Hey /lit/, where were you when you realized the novel is dead?
Here
>>7412548
It's over, baby.
what's alive? poetry seems to be dead besides a few outliers in South America, the novel is dying, everyone is just writing memoirs. what do we do
>>7412660
not to mention theater's death. stoppard is the only thing keeping it going.
>>7412660
>>7412667
"Literature" is not dying. It's just changing.
In 200 years, people are going to be reading the most interesting tweets. Like Franklin's proverbs and aphorisms in Poor Richard's Almanac.
Believe it or not, Films are still in their infancy. There could be another Shakespeare on the way.
Hell, let's not even get into the potential of video games and virtual reality.
Short stories may experience a rennaisance.
It's just changing. But yes, the giant novel and novelist's life are dead or dying.
And yes, I'm dead serious and happy to discuss.
>>7412660
>greentexting
DUDE ITS DALEAD LMAO
- every generation regarding any form art
>>7412703
But it's for real this time
>>7412693
this anon is, tragically, right.
in the future, literature will be about the most culturally significant tweets. Like that time Oreo tweeted about the superbowl blackout. That's literature now friends.
I think Young Adult books are bigger than ever.
Also self-help and non-fiction books are still extremely popular.
>>7412727
No, no, no. It'll still be the most interesting, creative, and powerful people that are studied. Not Oreo advertising. But don't deny or pretend that people's tweets or social media posts or blog posts won't be gone through with a fine comb when talking about the time period.
>>7412693
I can see this. Informational flooding has significantly diminished the average person's attention span, to say the least. We require constant interactive stimulation, and demand instant gratification in anything from preliminary knowledge on horticulture from a Wiki article to letting our friends know how pissed we are about last night's game. But do you really think that this trend will lead to the complete cessation of the novel as an art form in the near future? I could see how it would find its home as a niche, like narrative sculpture or tap-dance, but I could hardly see its total demise, so to speak.
Anyway, I'd love to hear your reasons for your predictions. Clay Shirkey has a few interesting books on society's departure from informational depth to pacake-like breadth that you should check out if you haven't already.
>>7412745
Agree with this, the history of digital media culture will be investigated deeply, but it won't totally subsume the established and extensive canon of literary works that has already played a huge role in shaping the temperaments of entire societies and will continue to so. To take a relatively recent example, Bob Dole once accredited William F Buckley with "lighting the fire" for the then new US conservatism movement in the 80's, arguably playing an integral role in Reagan's meteoric rise to presidency. He wasn't a novelist, but he did write over 50 books, and if we're discussing the novel as an art-form, then the non-fiction book is its equivalent to disseminating ideas. Some people watch TV, others who have the capacity and want for it, read books; some people watch FOX news, others who are more politically engaged read books.
To me, it still seems like the best way to consolidate knowledge for expedient consumption, other than maybe documentaries, websites, aw fuck, maybe not. Who knows.
>>7412548
If only that meant we were entering another British Romantic period where poetry was elevated to new heights.
>>7412776
Of course it won't die out completely and right away. I was being a little hyperbolic. People aren't just going to stop reading books tomorrow. There will always be artisans and hipsters and people working in old mediums. Hell, Banksy's basically a modern day cave painter.
And I don't mean that the great novel disappearing as diminishing to writers, either. The things writers will be able to do in the mediums of video games and virtual reality environments just boggles my mind. It's just going to be a blending of the visual and audio arts. The writer has to adapt. People aren't going to want to "read" something when they could live the experience in their basement.
I'm watching Colbert right now and he has the writers from Welcome to Nightvale as his guests. I'm not saying that's high literature, but imagine what a true genius could do with something like that combined with a visual environment.
That's the future of writing.
>>7412548
David please fucking go.
>>7412831
The Infinity Joke.
Why read when I can go to the theatre?
Why read when I can go to the theatre?
Why read when I can listen to the radio?
Why read when I can go to the theatre?
Why read when I can watch TV?
Why read when I can just go on the internet?
