Does litterature still evolve?

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by Nancy Fulda

On the whole, novels tend to devote less words to description than they did a hundred years ago.

Depends on what genre you read. I think with epic fantasy in particular it's the opposite.

[Kasper Hviid]

Okay, I'm trying to list what have been concluded so far:

- Less censorship.

- There's a whole bunch of "alpha billionaire" erotica/romance out there, and a lot of "how did you get out of elementary school without being able to write better than this" content in the same field, but there are a few smut peddlers who take pride in their work.

- (relative) new use of the written word: Flash Fiction, Slash Fiction, Text adventures, Depresion Quest, Visual Novels.

- Novels generally devotes less words to description. Fast paced novels were in poor taste earlier, but are now the norm.

- Novels takes inspiration from mainstream movie genres and tropes, and tries to write something akin to the visual language of movies.

- Good modern science fiction use much better characterizations than classic 1950's and 1960's stories. The genre is no longer ashamed of itself. More stories are character driven.

- Compare a SF novel from the 1940s to one printed today. There's a certain flavor to the older book, a "Golden Age feel" that differs sharply from the more modern work.

- Some genres evolve strong subgenres that did not really stand alone before. I am thinking of urban fantasy (e.g. The War for the Oaks or The Hollows series) and cyberpunk SF (e.g. Neuromancer or Snow Crash).

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Dickens . . . found, for example, that sugar-coated sentimental scenes of dying children sold like the proverbial hot cakes, and put them in several of his books precisely because of that.

Dickens often wrote for effect and the result was both intentional and unconscious. The intentional aspect is reflected in his ambitions and successes. The unconscious aspect is betrayed by his mannerisms, such as his notorious lapses into iambic pentameter in sentimental paragraphs.

He not only wrote for money and popularity but was irrepressibly jealous of writers who were more popular than he. He published at least one article in which he vilified the most successful writers of his time for supposed moral lapses.

I've been trying to hunt down the name of the piece in which Dickens essentially attacked everyone who leaped ahead of him on the bestseller lists of the day but haven't found it so far. An article about him (in the New York Review of Books, possibly) also points out that everyone whom Dickens attacked is no longer read or even known outside specialists' circles.

Although Dickens' admirers (and many credible historians) consider social reform to be his motive for writing and the ultimate effect of his work, Dickens himself did not explore any constructive alternatives to the grim industrial world he portrayed:

The truth is that Dickens's criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence the utter lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. He attacks the law, parliamentary government, the educational system and so forth, without ever clearly suggesting what he would put in their places. Of course it is not necessarily the business of a novelist, or a satirist, to make constructive suggestions, but the point is that Dickens's attitude is at bottom not even destructive. There is no clear sign that he wants the existing order to be overthrown, or that he believes it would make very much difference if it were overthrown. For in reality his target is not so much society as ‘human nature’. It would be difficult to point anywhere in his books to a passage suggesting that the economic system is wrong as a system. Nowhere, for instance, does he make any attack on private enterprise or private property. Even in a book like Our Mutual Friend, which turns on the power of corpses to interfere with living people by means of idiotic wills, it does not occur to him to suggest that individuals ought not to have this irresponsible power.

-- George Orwell, "Charles Dickens"

It's possible that what motivated Dickens to write about the abusive work conditions he encountered as a child was their potential for sentimental catharsis and shock value. Then again, the pain and trauma brought about by those conditions, and the vindication he must have found in surviving them, are powerful incentives to write about them as well.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Although Dickens' admirers (and many credible historians) attribute social reform as both the primary motive for and the ultimate effect of his work, Dickens himself did not explore any constructive alternatives to the grim industrial world he portrayed

Perhaps not in his novels, but don't forget that Dickens was also a journalist and the editor of several newspapers and magazines over the course of his career, and in his journalism he assuredly did campaign for social reforms such as universal education, working conditions for industrial workers, and the abolition of capital punishment.

I would also suggest that by bringing social problems into the public view in his novels, he was extremely influential in bringing about change, even if he didn't suggest solutions to those problems in the novels themselves. The classic example of that is the abolition of the infamous "Yorkshire Schools" that Dickens highlighted in his novel "Nicholas Nickleby". The public exposure of these dreadful places in the novel led directly to Acts of Parliament which resulted in their closure.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by HarryT

[D]on't forget that Dickens was also a journalist and the editor of several newspapers and magazines over the course of his career, and in his journalism he assuredly did campaign for social reforms such as universal education, working conditions for industrial workers, and the abolition of capital punishment.

I would also suggest that by bringing social problems into the public view in his novels, he was extremely influential in bringing about change, even if he didn't suggest solutions to those problems in the novels themselves. The classic example of that is the abolition of the infamous "Yorkshire Schools" that Dickens highlighted in his novel "Nicholas Nickleby". The public exposure of these dreadful places in the novel led directly to Acts of Parliament which resulted in their closure.

All good points. I'd love to know what Orwell would have said in response.

The piece I mentioned before must appear in a collection of his articles and essays. I still mean to hunt for it.

