Viva la Reader: Is Literature Over?

Exams are bad enough as it is, right? But imagine writing an exam on a book you’ve literally never read. And bearing in mind you’ve had two years to read it, during which you’ve managed to split your time into 30% school, 40% sleep, 10% bulk and 20% sesh, this sounds pretty imbecilic. But I can assure you, it happens. I’ve seen it. To quote the Smiths (again), there’s more to life than books you know, but not much more. So why, WHY has reading become as nonexistent as Martin Compston’s screen time in BBC’s Vigil?

There’s no disputing the fact that our society is finding different and modern ways to read - Kindles and audio books preponderate over the codex, because, you know, an Ipad is so much more convenient to carry around than a paperback… Concomitant with the decline of physical books are the demotion of libraries, dissolution of newspapers, closure of bookshops and plummet of book sales. The argument that through these means, literature is still bubbling along happily is naive and Panglossian. We’re so used to having information at our fingertips that we have lost the ability to sit still and read - if we’re not able to load the dishwasher, order a vast amount of unethical clothes, watch youtube and make tiktoks all while listening to Ulysses, it’s a waste of time. That being said, many people are perfectly happy to spend hours devoting their life to the study of posology, or letting the hours fly by on snapchat (yep, I still hate it).

It is a truth universally acknowledged that our ability to focus diminishes in perfect correlation with the increase of our time spent online. But if our tussle with books is implicitly linked with our ability to concentrate, then we’d be seeing similar downward trends in all activities that require focus - sports, music, employment - these aren’t exactly areas which permit hibernation.

Instead, I believe the world underwent a cultural shift - after Modernism, the emacity-centred and myopic Postmodernism, which helpfully insists nothing is of value, petered out in the wake of <blank space>. We’re living through a silent existential crisis of faith, politics, belief and the arts - with no universally accepted way to pin down our era and no words to sum up the turmoil of our times, what hope is there for sanity, let alone serious literature?

Our society’s mass struggle with consciousness is itself abstruse and elusive - it’s the result of years of turbulent politics and perpetual reminders of doom, through environmental destruction, deadly illness and rampant inequality. In regard to literature, our lack of aesthetic identity stems in part from recurrent reminders to renounce “old” texts, literature written during contexts of traditionalism, social hierarchy and orthodox faith. This aim is obviously laudable - the works of the past can no longer unfailingly pertain to modern society’s diversities and values.

But there is no such thing as “irrelevant” literature, even if the only connective tissue between author and reader is that both resemble the homo sapien. All books are written by humans, for humans, and therefore there will always be some wisdom for the reader to draw out. Just because an author wrote a book with one intention in mind, doesn’t mean we can’t take something from it, even if that knowledge is contrary to their purpose.

To dismiss the great literature of the past is hugely damaging - our scepticism about the elitist canon of literature isn’t unfounded, but to simply renounce the texts that have shaped generations is an ignorant and narrow-minded solution. I believe we have conflated the connected yet individual concepts of contexts and texts; although the eras in which Modernism, Romanticism, Realism flourished were eras of misogyny, violence, racism, patriarchy, that doesn’t mean the books published are misogynistic or dangerously outdated. Indeed, just the quickest skim through the history of literature is enough to prove that writers have long been the artists to defy the norm and stand up for the underprivileged. Shakespeare attacked the rights of kings, and the Romantics campaigned against all the accepted hierarchies of their day.

The critic Roland Barthes insists that the author is dead, and if this is true then it endows us, the reader, with the power to wrench a text out of its context and mould it into our own, to shape and inform our lives. Readers need to stop cowering from the daunting and provocative books of the past; why has it become acceptable to shun and invalidate works which we don't agree with? That sounds pretty totalitarian to me.

If and when we collectively pluck up the courage to draw our trusty bookmarks and delve into literary touchstones, a future generation of writers will be inspired to line our shelves with works more poignant and profound than some (but not all) of the prematurely acclaimed books being published today.

Schools also need to encourage and not dissuade the reading of quality literature. The subject of English has been reduced to ‘skilling’ students, limiting the books read to the confines of the syllabus and squeezing out creative inspiration. Lists of literary vocabulary flutter through school classrooms, prompting eye-opening essay phrases such as: “Shakespeare implements epistrophised epizeuxis to bequeath King Lear with a notion of zoanthropy”.

Don’t believe the dundridges - ambiguity and emotional murkiness create the magic behind the esoteric heartbeat of a book, and falling down the pitfalls of mark schemes and templates is resulting in scorn for a subject which should stop apologising for its sprawling, amorphous energy.

Writers can bemoan and begrudge society all they want for the disheartening trends within reading, but the problem stems from a misplaced sense of grievance. People feel intimidated by and resentful towards the books they associate with a societal demographic, feeling that worthwhile literature isn’t written for them. But they are as wrong as members of Team Logan.

William Wordsworth wrote a whole collection of poems in the aim of writing simply enough for the shepherds and work people to understand, fuelled by the Romantic idealistic impulse for a fair distribution of resources - including access to high-calibre literature. George Orwell’s works famously attacked the demagogic dictatorships of his day; Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is rife with anti-slavery sentiment, and Algerian-born Albert Camus remained wholeheartedly committed to moral freedom. Even T. S Eliot, the wealthy and privileged ivy-league scholar can impart sagacity to a modern-day reader - a study of the ironies between his social standing and subject content is food for thought, not literary refuse to be chucked away.

We are justified in criticising these works - and indeed the point of studying literature is to challenge what we read - but there is no justification in rejecting any work of literature. These older texts can and should be enjoyed in conjunction with more modern works, in order that we expand our parameters to include perspectives different to our own. In theory, if people read a larger breadth of literature, hatred and intolerance would struggle to survive. But people are too scared and reluctant to take the first steps.

Ultimately I do believe the serious novel will continue to be written and read, but it will be an art form analogous with easel painting or Gregorian chant music: confined to a specific demographic, and a subject for academic study rather than public discourse. Do I believe literature is dead? Yes, but hopefully this bleak cynicism can be proven wrong.