Reading a struggle? Tim
Parks writes that modern man’s addiction to electronic gadgets means
reading is relegated to odd snatches of time. His advice is that we dinosaur
writers need to adapt and learn to tell a story in fewer words than were used
in the theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies. (The 87 word tune at the
beginning of The Beverly
Hillbillies is famous for terse storytelling.)
Park opens his New
York Review of Books article by writing, “The conditions in which we read
today are not those of fifty or even thirty years ago, and the big question is
how contemporary fiction will adapt to these changes, because in the end adapt
it will. No art form exists independently of the conditions in which it is
enjoyed.”
Adapt? Writing a story using Twitter might be fun and even creative
as hell, but it would not be a novel. Park doesn’t actually suggest that
writers restrict themselves to 140 characters, but he does predict that a novel
“will tend to divide itself up into shorter and shorter sections, offering more
frequent pauses where we can take time out.” To a great extent, this is because
Park apparently believes fiction is art and must be studied, rather than merely
enjoyed.
He writes:
“Let’s remember just what hard work it can be to read the literary novel pre-1980. Consider this sentence from Faulkner’s The Hamlet:
‘He would lie amid the waking instant of earth’s teeming minute life, the motionless fronds of water-heavy grasses stooping into the mist before his face in black, fixed curves, along each parabola of which the marching drops held in minute magnification the dawn’s rosy miniatures, smelling and even tasting the rich, slow, warm barn-reek milk-reek, the flowing immemorial female, hearing the slow planting and the plopping suck of each deliberate cloven mud-spreading hoof, invisible still in the mist loud with its hymeneal choristers.’”
Could he have found a more writerly example? Mark Twain would
never write a sentence like that. For that matter, neither would JK Rowling, Stieg
Larsson, or Raymond Chandler. Good grief. Maybe it was pompous writing, not
texting that drove people away from long format fiction.
Except that people have not abandoned novels. Novels are increasingly
popular. Instead of the novel adapting to modern lifestyles, our lives have
adapted to reading in a different manner. Many of us do our reading
on e-readers that we bring with us all the time because they weigh less than a Little
Golden Book.
A good novel is the best stress reliever ever invented. A good novel captivates the reader. A good novel instantly transports the reader to another place
and time. And a good novel is inexpensive and accessible.
A novel provides a unique escape from the relentless pinging for our
attention. Despite what our ego may tell us, being constantly tethered to an iThingy
is not obligatory. The world will not miss you for an hour or so. When you need
a break, just turn off your other devices and open a novel. Give a storyteller
some dedicated time and you’ll be able to handle your concerns and responsibilities
with aplomb.
