Quote:
Originally Posted by rkomar
@Elfwreck: you've given some good reasons why we're less likely to find significant books and writers today than during the "Golden Age".
|
We'll find them; it'll just take them longer to be nearly-universally recognized.
Quote:
|
I have no doubt that people are just as talented today as they were 50 years ago. However, if we're not reading their books, what good is that?
|
We are reading them. That's like saying "the really good TV must've been in the 70's because the top shows averaged over 30 million viewers, but today they they have barely half of that. What's the point of producing a show nobody watches?"
There are more people now. More books. More diversity in available media. There is plenty more quality material; there's just so much *else* that it's not immediately apparent.
Quote:
|
Maybe the "Golden Age" was really about developing and bringing the talent to the fore,
|
The "golden age" was about gatekeepers deciding what "talent" was and the public going along because they had no way to get access to anything else.
Quote:
|
rather than whether there was more of it around then. With the way big money is pushing the publishing business, I have no trouble believing that today's system might be less geared towards producing significant works than it used to be when it was directed by book lovers.
|
It's still very much directed by book lovers... it's just not directed entirely by white male English-speaking upper-class book lovers. And with the erosion of the system that defined "quality" as "appealing to a particular class of readers," we have a standards system in utter chaos.
Which doesn't mean there are fewer quality works available; it just means we have no neat-and-simple universal vocabulary for establishing which ones they are. Fortunately, despite the marketing plans of large publishers, books are not produce; they don't wilt at the turn of the seasons. The quality works will find readers, if more slowly than they used to (because there's so much more competition for people's attention), and in 50 years, we'll have a nice list of "the best books of the first decade of the 21st century," and they'll stand proudly alongside Harrison, McCarthy, Roth, Kesey, and Theroux.