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What made the fiction literary was it spoke the language of memory, where the reader inhabited the experience of the characters, and this changed how readers e

What made the fiction literary was it spoke the language of memory, where the reader inhabited the experience of the characters, and this changed how readers experienced the world after. It was an intimate experience. Writing on the internet is participatory, impersonal, performative, and anti-intimate. It's a homegenous voice. We used to laugh about the engineering students who would say without irony, "why would I want to read something someone just made up?" Now, engaging with books comes at the opportunity cost of missing internet points and time spent not promoting your brand, so I don't see it coming back among younger people. I spent a lot of years practicing to become a writer like many of the men I looked up to growing up, and when I look at writers today, there is no there there anymore. You're only ever as good as your last tweet, and part of the promise of literary culture was that the esteem of the people who were a part of it was valuable and enriching. For a while it was. It's not now. Books were a great thing to have in common and a way to find people who were really just interesting. They were a social glue. Now, authors remind me of those old soviet olympians propped up as representatives of their ideological system to be proof their system could produce peers to western athletes whose talent was the effect of freedom and desire. I think the literary novel had its moment. It was a couple of centuries, but I think it will become what victorian cameos and shadow drawings are to photos. Art assumes a level of mystery that I don't think can exist in a homogenized culture like we have online, as without an apprehension of something greater than the concrete and material, it's just another picture or inpspirational quote on a wrapper for something cheap.

tticvs 3y ago
Very well put, I will remember your words. Sometimes I go for a while without reading any books and I can feel the difference in myself. Yet, I spend almost all my waking life reading text. I think the difference is that this is all just information. There is profound loneliness in only reading information, I compare it to the flattening of human interaction to zoom calls in the pandemic. Practical, but qualitatively worse. The culture that produced the novel as its primary information artifact is gone forever, tragic that our cultures artifacts do reach its heights.
coldtea 3y ago
>I think the literary novel had its moment. Imagine a large table in a big hall. There are hundreds of people in the room. In the far left side of the table, there's a plate with fine pieces of sushi. Masterly prepared. Freshest of fish. Rice cooked to perfection. It took a long time for the chef to learn to make it, having studied with older cooks for decades as an apprentice. On the rest of the table, taking most of its over a hundred feet of length, there are microwaved Hot Pockets. They have been left out, and reheated a second time. Some have flies on them. Some drunk guy has puked all over many of the others. The sushi is left on the plate. Nobody touches it. Perhaps 3-4 persons savour a few pieces. The Hot Pockets, meanwhile, get eaten like there's no tomorrow. Hundreds of people wait in huge queues to stuff their plates with as many as they can. Some even fight for one. Now, few will even entertain the idea that they're missing anything by not going for the sushi. Many would even go philosophical, about taste being a personal matter, and how "they like what they like". But, when all is said and done, it's their loss.
- zwieback 3y ago
  I'll eat a piece of sushi and a Hot Pocket, both are delicious.
- bcbrown 3y ago
  That's some pretentious bullshit. Sneering at others because their cultural tastes don't match yours does nothing but help you feel superior to others for a few moments. And I say this as someone who reads a lot of fiction, subscribes to a literary review, and treasures my library of printed books.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >Sneering at others because their cultural tastes don't match yours does nothing but help you feel superior to others for a few moments. Taste is something one develops, not something one is born with. Taste on its own, is like an asshole: everybody has one. Just like "personal opinion". >And I say this as someone who reads a lot of fiction, subscribes to a literary review, and treasures my library of printed books. But who also treasures the unintellectual idea of every cultural taste being just as good as any other, and anything to the contrary being "pretentious".

tticvs 3y ago

Very well put, I will remember your words. Sometimes I go for a while without reading any books and I can feel the difference in myself. Yet, I spend almost all my waking life reading text. I think the difference is that this is all just information. There is profound loneliness in only reading information, I compare it to the flattening of human interaction to zoom calls in the pandemic. Practical, but qualitatively worse. The culture that produced the novel as its primary information artifact is gone forever, tragic that our cultures artifacts do reach its heights.

coldtea 3y ago

>I think the literary novel had its moment. Imagine a large table in a big hall. There are hundreds of people in the room. In the far left side of the table, there's a plate with fine pieces of sushi. Masterly prepared. Freshest of fish. Rice cooked to perfection. It took a long time for the chef to learn to make it, having studied with older cooks for decades as an apprentice. On the rest of the table, taking most of its over a hundred feet of length, there are microwaved Hot Pockets. They have been left out, and reheated a second time. Some have flies on them. Some drunk guy has puked all over many of the others. The sushi is left on the plate. Nobody touches it. Perhaps 3-4 persons savour a few pieces. The Hot Pockets, meanwhile, get eaten like there's no tomorrow. Hundreds of people wait in huge queues to stuff their plates with as many as they can. Some even fight for one. Now, few will even entertain the idea that they're missing anything by not going for the sushi. Many would even go philosophical, about taste being a personal matter, and how "they like what they like". But, when all is said and done, it's their loss.

zwieback 3y ago
I'll eat a piece of sushi and a Hot Pocket, both are delicious.
bcbrown 3y ago
That's some pretentious bullshit. Sneering at others because their cultural tastes don't match yours does nothing but help you feel superior to others for a few moments. And I say this as someone who reads a lot of fiction, subscribes to a literary review, and treasures my library of printed books.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >Sneering at others because their cultural tastes don't match yours does nothing but help you feel superior to others for a few moments. Taste is something one develops, not something one is born with. Taste on its own, is like an asshole: everybody has one. Just like "personal opinion". >And I say this as someone who reads a lot of fiction, subscribes to a literary review, and treasures my library of printed books. But who also treasures the unintellectual idea of every cultural taste being just as good as any other, and anything to the contrary being "pretentious".