>The next one will be the final straw! No wait the internet was the final straw, literature is already dead, prior events were nothing but an accumulative effort and each latched on to slow it down, but, Internet was the final blow. Enjoy your sparktweets, bros!
>>7412836
Yeah. Basically.
It's even at the top of this board.
"Go to IRC to get free #bookz."
How long do you think that's actually sustainable?
>>7412846
I can get books for free, so that means lit is going to die?
>>7412693
Hey I'm the person you were responding too, and I'm not really arguing against it. I'm a film student and also currently in classes about Digital Literature (which is full of gimmicky stuff but mildly interesting concepts of what is going on with narrative structures) and video games. I also don't really even think the novel is dying out, I was half joking, not meming but I think things like Infinite Jest and 2666 and Mason & Dixon show the novel as being alive, as always theres plenty of great novelists that haven't been discovered. I'm excited to see where video games and virtual reality can take us, even though I don't really game much, I only play N64 type stuff if I do, out of nostalgia. There's a few metamodernism threads going on right now, which I don't agree with as a movement but at least in that manifesto there's the idea that writers/artists right now are at a crossroads of being nostalgic but futurists.
>>7412860
Only (relevant) problem with this post is that it assumes the only surviving novels are 1000 page behemoths.
>>7412859
Yes. It does. At least, as it currently exists or has existed.
The only people still buying books are housewives over 40 who don't understand the internet. Young adult novels are being bought by those same women for their daughters.
Why would anyone publish anything anymore? You can literally put everything up on your website for a cost of like $8/month.
And then do you think someone is going to sit down and read 100,000 word novel when they could literally put on a virtual reality device and have a crazy experience?
Like I said, I was being hyperbolic and, of course, the novel won't die completely and right away. There will always be hipsters.
Lit will have to adapt. Gone are the days of the globe-trotting novelist, with houses in Paris and the Meditteranean and New York.
>>7412869
The same argument applies to basically anything with just words. The imagination is a powerful thing. All powerful, in fact. But humans are essentially in the process of inventing something that's just as powerful.
>>7412881
So is every other form of entertainment I can get for free dead as well?
>>7412881
Not like they're the best novels or anything, but All The Light, Purity, and others have millions in print each and are making writers and publishers shit loads of money. E-book sales have been falling for years. Your assertion is based on memes and false fears.
>>7412857
David refers to David Foster Wallace who wrote Infinite Jest, which the second anon bastardized into 'The Infinity Joke,' most likely referencing the meme-joke that has recently arisen in reaction to the meme Infinite Jest readily became, at least here on /lit/.
But that's just my guess, maybe they know each other.
>>7412881
Adam Johnson is literally a "globe-trotting novelist" right now.
>>7412916
I was actually referring to David Shields in my post (he's been slamming the novel for a while).
The infinity joke post was probably exactly what you explained.
>>7412869
The other poster commented about giant novels so that was what I was referring to
>>7412727
>be me
>in navy, 9/11/2001 morning.
>"Holy shit, this is like Pearl Harbor"
>random plebe in my squadron: 'what's Pearl arbor"
>>7412745
It will be teenage girls telling each other they are stunning on social media.
>>7412951
A white tree, in a courtyard of stone.
>>7412951
MURRICA!
>>7412958
I, too, listen to This American Life.
>>7412821
No doubt artistic mediums will drastically change and recombine themselves–especially with the promising technologies you mentioned. But will we still be able to rightly call these new evolutions 'writing'? Sure we still use skeuomorphic terms like 'horsepower' and 'caught on tape,' but that's because they're vestiges of the past that remained comfortably nestled in common vernacular out of convenience. They still aren't technically accurate. I think 'the future of writing' will be digital design, the architecture of vicarious narrative, a lot like the game Roy from Rick and Morty.
But overall, I think you're right in saying that classic literature will be reserved for obscurantists and niche-keepers.
>>7412977
>I think 'the future of writing' will be digital design, the architecture of vicarious narrative.
That's what I was trying to say. You said it better.
>>7412977
But what about genuinely good writing, the craftsmanship of poetry and prose that's a joy in itself? No amount of visual art can replicate it. You can't replace Faulkner or Shakespeare or McCarthy with 'digital design.'
