined in the last decade. According to a recent National Endowment for the Arts survey, reading is actually in a troubling state of decline among all segments of the population, with fewer than half of all American adults now reading literature.
What are the reasons for that, I wonder, and what does it mean to novelists now and in the future? Will there even be any novelists in the future? Well, probably not, if people stop reading literature entirely, because for one thing, publishers simply won't keep publishing books for which there is no longer any market.
If that day should indeed ever come to pass, it will truly be tragic. For there is nothing quite like curling up with a good novel and losing oneself in its pages. Good novels speak to us and to our minds and imaginations in in-depth ways that no other media really can. Yet, if the NEA and others forecasting doom and gloom for literature are correct, it seems that spending hours with a good novel is, like so much else, becoming a quaint, charming, fading pastime of yesteryear, no longer enjoyed by today's society, with its hectic lifestyle and its resulting increasing reliance on visual media and sound bites.
What do you think? Is the novel really dead---or dying? If so, why? Do you still read literature, or have you turned to other forms of entertainment instead? Why do you think literary reading is in such a disturbing state of decline?
6 Comments:
I am glad you posted this. I love literature. I love words, but unfortunately, in our culture, meaning USA, the novel is about dead.
I have lots of European friends who read much more, and they are more literate, period.
Face it, we live in a Visual Age. But we can look on the bright side, for our generation might have had the best of everything...books, medicine, computers, small towns, and now big cities. What other generation of people were so lucky in history?
I still love your books. Keep writing. Jane who shall write a lament. [for the novel] (grinning)
I think you're right about Europeans being a great deal more literate than Americans, Jane. I suspect that this has to do with the differences in education systems. Reading seems to be emphasized much more in Europe than it is here in America.
Our generation has indeed been fortunate in a number of respects. But I still find historical time periods fascinating, and some of them had values I appreciate, but that, unfortunately, appear to have gone by the wayside nowadays.
I'm glad you enjoy my novels! If you're inclined to share your lament, I would adore hearing it! *g*
If the runaway success of books like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE show us anything, it's that people WILL read if they feel the reading's worthwhile. The problem is that reading is increasingly seen as something elitist, blue-state people do, and not something that's interesting to Joe Average. Decreased emphasis on reading in schools doesn't help, either, particularly when what literary instruction that's left is given over to the same dreadfully dull material that's bored students for decades.
There's a certain segment of the population that reads, had read, and will go on reading. What we're losing now are the casual readers, those who need to feel engaged by their reading in a way that, frankly, many authors are incapable of doing, either because they lack the skill or the perception to realize that audiences have changed. Publishers suffer from the same myopia, thinking that producing the same kinds of books in the same way is suddenly going to reverse the downward reading trend of a generation.
You raise some interesting points, James, but I would beg to disagree with several of them.
Runaway bestsellers such as J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series or Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE are actually very few and far between these days compared to the number of books that were runaway bestsellers in previous decades. I believe that, nowadays, most bestsellers are driven more by publishers' promotional efforts and sale incentives than anything else. As a result, many fine books that might have found a readership simply fall by the wayside instead, due to too few copies printed and distributed, coupled with a lack of publicity.
I don't think reading is increasingly seen as something elistist---but, rather, as something that requires time; and unfortunately, we all seem to be increasingly short of that in today's hectic world. I do agree that a decreased emphasis on reading in our school system hasn't helped. But I never found the classics dull and boring, and when compelled to read them for school, my son hasn't found them so, either. He simply has other things he'd rather do with his time.
I also disagree that what we're losing now are the casual readers. I've been reading myself since I was three years old, and I was never a casual reader. But I don't read nearly as many books now as I used to---again, because of lack of time.
In addition, you haven't addressed the fact that there are now only a handful of major publishers controlling the market, as well as a handful of major wholesalers (when there used to be hundreds), or that the increasing costs of publishing have sent even the prices of mass-market paperbacks skyrocketing. If, because of finances, people have to choose between dinner out, a movie, a video game, or a book, etc., I think that, for many, books are simply no longer high on their list of entertainment priorities.
My fifth grade son is requried to read 30 minutes each night, so both my boys read--they were required to last year also. I've been reading since I was five and I hope that I've passed my love of reading and writing onto them =)
I recently read that a large publisher cut their guidelines from 100k to 85-90k because readers don't spend as much time reading.
On the flip side of the coin, I've heard readers lament the loss of quality reading material, such as the lush historicals of the 80's where a books setting was as much a character as the characters themeselves and books weren't so much about the HEA as they were about the journey characters took together (I'm thinking more romance readers here so forgive me). I read across the board(always have) but I find myself reading less romance in favor of other genres.
So how much of that loss of quality (for lack of a better word) is contributing to the loss of readers? I cut my teeth on your books =) and Jude Deveraux, Julie Garwood (my age is showing), Johanna Lindsay and Beatrice Small---those books weren't just books they were ADVENTURES!
Oops I rambled...Keep up the great work!
Cece
Please feel free to ramble all you like here, Cece! *g* I enjoy hearing readers' comments and perspectives!
I think you've touched on one aspect that is indeed part and parcel of the increasing lack of time for reading---and that is the declining lack of quality books. As time has become more precious, novels have indeed grown shorter (I think of it as "sound-bite" writing) and much simpler, too, and those of us who have continued to write rich, complex, detailed books are now labeled "difficult" or "laborious" reads (writers of "purple prose").
This is very sad, because as you noted, time periods and place settings that are themselves as important as the characters and plot are part of what make a novel a whole, consuming experience---rather than something that engages our interest on only the most superficial of levels. If I personally read a book and can't even remember where it's taking place, then that's a story that doesn't work for me as a reader on any level.
Like you and many other readers, I, too, lament the loss of the lush historical romances of the 80s, where it was the journey, and not the HEA ending, that was the prime focus of the novel. Those books were indeed adventures, and I don't think today's shorter, more PC romances are in the same league at all. Some readers may believe that's a good thing. But I think the romance genre lost a whole lot of readers who disagree and who eventually turned to other genres or else quit reading entirely, unable to find any longer, or only rarely, the type of novel that appealed to them.
I'm glad you have enjoyed my work over the years, and I hope you continue to do so!
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