September 6th, 2009

books in a stack

Has reading changed?

Obviously, tastes in literature change. You have only to pick up a novel by Dickens or Trollope or Thackeray to see that. Which is not to say that those writers aren't still being read. If the story and the characterizations are strong enough, a book can stay in print long after the author is dust in his or her grave. But that doesn't change the fact that someone writing exactly like Dickens or Trollope or Thackeray would have a hard time getting a book published today.

In fact, a fan of Jane Austen sent some of her work to agents and publishers and got soundly rejected or ignored. One hopes the folks who ignored it recognized the work, as the one assistant editor who chastised the fan about plagiarism clearly did. The folks who rejected it showed first that they weren't familiar with Austen and second that literature evolves. A classic can survive change but it has to take root in its own time.

There are occasional throwbacks. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell read a lot like a 19th novel in that it was full of digressions, footnotes, and lengthy background chapters. But although that book garnered awards and sold reasonably well, almost everyone I asked about it said they had trouble "getting into the story." I listened to it as an audiobook as way around that, and found the story compelling and even funny in places. My experience illustrates the fact that technology has intruded into something that had been the same experience for generations. For centuries if you wanted to read a book, you needed a physical copy of it, and either you had to read it, or another human had to read it to you. Now, in addition to print copies, a book can be recorded by the author or an actor, podcast, sold on CD or as a download, or sold as an ebook, and read on (or by) an eReader.

So, the act of "reading" has clearly changed. But in addition, what people do for recreation has changed. In addition to movies and TV, there are video games that are story-based. Books have a lot more competition. And the recent announcement of a new "digi-novel" that combines web-based videos with a printed novel could be the first of a new trend.

Or not. Movies are, to me, the screenwriter, the director, and the actors imposing their collaborative version of a story on the viewer. Books are a more one-to-one connection.

As a reader, the appeal of novels has always been the experience of immersing myself in a world that the author creates but that I alone inhabit. That is, the author relates the story, but my own experiences, thoughts, feelings, even prejudices, define how I interpret that world. My experience of a story may be very different from someone else's. I like that. As a writer, I create a world and people it with characters, telling a story I want to read myself. At the same time, this allows me to connect with someone who reads it and takes their own experience from my story. I love that.

Personally, I'm not eager for either the reading or writing experience to change.

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