I’ve been having a conversation about the future of reading books in the age of fractured attention — or, to put it alliteratively, reading in the time of TikTok.
But what about wordness? The taste of the medium? The way they are put together as a visceral pleasure? No other form relies only on this. And it’s not just English….I study Classical Chinese poetry and the possibilities of characters in certain formations is fantastically unique. Not to mention not easy to understand without a good teacher. But to finally have the full flavor unleashed in your brain is unlike any other form.
Language is magical and has its own land. Why not visit it as a hungry tourist rather than disparage it as less than others.
When E-Books became popular, like 20 years ago, I thought we'd experience a literary boom: a new support for literature, thanks to technology. I even toyed around with the idea of launching a new book company, one that could use technology to bridge certain cultural references between writer and reader.
My idea was to format a book like "Brothers Karamazov", for example, by adding context to the story with clickable information. Dimitri won a million rubles: great, but how much is that really? Click and you get the reference. Jean Valjean is running through Paris trying to ditch Javert? Here's a map of Paris, so you can see where they're supposed to be. I hoped to answer reader's questions as they popped in their head (how big was the Nautilius in 20K Leagues? Where was The Old Man & the Sea's boat, exactly?).
This never came to fruition and I got a job teaching.
However, instead of competing with technology, we could use tech to bring in new, young readers ("Look at this digital edition of A song of Ice and Fire with pictures and maps!") and transform the reading experience.
I do think that if anything could be an innovation in books that doesn't destroy their soul, it would be hypertext: gardens of forking paths. And we do already kind of have this in the form of interactive fiction (which derive from the Choose Your Own Adventure books of my youth); although I think these tend to be thought of as games and not literature.
Absolutely! I was a huge fan of Choose Your Own Adventure as a kid. I lived in Venezuela, and would have people travelling to the States bring back dozens at a time. You're right: my copy was full of bookmarks as I spread through the story like a fractal.
Technology could definitely give these kinds of books a boost. In any case, I believe we should integrate technology to transcend the support and build better access to the story, not create a divide between reading vs tiktok, with one being "good" and the other "bad", because that will ultimately alienate younger would-be readers.
Oh and can I just applaud you for always going above and beyond to put amazing images in your posts? On a platform where AI generated and stock photos are the norm, I appreciate your image photos every post.
Yes! Yes to this! And yet so many novels don’t have any interiority. Such a loss when a writer doesn’t make use of this power.
I think another unique trait of the novel length text is the factor that it requires at least six hours to read, some many more hours, over the course of days or weeks. We live with a book and it is only the two of us, even when we are in a crowd. It’s such an intimate experience.
Thank you for writing this, Junot. I had wanted to reply to that comment in your previous post, but I couldn't find the words (and who am I, an amateur beginner writer, to defend literature, anyway). You've nailed it perfectly.
But what about wordness? The taste of the medium? The way they are put together as a visceral pleasure? No other form relies only on this. And it’s not just English….I study Classical Chinese poetry and the possibilities of characters in certain formations is fantastically unique. Not to mention not easy to understand without a good teacher. But to finally have the full flavor unleashed in your brain is unlike any other form.
Language is magical and has its own land. Why not visit it as a hungry tourist rather than disparage it as less than others.
Language is magic. And it is power. And it is a million cubed other things. But it neither negates nor is negated by a discussion of affordance.
But Mia you don't play. Classical Chinese poetry? Damn.
You always make me think and explore and work harder.
A suggestion - W.G. Sebald -
When E-Books became popular, like 20 years ago, I thought we'd experience a literary boom: a new support for literature, thanks to technology. I even toyed around with the idea of launching a new book company, one that could use technology to bridge certain cultural references between writer and reader.
My idea was to format a book like "Brothers Karamazov", for example, by adding context to the story with clickable information. Dimitri won a million rubles: great, but how much is that really? Click and you get the reference. Jean Valjean is running through Paris trying to ditch Javert? Here's a map of Paris, so you can see where they're supposed to be. I hoped to answer reader's questions as they popped in their head (how big was the Nautilius in 20K Leagues? Where was The Old Man & the Sea's boat, exactly?).
This never came to fruition and I got a job teaching.
However, instead of competing with technology, we could use tech to bring in new, young readers ("Look at this digital edition of A song of Ice and Fire with pictures and maps!") and transform the reading experience.
I do think that if anything could be an innovation in books that doesn't destroy their soul, it would be hypertext: gardens of forking paths. And we do already kind of have this in the form of interactive fiction (which derive from the Choose Your Own Adventure books of my youth); although I think these tend to be thought of as games and not literature.
Absolutely! I was a huge fan of Choose Your Own Adventure as a kid. I lived in Venezuela, and would have people travelling to the States bring back dozens at a time. You're right: my copy was full of bookmarks as I spread through the story like a fractal.
Technology could definitely give these kinds of books a boost. In any case, I believe we should integrate technology to transcend the support and build better access to the story, not create a divide between reading vs tiktok, with one being "good" and the other "bad", because that will ultimately alienate younger would-be readers.
Cheers
Oh and can I just applaud you for always going above and beyond to put amazing images in your posts? On a platform where AI generated and stock photos are the norm, I appreciate your image photos every post.
Yes! Yes to this! And yet so many novels don’t have any interiority. Such a loss when a writer doesn’t make use of this power.
I think another unique trait of the novel length text is the factor that it requires at least six hours to read, some many more hours, over the course of days or weeks. We live with a book and it is only the two of us, even when we are in a crowd. It’s such an intimate experience.
Great piece! Love it.
“… people, trapped in the terrible solitude of what it means to be human and desperate to know we are not alone,” Wow, just Wow!!
Thank you for writing this, Junot. I had wanted to reply to that comment in your previous post, but I couldn't find the words (and who am I, an amateur beginner writer, to defend literature, anyway). You've nailed it perfectly.