Can Intelligent Literature survive the digital age?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

So it seems that we are all succumbing to the disease of short attention spans. Is there anything other than anecdotal evidence to support this theory?

Well, there is this in the article:

In 1994, an American academic called Sven Birkerts published a seminal study, "The Gutenberg Elegies: the Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age". Before plunging into the page vs screen debate, he recalled his experience of teaching a course on "the American short story" to a class of undergraduates. They tackled Henry James's story "Brooksmith", and hated it. Was it, asked Birkerts, the language, the style, the syntax? All of those, said the students. It turned out they were defeated by everything that James was trying to communicate. The narrative river of thoughts wasn't one on which they could sail. The subtle moral distinctions between characters, the importance of their choices in the society through which they moved – it wasn't just that the students found such things old-fashioned; they couldn't grasp them at all.

Birkerts found that, as watchers of TV and videos, "they had difficulty slowing down enough to concentrate on prose of any density; they had problems with what they thought of as archaic diction, with allusions, with vocabulary that seemed 'pretentious'; they were especially uncomfortable with indirect or interior passages, indeed with any deviations from straight plot; and they were put off by an ironic tone, because it flaunted superiority and made them feel they were missing something." It dawned on Birkerts that a whole generation of young American readers were becoming gradually decoupled from the whole culture of the written word.

I do wonder how accurate a study made over a decade ago is. How much of it was based on a predetermined result of thinking? I find more young'uns go browsing through the stacks at my place and are continually finding volumes that interest them. And not esoteric ones but many of the same ones that were required reading when I was less jaded and gray.

Sorry, but when teens are discovering Twain, Orwell, Sinclair or even Steinbeck for the first time from somebodys stash outside of school, it's a little hard to blame "modern media and all the access to it".

Those that had heard of them were usually forced to read it like a textbook instead of a story. They were told what it means, the history of it, how to interpret it, and graded on how well they absorbed the approved data. Cripes, if I learned to read the classics that way I would have hated it too!

On a lovely side note, I got an official request from an English teacher to quit "allowing the children coming over to browse the shelves without proper supervision" and using said books found in class reports on literature. Apparently the teacher had some issues with a few papers on The Jungle, 1984 and Letters From Earth. Said that children (these "children" are around 15) should not be exposed to the themes, thoughts and situations those types of books show. It would confuse them and could cause trouble.

Heh, I though a good chunk of lit WAS to cause trouble in one form or another. Seems that is something they are trying to take out and yet that is something that really attracts someone to reading when young.

[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by tompe

he recalled his experience of teaching a course on "the American short story" to a class of undergraduates [ ...] It dawned on Birkerts that a whole generation of young American readers were becoming gradually decoupled from the whole culture of the written word.

Then again, school effectively killed my urge to read for years to come. It literally took me years to pick up a book again, and a few more years before enjoying some of the classical literature that my school went through such trouble to suck all the joy out of.

I also have my doubts about hinging this alleged global decline of reading and/or attention spans on one class of US undergraduate students.

[Slite]

Originally Posted by acidzebra

Then again, school effectively killed my urge to read for years to come. It literally took me years to pick up a book again, and a few more years before enjoying some of the classical literature.

I also have my doubts about hinging this alleged global decline of reading on one class of US undergraduate students.

For me it was quite the opposite, I had a teacher from first grade who actively encouraged reading, and since I was able to read well enough before starting school, she happily kept supplying me with new titles to delve into. And I will be forever grateful for it. Reading books has given me so much over the 40 years since those first forrays into literature.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by stxopher

I do wonder how accurate a study made over a decade ago is. How much of it was based on a predetermined result of thinking? I find more young'uns go browsing through the stacks at my place and are continually finding volumes that interest them. And not esoteric ones but many of the same ones that were required reading when I was less jaded and gray.

Sorry, but when teens are discovering Twain, Orwell, Sinclair or even Steinbeck for the first time from somebodys stash outside of school, it's a little hard to blame "modern media and all the access to it".

Those that had heard of them were usually forced to read it like a textbook instead of a story. They were told what it means, the history of it, how to interpret it, and graded on how well they absorbed the approved data. Cripes, if I learned to read the classics that way I would have hated it too!

On a lovely side note, I got an official request from an English teacher to quit "allowing the children coming over to browse the shelves without proper supervision" and using said books found in class reports on literature. Apparently the teacher had some issues with a few papers on The Jungle, 1984 and Letters From Earth. Said that children (these "children" are around 15) should not be exposed to the themes, thoughts and situations those types of books show. It would confuse them and could cause trouble.