>>7412959
That's beautiful, like something from a The King In Yellow.
>>7413039
I'm not saying you're replacing anyone. I'm saying the "geniuses" of writing will be in the new blended mediums.
And Shakespeare wrote all dialogue. There's room for him anywhere.
Big, flowery, descriptive prose will be replaced when the masses can literally see it, hear it, and damn near touch it as if they're really there.
>People don't want huge books anymore.
>People don't have attention spans anymore.
What world are you living in?
>>7413046
Please be bait.
>>7413096
Wrong. Fiction is merely something we do in reality. Description doesn't attempt to replace reality, and therefore it's a false assumption to think virtual reality can attempt to replace description.
old news, the novel has already been reborn
>>7412693
>In 200 years, people are going to be reading the most interesting tweets.
Just like the explosion of literacy rates after the printing press lead to us primarily reading correspondence nowadays, right?
Retard.
You're talking out of your ass. Literature and communication are separate things. We might see changes to formatting, but there's no reason why literature would be replaced, rather than accumulate new tools. You also don't understand what makes the novel what it is; extension and context created by it, you don't get those with simple tweets, and if you have enough tweets to, what's the difference from a novel? And what's stopping people of making fake tweet-novels?
>>7412548
Aren't you supposed to apology for bad English?
>>7413146
No dipshit. I said easing tweets like you'd readthe proverbs and aphorisms of Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. Just because you're in denial doesn't mean you're incapable of abstract thought.
No where did I say people will be reading tweets as novels or fake tweet novels. But, yes, in case you were wondering, that's already being done.
Fucking Grandpa.
>>7413116
ha. okay grandpa.
>>7413098
Those books fucking suck. The only reason anyone has them is to impress chicks that are into the TV show. It's the same generation that grew up with Harry Potter that can now watch late night HBO. Also shitty books that had better movies.
>>7412712
I'm the right one!
>>7413172
How does that make literature "change", substantially? Because what you're talking about is nothing that's really different from what we already have, so your post is a non-statement.
>Just because you're in denial doesn't mean you're incapable of abstract thought.
What am I in denial about, exactly? I never said the "changes" you talk about will not happen. I just don't buy that they'll be anything near a game changer.
>No where did I say people will be reading tweets as novels or fake tweet novels.
Nowhere did you say they wouldn't. You just said literature was "changing" then jumped directly into reading tweets. Learn to format your posts better.
>Fucking Grandpa.
Funny thing is, it's likely I'm younger than you. How do I figure? I'm not ready to defend change for changes sake like you are.
It's also interesting to note you're calling me a "grandpa" despite me not saying anything about your statements on other media.
>>7413224
>I just don't buy that they'll be anything near a game changer.
That's denial.
>Retard.
That's why I called you Grandpa. You may be younger than me, maybe not. The meaning is the same. Again, you know what I meant but you, again, choose to say something about it for no reason at all.
>Learn to format your posts better.
I don't come here for the format, I come here for the speech.
>not saying anything about your statements
Here, I must admit, you're quite right. In fact, it would have been better if you hadn't said anything at all.
>>7413255
>That's denial.
Denial of what, again?
>That's why I called you Grandpa.
So your emotions got the better of you.
>Again, you know what I meant but you, again, choose to say something about it for no reason at all.
Hmm? I simply corrected you. Because you were wrong. You've yet to argue how you weren't, instead of excusing yourself.
>I don't come here for the format, I come here for the speech.
That's a nice false dichotomy you've got there, retard. But your words betray you, because you're not saying anything.
>In fact, it would have been better if you hadn't said anything at all.
Better for you? Wouldn't it have been better if you hadn't made a post in a literature board, dealing mostly with other media, pulling hyperbolic predictions out of your ass. Don't look at me buddy, I'm just working with what you give me.
So I'm asking you, again, how is literature going to "change" aside from the "format" you don't come here for?
>>7412548
The novel only dies if you let it.
