[blockwriter]

I do not doubt that the audience is shrinking. In fact, I feel it. All the same, I am of the opinion that people that already participate in the lifestyle of literature, that is the reading and writing of literature in earnest, could benefit from an ecosystem that extends their practice beyond the solitary. If it yet cannot assuage the symptoms, then perhaps this system can diagnose the disease. This, in turn, might positively influence the writing that gets done. At the end of the day, it is unlikely that any given writer of literature will find mainstream or financial success, but at the core of many writers is the innate drive to assess the world and put down in words something that is meaningful.

The pandemic was an illuminating study of the failure of literature in the 21st century. It seems like it should have produced a great work and a great moment, but it did not. Many writers need to go through the humbling process of discovering that the world writ large, despite the writer’s estimation of their own intellect, remains too confusing for them to say anything of value. This tension is also, I think, what accounts for our more absurd, even hallucinatory, ideas about what literature, and by extension man, was, is, and can be. I went through that process and had to come to terms with the tension between my appreciation for the aesthetic wonder of literature and my often unaesthetic and distracted upbringing. I then thought extensively about my environment and how little of my linguistic life was a matter of course. I did not pen letters, nor discuss literature extensively with peers. My peers did not read or respond to my writing. I ultimately came to understand what the problem set is. My solutions are yet unlikely to solve the big question of whether or not literature can survive in the 21st century, but they ease my load. The road ahead is a long one, and appropriately Quixotic, but I undertake it with the notion that it will ease the tension of others as well, even if they only end up being accomplished writers in search of accomplished readers.

[lokalfarm]

Thanks for reading & responding!

I don't really see any reasons to doubt that literature will survive the 21st century. Its place is always going to be there, right? But the publishing industry and academia? I think that is a different issue altogether and they are certainly having their day(s) of reckoning. I think we feel its impact even more strongly because other economic & technological forces have intersected to completely destroy adjacent industries like, well, bookstores :P

For many of us growing up, books (esp. fiction) were the best possible form of escape/recreation. Now we're seeing a generation growing up with high powered tablets & phones that must seem magical. To socialize with friends they can talk while playing video games, send videos, or take pictures. The written word doesn't seem very incentivized for them... & I just don't see any of this changing. Luckily for us, though, you can spend a few lifetimes digging through all the literature produced up to this point, and I don't see that going anywhere.

Interesting in regards to writing as a solitary vs social act. Have you ever read Paul Auster's The Invention of Solitude? For me, similar to computers/the Internet, one of the beauties of literature is how it is both a solitary & deeply connected 'thing.' How do you feel about some of the common criticisms of MFA programs[0]? Obviously a throwback beatnik/bohemian cafe/store has a very different barrier of entry than these graduate programs, but sorta relevant when we're talking about writing as a solitary act vs social.

[0]: https://erikhoel.substack.com/p/how-the-mfa-swallowed-litera...

Edit: I wanted to say that if you haven't been, Quimby's Bookstore in Wicker Park is a really cool spot! Been over five years since I was living there but the nerd in me thought their selection of zines was amazing.

[blockwriter]

I derive a real joy from thinking about this, so thank you.

I’ll pick up the Invention of Solitude straight away.

On the subject of the advantage to solitude in engaging with literature, a distinction can be made between the beam of white light and everything after the prism. Reading literary fiction, in particular, is edifying, and the result of this experience is the feeling that it is full of nuance and could be understood to a greater degree. Reading books on criticism will tease out some of the frequencies, but the full spectrum becomes realized when the private act of reading is put into conversation with another’s private act of reading. Novels of once seemingly enjoyed a network effect of sorts. They had the capacity to be private and public experiences. I can tel you, too, that engaging more and more with reading, and less therefore with the other cultural mediums available to us, means that one has fewer people with which to connect. A retreat into literature was in my case the result of reading waste and trivia into the alternatives that the culture encouraged. It is this loneliness that may be the primary problem in need of a solution.

I read the mfa article linked above. In general, mfas seem to do what Rome did to Christianity. It routinized it to such an extent that it largely denuded it of its most radical capacity. For me, the most vital aspect of literature, the one that is, in Bottom’s own terms, bottomless, is the constitution of characters that go just beyond understanding. The tilt that occurs when a character demonstrates its reflexivity, its comprehension of the moments it experiences, is a profound beauty, even Bodhisattvian. When you treat the process of writing like it is prescriptive, the writer is unlikely to realize that what they are creating is a notion unto itself. So, the publishing industry is staffed with people that have lost the capacity to recognize writing’s purpose. They instead have come to recognize a collection of shorthand cheats and the feedback loop draws the whole structure away from meaningful production. It merely produces.