Heh, I though a good chunk of lit WAS to cause trouble in one form or another. Seems that is something they are trying to take out and yet that is something that really attracts someone to reading when young.

Good thing I didn't have those sort of teachers when I was in school. Of couse I don't think my english teachers appreciated that I was reading books like 1984 in the third grade....(I was lucky. I had parents who respected reading and older siblings bringing home books from class, and I read everything.)

[TallMomof2]

My personal experience with Literature classes was not good. I was expected to able to detect and regurgitate the "correct" themes and symbolism. We were told what the author meant not allowed to come up with our own conclusions.

Maybe that's why I'm an engineer.

[Format C:]

People use mostly one out of three communication channels: voice-ears (Auditive person), gestures-eyes (Visual person), other senses-whole body (Kinestethic person).

You can guess them going to a car sale and watching their behaviour: A will give a quick glance to the car and quickly ask questions to the salesman; V will peer at the car, while walking around it; K will sit in the car, touch the wheel, feel the gear, smell the cockpit...

The quote here is typical of a K-type, who feels the urge to touch, smell, hear pages while they turn.

But it's not going to happen on the Sony Reader. Nobody is ever going to read Tolstoy on this fatuous device. It's an electronic simulation of a page, but it'll never convince you it's a book, to be read by your sentient eyes and brain. It doesn't have the solidity, the pages, the tactile companionship of a book. You'll never know where you are in the story, or how much of it is left. You won't have the cover artwork, to steal inside your head and become a lifelong reminder of the book it encased.

And you can't turn the pages. I spent half an hour reading Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (the first book to be installed) with my fingers itching to turn a page; "turn" one electronically, and the screen goes blank before the next page is displayed.

The author of those lines thinks everybody is kinestethic just because he is....



That may be a limit of e-book readers: they suit just Visual people.
Auditives will always prefer audiobooks (or will they read aloud their kindle?), kinestethics will always go for printed books.

[HarryT]

I'm afraid I find it difficult to take a thread on "intelligent literature" seriously when the word "Litterature" [sic] is mis-spelled in the thread title .

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid I find it difficult to take a thread on "intelligent literature" seriously when the word "Litterature" [sic] is mis-spelled in the thread title .

sorry, that is my fault. there was a typo in the original title ("inteligent") and when i corrected that i added the extra "t" to literature (which does take 2 ts in french, so it's an honest mistake).

on the other hand, anyone can make a typo (as both i and the original poster have proven) and i'm not convinced that knowing how to spell is the same as being intelligent...

[HarryT]

I'm the world's worst typist - it just struck me as amusing given the subject matter of the thread .

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm afraid I find it difficult to take a thread on "intelligent literature" seriously when the word "Litterature" [sic] is mis-spelled in the thread title .

That's the word Lewis Carroll used in the preface to "Sylvie and Bruno":

"And thus it came to pass that I found myself at last in possession of a huge unwieldy mass of litterature--if the reader will kindly excuse the spelling --which only needed stringing together, upon the thread of a consecutive story, to constitute the book I hoped to write."

I think, at the end, Sylvie and Bruno came to be a piece of intelligent literature

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Good thing I didn't have those sort of teachers when I was in school. Of couse I don't think my english teachers appreciated that I was reading books like 1984 in the third grade....(I was lucky. I had parents who respected reading and older siblings bringing home books from class, and I read everything.)

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

My personal experience with Literature classes was not good. I was expected to able to detect and regurgitate the "correct" themes and symbolism. We were told what the author meant not allowed to come up with our own conclusions.

Maybe that's why I'm an engineer.

That makes a good set of examples right there. One with teachers that probably actually taught thinking skills and one that sounds like they had Cliff-note teachers. You both obviously like to read or you wouldn't be here. And I will lay safe odds that, amazingly, you both have access to modern electronic media and entertainment yet you STILL read.

(Hmmm, sorry. I think we will have to throw your data out since it must be in error. It doesn't match the rest of the study.)

It does seem that people who read at a formative age do so in spite of the best efforts of the educational system. Then they carry that same disdain of reading through their young adult years and on into the rest of their lives. The genuine readers are usually bright enough to find stimulation in the printed word and (as in the case of TM2) keep it even against the forces of the mundane.