>>7413172
>>7413179
At least disguise your bait better. Just calling someone grandpa for thinking screens and moving pictures won't really replace all that isn't as technological leaves very little room for someone to respond. The only appropriate way to respond is with something along the lines of "ok idiot".
But let me try harder: if you think narrative storytelling that uses words and description are only attempts to show an experience and can be easily replaced by movie and virtual reality, you're a sad, dumb little boy.
>>7412548
Who cares? We have millions of novels, you can't read them all anyways.
>>7413181
>The only reason anyone has them is to impress chicks that are into the TV show
>tfw this is the exact reason I read them several years ago
>>7413179
Other posts weren't me, but it's good to see someone else standing up to your retardation. What exactly did I say that was grandpa-ish? I didn't say virtual reality wouldn't exist. I merely stated it's not consistent logically or even artistically to think vr would somehow beat out prose. They're entirely different mediums.
>>7412548
THE NOVEL IS DEAD
ALL HAIL THE NOVEL
I think we're incapable of realizing the magnitude of cultural change that VR will cause.
>>7414020
Truly, a momentous leap in the human experience
>>7412693
It's dying. Everything is autistically STEM and tech orientated now. People have no time for superfluous information. TL;DR is the mantra of the 21st century.
Our future lies in memes.
All possible communication will be through universal memes. All legal documents will be drafted using memes. Hell, we won't even have numbers anymore; all replaced by dank memes.
Even our current currencies will be replaced by memes.
So don't start me on the future of novels. It will all be replaced by memes.
>>7414127
Amen brother
>>7414127
>>7414135
>Implying it already isn't, will forever be and has always only been memes.
Why project memes into the future when you can project them all into the past as well?
>>7412548
Then why do they publish "A Novel" on the cover of every book?
>>7414127
Blessed are the memes, for they shall inherit the earth.
>>7412548
To those in the thread on VR: sorry, but no, it won't produce any "art" in your lifetimes. VR is being produced for people to escape the world, experience pleasure or sensual delights, etc. A lot of great poetry is intellectual, non visual, non sensual even. How is VR going to present the depth of the following?
Degree being vizarded,
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure!
except as dialogue, where it fails to grab the experiencer as it does on paper?
What about:
Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.
And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death’s bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.
Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.
Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides ... High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.
You simply cannot replace poetry. There will always be poets, and poets will read each other. Poetry is extra-sensual, illogical, intuitive, intellectual, even at its basest. It is alien to all of the other visual and sensual arts. I won't argue that unless something fantastical happens, poetry will never be in the public sphere again (song lyrics and rap aren't poetry), but it's not going away for those who find fault in the logic of other arts and in the incessant positivism and scientism that's overcome most everyone's thought.
>>7414236
oh I'll add, that VR is going to be just like video games. It's for people to relax and turn off their brains after work. People don't turn on a video game to think -- and if they do, like Chess or a strategy game -- it's to think logically and towards a specific goal -- namely, winning. Games will always serve this purpose. That they are mainstream does not mean that art has to pay it attention, but rather realize that culture is taking a hedonistic, anti-intellectual turn. I'm not a grandpa for saying that, either.
VR is less like that, but it's still an engagement of the senses alone. Poetry cannot be replaced, at least fully, in its goals by "VR". Neither will the bulk of fiction other than garbage like Harry Potter.
>>7414244
One final thing -- I think the fascination with the internet and "knowing all at once" is a faux human way for humans to achieve the angelic form of thought as engendered by christian mysticism. That is, humans think through one fact or belief, move towards another, and culminate at a final thought, or objective goal of thinking -- a conclusion, and knowledge. Angels in christian mysticism know all at once -- they do not have to gain knowledge, for they have all knowledge and know facts and statements at once. The 21st century will be a striving towards this type of perception, and we'll realize at the end of it that it was a waste of a century in art and thinking.
>>7414244
>It's for people to relax and turn off their brains
>it's to think logically and towards a specific goal
Which one of them is it, senpai?
>>7414236
>this fucking guy
The one guy on all of /lit/ who's still into poetry. Thinks it's still alive. Constantly posts poetry threads. Constantly posts shit poetry.
