It’d be
hard to say that the saturation level of modern text and prose changes the
needs of readers or writers. Any subject can be buried under the results of
blogs, counter articles, spin, and varying levels of interest and comprehension.
Literature is in a new phase, and needs to adapt to media much better than it’s
been doing so far.
The human appetite for
information is extremely variable. The diet available, however, is pretty
bland, sometimes. Information is produced in ways which would test anyone’s
digestion. Some can take in information and use it and develop it. Some can’t
do much more than take it in, and others simply don’t understand it. On the
internet, you need the mental equivalent of the bone-crushing abilities of a hyena
to get some information into a state where it’s able to get into the mental
metabolism. Occasionally the form of the info prevents comprehension. However,
as often as not it’s the result of imposing on a knowledge base with pretty
shaky supports that can’t take much of a load. One of the legacies of a crashed
education system.
Let’s
not get away from this point: Literature is data load. A book involves ramming
about a hundred thousand words up the intellectual nostrils of the reader into
the brain. Added to which it’s not usually common language use. I’ve been
reading some books where the sheer pomposity of the language is quite
horrifying.
So the
reader has the joy of being hit with God knows what, or why, in large amounts.
Like a billboard, the subject is thrown at the reader on meeting. Modern media
is doing an excellent job of providing people with information whether they
want it or not. Modern literature sometimes merely extends the process to the
point of also taking away several hours of the reader’s life as well.
Look at
a bookstore’s stock. Suppose for a moment that a passionate encounter in a
podiatrist’s waiting room isn’t the thing immediately occupying your intellect.
“Love Among The Bunions” wasn’t really on your mind. Nor was a gripping tale of
real life among impoverished dung recyclers an instant appeal to fancy, erotic
or otherwise.
By pure
swinish self indulgence, you’ve condemned these masterworks. You’ve also proved
a point. Despite the evidence of the whole of recorded history, the human mind
does have better things to do with its time than wallow or drown in the
uninteresting and the irrelevant. Given a chance, let alone a good reason, it
will scuttle away.
It
follows from this excursion into the horrendously obvious that most of what is
written will probably miss any target but actual interest groups. In the past,
the number of actual books was pretty low, mass media was avoidable, and people
were able to communicate with each other, and could spread the word about a
decent book.
Now,
the deluge of unwanted material is so huge that readers’ time is being dissolved
like an aspirin. The reader, having a single working brain cell, doesn’t want
their time used like that. Much of the information being received is utterly
useless. By rights, people should be able to insist on getting their
information in a way that won’t waste their time. Virtually every second has to
be edited to acquire the useful info, and delete the futile rubbish spewing out
of Mammon’s oversupplied arse.
After
this ordeal, and it’s hard to describe it as anything less, the poor bastard
finds something worth reading, and hides in some broom closet in a desperate
effort to read it. A little sigh is heard as a page is finally turned in peace.
Now,
the villain of the piece. The writer. Despite theories otherwise, writers are
simple souls who will writer damn near anything on the basis that someone might
want to read it. No more provocation than that has produced the indescribable
amount of verbal vindictiveness we now see. The mere hint of readers still
being alive is enough to produce a ten book epic. No wonder they’re so nervous.
What is
written? Put bluntly, more of the same, most of the time. The reader,
insensitive beast, has somehow realized this, and for some irrational reason
tends to avoid most of the content of any bookshop or text media. It’s hard to
imagine anyone not wanting to read five thousand books on the subject of
executive infidelities in a well-dressed, opulent, criminal setting, but some
people do manage to avoid it.
Writers
are responsible for this septic surfeit of swill, and they should realize that.
You would need to read some of this cosmically uninteresting tripe to really
understand how bad it is. Yet, some fool wrote it, and even more bizarrely,
presumably read it while writing it. (Although opinions are much divided about
that possibility.) Most of it winds up being recycled or sold progressively
downstream.
The
books which are truly loved are relatively few. There’s a slow accumulation of
things to read which are kept, and the rest is mercifully forgotten. An
interesting habit, because those are the books which are actually read. The
favorite book is a true friend, good company, and a pleasure even when read for
the hundredth time.
This is
where real media study should be looking. Never mind the dross. The appeal of a
favorite book is also the appeal of a preferred columnist, a favorite
cartoonist, musician, or any other artist. Now that global arts are merging
into one all purpose medium, the quality issue
must finally be addressed.
Literature
in particular needs to look to its strengths. It can’t continue to hide behind its
own standards, which are currently very lazy, as well as being very low. There
was a time when being an “avid reader” meant you had a brain. Now, it might
mean you don’t know any better.
There’s
a tough side to being a modern reader. Those who can read huge amounts of text
per day are usually the ones who can discriminate between garbage and gems.
They can take apart arguments and logic in seconds, and counter argue from a
very wide knowledge base. They can do this largely because they can also delete
the worthless rubbish as they read it. They can also follow the track of
information as it happens, and research for themselves. That’s a new ability
for the human race, and invaluable as an information handling technique. It
should be respected, not abused with half witted marketing and idiotically
insular, obsolete, patronizing, media content. Readers should now be considered
functional human beings, not illiterate, ignorant, children, as marketing
persists in considering them.
The new
media works better with ideas than verbiage. Literature isn’t supposed to be
verbiage, either. Some writers can express big and new ideas in a few words.
Others can take a book to prove beyond doubt that they wouldn’t know an
original thought if it attacked them with a sledgehammer and rebuilt the whole
world around them while it was at it.
For writers, the challenge is now much more adrenalin-soaked. Literature is the only medium which can write a thousand paintings in a few words. Literature allows thought, while other media can often prevent it, jamming the mind with a continuous flow of material. Visual media can achieve miracles, but written media can achieve whole civilizations. Media also feed on each other, so a low standard of literature is no great help to other art forms. The uninformed tend to be the undereducated. The current ineffectual state of art criticism would be the most glaring example, where any supply of stock phrases is the basis of a career. In much commercial media, the concepts are so limited that the content can barely be called mediocre. “Insipid” would be flattery. The arts need healthy content. So does humanity.
“What’s
worth writing” is ultimately what’s worth reading.