Even so, Dickens' value in terms of social reform doesn't rescue his fiction from resorting to bad melodrama or relying on what Forster called "flat characters" in Aspects of the Novel. I happen to think that flat characters work better in a satire than a tragedy, which is partly why I prefer Thomas Love Peacock to Charles Dickens.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

All good points. I'd love to know what Orwell would have said in response.

The piece I mentioned before must appear in a collection of his articles and essays. I still mean to hunt for it.

Even so, Dickens' value in terms of social reform doesn't rescue his fiction from resorting to bad melodrama or relying on what Forster called "flat characters" in Aspects of the Novel. I happen to think that flat characters work better in a satire than a tragedy, which is partly why I prefer Thomas Love Peacock to Charles Dickens.

Yes, but who has ever heard of Thomas Love Peacock.

I think Dickens characters are far from flat, so there.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yes, but who has ever heard of Thomas Love Peacock.

If I'd said that everyone must read Thomas Lovell Peacock and that no one should be allowed to read Dickens, then you might have the vestige of a sliver of a point. But since I've only said that I prefer Peacock, your comment seems a tad irrelevant.

If everyone likes Dickens and no one "has ever heard of Thomas Love Peacock," then that's more reason for me to mention Peacock. I can only read so many Dickens novels and absorb the same standard influences before it's time to consider reading people who aren't as well mined and might contribute to more unique ways of writing and thinking.

I think Dickens characters are far from flat, so there.

Dickens himself would have told you he uses flat characters -- not as his main characters, but as secondary or background characters. They're similar to the looped characters in a game of Grand Theft Auto -- the ones who always say the same things when you kick them out of a car, bump into them or chase them with a huge weapon.

Flat characters are a device that many, many novelists use. The problem for me is when flat characters are used to embody Christlike goodness, as they often are in Dickens. Good characters seem less cliche to me when they have depth. Since satire reduces people to their least noble qualities, and flat characterization is inherently reductive, the use of flat characters in satire seems far more resonant to me than in a tragedy.

Definition: Flat and round characters.

An example of a flat character who's given greater depth in an adaptation would be Kubrick's version of Dick Hallorann in The Shining. In the film, we see the character at home listening to complex jazz with a photo of a nude woman on his wall. His role as a mere good character (and, notoriously, as yet another example of King's Magical Negro problem) is undercut by his private expression of cynicism, culture, intelligence, distance from the world in which he is relegated to the role of super butler, and even sexuality that has nothing to do with the aesthetic standards of the people at the Overlook Hotel. In that moment in which Kubrick shows Hallorann's reluctance to leave the comfort of his apartment to rescue a child from people he perceives as idiots, a flat character in a tragedy acquires depth.

[kennyc]

As I said.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Since I've posted inoffensive definitions of the terms to which you objected and argued against your other inferences, merely pointing to your original post doesn't quite work. That post doesn't contain any answers (let alone new ones) to my arguments and explanation, nor does it nullify the harmlessness of Forster's ideas about flat and round characters. In the context of this exchange, "as I said" seems strangely meaningless.

Since Dickens used unchanging characters deliberately, there's no point in asserting that such characters aren't flat. If you construed the point to suggest that Dickens' main characters were flat, then you've attributed a statement to me that I didn't and wouldn't make.

Whatever else one thinks about Dickens, it would be foolish to assert that his main characters didn't change over time. David Copperfield is an example of why that argument won't stand.

[Kasper Hviid]

Is the book 'Aspects of the Novel' worth a read? Is it in the public domain?

About flat characters - I think the greatest characters are the flat ones - Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Batman. When a character is rich and interesting in his current state, making him develope to something else in the story will just make him a bit meh. For example I think the Dexter character in the TV-series got kind of ruined by having to constantly "evolve" - all the while he is still locked within the basic concept of the series. So we have this character who constantly has his word view shattered, this constant illusion of change and development - but it's still a TV-series, so nothing really change.

[kennyc]

Here's what I actually said, not sure why you've got your panties all in a wad, but not only have you failed to address my post, you've far from nullified it. Typical.

I'll repeat, AS I SAID:

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yes, but who has ever heard of Thomas Love Peacock.

I think Dickens characters are far from flat, so there.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Kasper Hviid

Is the book 'Aspects of the Novel' worth a read? Is it in the public domain?

No, it's not in the public domain in any western nation. E.M. Forster died in 1970, so his work will enter the life+50 public domain in 2021, and the life+70 public domain in 2041.

Some of his early work is in the US public domain, but not this book.

It is available in the "Penguin Classics" series.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Here's what I actually said, not sure why you've got your panties all in a wad, but not only have you failed to address my post, you've far from nullified it. Typical.

I'll repeat, AS I SAID:

Dear Kennyc:

My men and I didn’t understand your comment at first, but now we think you’re making some kind of smart remark.

We at the local gasket-punchers’ union don’t find that kind of remark funny at all. We’ve got real problems -- the kind you smart alecks don’t even have to think about -- like how to punch more gaskets and what to do when our fingers get flattened into strange shapes.

Sincerely,

Gus Fritchett
Gasket-Punchers’ Union, Local 48
September 14,1959