Could it be that with the way things stand now the people who present all these "authoritative" reviews and studies are the same ones who made it through the "accepted way-only way" schools of thought and did so not for the love of the word but the love of, well, getting though school? These seem like the same people who consider graduating from an institution more important than learning anything at said hallowed halls.

Side thoughts on professional experts:
One of my uncles travels a lot. Businessman, mid-level. Knowledgeable enough to be needed in various branches of the company to train, troubleshoot and setup operations all around the world. He is a nice man, a smart fellow and generally up on things. Most of the family as well as the company he works for consider him to be an expert on world travel and treat him as the go-to guy for touring. This is something he takes pride in and also considers himself to be the expert. His self-confidence in his knowledge is strong enough that he automatically considers any differing opinion or point "naive" at best, "outright stupid" at worst.

The problem is when he travels to all those countries, to all those cities, it's always directly to where he must do what it is he must do. Leave home, ride plane to destination, go to factory, branch or seminar, get back on plane, return home. See the problem? Yes, he has flown to many wonderful countries and been to many far away cities but he never really traveled anywhere and, in fact, hates traveling! But he is considered the expert on travel (as opposed to what he IS an expert on: getting to and from destinations).

How many experts are like my uncle? Considered experts due to having the end credentials but not any of the things they should know and understand that comes with working you way through the middle? (Such as coming back from Thailand having only eaten in the hotels McDonalds and complaining about how badly the English spoken was by some of the taxi drivers he had to use. Or after having used a reader for 30 minutes complaining of how the ingrained habits of years didn't work with the reader they were testing.)

"Experts" are nice and if you find ones you can trust, great. But the majority of us will find that the best "experts" are the ones who aren't. The most useful information and reviews come from the ones whose opinions count the least. Us and people like us.

Think about it. Most of us with readers spent months looking, comparing, waiting for one that suited our needs. Some have gone though several, some found theirs on the first shot. The experts usually spend less than a few hours and often admit right at the start they weren't going to like it, going into the process the same way a tyke approaches beets (I'll eat it but I'll hate it).

We're the ones who spend the time learning about the things we're interested in. The good things, the bad things, the things that would prevent us from enjoying them and the things that make it desirable to get them. The parts we enjoy and find useful, we share. The parts not so useful, we warn about. Hit up the books section and you find books that have been edited, formatted and presented not out of profit but love of books. Look and you'll see tools, manuals, tutorials, tips, work arounds, deals. All of it free. Because we're not experts. We just love reading. We love our gadgets but do so because of what they give us, not the gadget themselves. (Well, except for my Gundam pencil sharpener. That's cool!)

So....what does that makes us?

Condensed Version:
Experts are like call girls. For the right price, they'll tell you anything you want to hear.

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm the world's worst typist...

Perhaps you've spent too much time marking cuneiform on your tablets (okay, ante-fired ones) with your stylus, Harry. You need to get out some, man.

[RWood]

I remember reading some old articles once about how all lit would pass away under the onslaught of pulp magazines and later articles on the death of lit because of these new throw away "paperback" books. At each stage more and more people started reading and reading classic lit.

Once college was the domain of the elite who were raised on the classics. Today the classics are mangled at all levels form high schools to colleges. I had some of the same instructors as badgooddeb. "Teachers" who could not see the joyful playfulness in Twain's writing because they missed that page in their Cliff Notes. "Teachers" more concerned about Fitzgerald's sexual orientation than his writing. "Teachers" concentrating on Hemingway's political leanings rather than his fiction. "Teachers" who thought Voltaire was English because Candide was in English.

It is a wonder that I can think at all.

[Penforhire]

Maybe Sven Birkerts was just a poor teacher or his students were a sub-par cross section. It remains anecdotal evidence anyway, not any sort of scientific study.

C'mon! When we were in school we were surrounded by clueless students regardless of when we attended school. It might vary for special schools and programs but I recall a distribution of readers back when I attended school that anyone could have griped about equally without blaming the "age" they lived in. G.O.M. indeed.

Calling the Sony reader a "fatuous device" firmly establishes Andrew Cowan's blind bias.

I'll agree we live an an era of more noise and less signal. That just means we learn to discriminate and multi-task. Some people master the art of web searches and some founder.

His article recalls the cry of generations past, "kids these days..."

edit - As a side note, does this author carve his works on stone tablets? Or does he consider the typewriter and word processor to be worthy advances for a writer to use? Makes me wonder.