How do we find the next literary masterpiece among the 1 million+ books published each year (and I believe that number will rise rapidly as increasing numbers of writers publish direct from their computer to Internet). Don’t we need to find the next literary masterpiece? Don’t we need to separate the Shakespeares from the Joe Schmoes? Or does it not matter if we never find another Shakespeare? Or find another literary masterpiece? Does it not matter what our literary state says about our culture, our state of intellectual advancement?
For me, this is the dilemma. What role does literature play in our society? In our civilizing process? In our civilization? If we view the role as very limited or expendable, then finding and nurturing the next Hemingway is unnecessary and having ebooks be the leveler for all writing is acceptable.
But if literature’s role is important, if it is important that future generations be able to point to particular authors as purveyors of culture and builders of social mores, then finding and nurturing the next Hemingway takes on great importance and the anything goes from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet ebooks are problematic absent some method for finding the next Hemingway.Too many people think that the leveling of the playing field that ebooks brings is the only thing that matters; they are too dismissive of the gatekeeping role and assume that readers themselves can act effectively as the sieve. By sheer volume alone, this is impracticable, but it is also impracticable when there are no standards for determining the quality or lack of quality of an ebook.
Books serve many purposes in a society. They can be, for example, pushers of social change or recorders of social injustice. Books can be the purveyors of ideas that change a society’s direction. But to do these things, books must be read and read by more than a handful of people. The elitism that came about with having one’s book published by a traditional publisher also gave the book the social standing to be a game changer. With a leveled playing field, such books do not stand out – they are lost in the mass (morass?) of available books.
eBooks are clearly the new medium for idea dissemination and pbooks are clearly in decline. And just as the number of direct-from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet ebooks continues to increase, there is a parallel decline in literature — because society cannot create a consensus that a work is worthy of being called literature; too many books with too few readers to build consensus.
When following the traditional publishing route, an author strives for excellence because the author needs to separate his or her work from that of the masses. The competition for gatekeeper recognition that drives an author to strive for excellence doesn’t exist in the direct-from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet-ebook world. I’m not suggesting that the direct-from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet-ebook authors do not strive to do their best, but rather that the pressure to do whatever it takes to be the best no longer exists; that an author more quickly reaches the point of saying his or her work is good enough. No gatekeeper is saying more work is needed, much too often there is not even an editor reviewing the work, and the author knows that his or her ebook is going to be hard to find among the hundreds of thousands other good-enough ebooks. Good enough becomes the great leveler.
The standard of good enough is not a high enough standard for literature. It can be sufficient for the casual read (although I would argue that it is insufficient for any read), where the book will be read once, never read again, and forgotten completely within hours, if not within minutes. Good enough is not the Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird standard; it is not the standard met by a book that is still being read 50 years after its birth. Good enough, although a common standard for going direct-from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet ebook, is not a high enough standard for literature.
eBooks will be the downfall of literature and the arising of good enough! We already see that; and our current complaints about poor quality ebooks are likely to escalate in numbers and frequency. Future generations will miss out on today’s and tomorrow’s literature because what could be literature will not be recognized as such among the mass of direct-from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet ebooks that the new publishing paradigm encourages.
The real devaluation of books is not low price but the direct-from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet ebook model of publishing.
Editor’s Note: Rich Adin is an editor and owner of Freelance Editorial Services, a provider of editorial and production services to publishers and authors. This is reprinted, with permission, from his An American Editor blog. PB
Crowd-sourcing. It works. Have a little faith that people will decide what people will value, and what people value is the only standard that matters in the long run. Besides, your argument is self-defeating. “Great literature” is already defined by what the aggregate of opinion decides it is. How else could you put ‘Catcher in the Rye’ and Shakespeare even remotely in the same category?
Direct-from-writer’s-computer-to-Internet produces a contradiction “published unedited manuscripts”. Look alikes for properly edited and published works, perhaps confusing, but more helpful to humanity than a rotting stack of sheets being dined upon by silverfish until they are thrown-out after the author’s funeral.
What masterpieces have been lost in this traditional cost of the paper press — the lost manuscripts never seen and thus never missed?
At the moment the gatekeeper role of publishing houses will be lost, the same momentary loss happened with the introduction of computer typesetting and the loss of skilled typesetters. The recovery has been slow, but it is well under-way.
Rich what is historically momentary is real enough when we live our short lives, but really the forces of social evolution are at work and there is no opposing the inevitable.
Hegel: Freedom does not lie in freedom from necessity, but the recognition of necessity and the manipulation of its laws.
Besides which I have lived long enough to have seen the magnificent standards of the British press eroded by American corporatism, the majority of publications just pulp fiction (especially the textbooks). Consider this —
The Strand Magazine was designed to be read by the new class of suburban railway commuters. Its articles where edited to be read in just twenty minutes.
Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” was cut in half for just this reason, the other Sherlock Holmes short stories were shorter.
The standard of English expression, the elegant employment of complex grammar and a rich vocabulary is general well beyond the modern reader finishing in anything much under two hours and only a small part of this is due to it being over a century old.
Te horse has bolted long ago, the critical element was not publishing but a decline in educational standards. Now too many people believe that Dan Brown is a good writer — in one way I believe your concerns – justified in the moment – will find their own cure in the medium itself. In another way, the real problem is quite another thing.
Allow me to provide you with just one example of a positive outcome in this ‘brave new world’ without gatekeepers:
http://www.mitaliblog.com/2010/05/amazon-as-publisher-insiders-view-from.html
And this:
The people who decide what is ‘publishable’ are often wrong (and bigoted). Why should we presume differently about those who decide what ‘great literature’ is?
The worldwide deluge of stories has inspired web-based critics and reviewers like me. My opinions at Booktaste are no more valid than those of other bloggers but when we direct readers to a good book they return in hope of fresh delights.