posted
I've been rereading The Lord of the Rings; this is only my third time around the block (I was a late Tolkien bloomer).
Obviously the movies are different from the books; books usually need to be condensed and tweaked and such in order to provide a cohesive, enjoyable cinematic experience.
But then I was breezing through some more contemporary fan/scifi books (by John Barnes and Connie Willis and Sherri S. Tepper) and was struck by how archaic Tolkien sounds. All those paragraphs without any dialogue at all really stood out to me.
I've really noticed that style in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. As narrator (sort of in the "Now, gentle reader" style), he often cuts from sub-plot to sub-plot in a distinctly televisionary (I like that word!) style. He also asks readers to imagine certain sounds and images. I can tell from his style that he's seeing his story play out as a movie in his head, especially when he inserts common cinematic deviced for parodic purposes.
But more books seem to take after movies more and more. THe way the scenes cut, one to another; the tempo; the dialogue is much snappier. There are more sound-bite-y, dramatic lines in today's books.
Do you think that it's general laziness brought on by readers and writers being accustomed to the passive pleasures of watching TV, as opposed to the more active mental state required for good reading?
Although I hesitate to characterize the style change as a simple dumbing-down of writing. Just as young Victorian men might have quoted Longfellow and Byron and Milton, I think contemporary young men quote Sandler and Python and Carrey. So maybe TV has homogenized our culture and changed the frame of reference for everybody, and that's why books are more and more cinematic.
I think people in my generation who've grown up on TV and computers, can process visual information more rapidly than previous generations. I think that ability is twinned with a short attention span.
The first Neal Stephenson book I read, Snow Crash , embodies fast, frenetic flitting mayflies of thought. I loved that book.
What do you guys think about books reflecting the way American/English speaking culture thinks" What do you think is preferable in books?
Posts: 575 | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
I think it's pretty inevitable that writing styles--indeed, artistic styles in general--will change to reflect the population producing them. Additionally, I completely disagree that writing was "better" in the "old days." It's just different. Writing today is a whole spectrum of styles and talents, and it was that way before. It's just that we don't read the "trashy" stuff of yesteryear anymore, in large part because it doesn't exist outside of museums, research libraries, and a few private collections.
Additionally, I don't think the people that quoted Byron and Milton a couple of hundred years ago were really analogous to the people quoting movies today. I highly doubt that "high" literature had much cross-class accessibility back then. I think the people that were quoting Byron and Milton back then are more like the ones quoting Byron and Milton now. Or maybe Eco or Gene Wolfe or Faulkner or what have you.
It's just too easy to say things are getting dumber.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
True. It's something of an excuse. It's difficult to qualify "dumber" as a way of describing literature. There are a lot of people saying that classic literature is hard to read and pointless, but there are also a lot of people who won't read contemporary literature. It's best to read a smattering of all of it, and appreciate it on its own terms.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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