Jesus Christ.
>>7413039
The greats will always still be seen and respected as the greats. >>7413096 is right however in saying that with new artistic mediums comes new slots for future artistic juggernauts whose future influence will be as prominent as the literary (and other mediums) giants of the past. Whether or not there will also be literary giants in the future, I don't know, but I'd put my money on there still being a demand for it.
>>7413116
>fiction is merely something we do in reality
Sounds either like you've been reading Debord or have your definitions mixed up. Sure great facts appear as fiction and vice-versa, but fiction is the literal opposite of reality; to say it is 'something we do' is fiction in itself.
And obviously description doesn't replace reality, it ratifies it through consensus between conscious agents (and in this case constitutes literary fiction), but that doesn't mean that 'virtual reality' can't be used as a medium of description, of representation in itself and contemporaneously with older mediums of description (which seems you actually don't disagree with). Anyway, if anything, 'virtual reality' is at a higher risk of replacing reality, which you say description doesn't replace (though I don't know why you even bother to say this because nobody was claiming as such), than description because, judging from who kids spend their leisure time on these days, people tend to want more and more immersive experiences.
And to clarify once more, I don't think the novel will be entirely subsumed by upcoming mediums, just that it'll be quite marginalized, which it is more or less already now.
Like it or not, but Jonathan Franzen is doing things.
>>7414236
But fiction is a form of escapism in its own right, though not exclusively so. And I think we need to clarify that mediums rarely get replaced; they lose popularity, become marginalized, and become overshadowed by other mediums in vogue.
>>7414383
You could argue that Western "fiction" started with either Homer or Gilgamesh, verse or non est. Both were highly didactic -- that they were fantastical or mythical does not change that. The myth to carry the listener, the message to change them.
>>7414341
an audience of five people is still an audience.
>>7414324
do I have to be a sophist about it or can we both agree that you know exactly what I meant?
>>7414575
No, I don't know exactly what you mean. Either they are using their brains or they aren't, which one is it? And no, them not using their brains for what you think they should be doesn't make it not using them.
>>7414644
> And no, them not using their brains for what you think they should be doesn't make it not using them.
To me it actually does
>>7414657
Why though? What use is you thinking people aren't using their brains with most art, when they obviously are in some way? Why do you expect them to interpret different content in the same way?
If what you're looking for is thoughtful reflection, you could achieve that with most artforms if you give your audience the right tools. Just remember people are dumb (more in the older meaning of the word), so they aren't going to be thinking about stuff unless you make them. Figure out how to do that instead of crossing off a whole portion of experience.
>>7412548
While sitting in a Literature class and witnessing amazing writing being labeled as "sexist." Then immediately having the following lectures deconstruct into sociological discussions of gender.
>>7412881
At first I was a little depressed because you are probably right, but then I realized that there were more amazing books written before I was born than I could ever deal with in a lifetime anyway, so I dont mind being a hipster scavenging in the corpse of literature.
>>7412548
Quit sperging out. Novels are atill being written. It's literally a book. How can it die? It cant.
Great literature will, most likely, move the same way that "classical" music has in the past century and a half. It won't go away, not even from the popular consciousness, but it sure as well won't be getting more popular. Everyone will know, somewhere in their hearts and minds, that Shakespeare or Joyce (or insert your favorite classic here) is somehow technically better than what they choose to consume, as we know that Bach (or your favorite composer here) is better than Tame Imapala or Drake or any other hugely famous modern pop artist. Yet that won't change our tastes. Even though there are modern composers following classical examples (ie there will be future novelists) they are hardly a part of our cultural consciousness.
Literature will be a prop in movies to separate the brilliant bad guy apart; it will be a way to seem incredibly smart; it will be a lifetime passion and love for some; but I can't imagine it will ever be in the public eye more than competing art forms.
This is, I think, a pretty good description of a phenomenon already compete for poetry. I guess the tl;dr is the word "niche." Does that mean dead?
Who knows; who cares
>>7415097
So what you're saying is if I read books I'll justifiably be able to call those who don't idiots.
Just like I do now!
