Death of the Novel Part III: Gutenberg Mind

Marshall McLuhan—what ya doin’?

                        ----poem from the TV comedy show

                                    Laugh-In, 1967

I recently read two articles that proclaimed the death of the novel. One of had the title “The Novel Is

Marshall McLuhan

Dead—This Time It’s For Real.” Both writers mention the Canadian communications philosopher Marshall McLuhan’s idea of the “Gutenberg mind” as a primary reason for the coming demise of the novel. The Gutenberg mind is a way of thinking that sees a text as a codex—a book, an entity of print and paper—and sees the functioning of knowledge as, book to book—codex to codex, printed entity to printed entity.

Of course, in our digital age this is not how knowledge works. Many texts are on screen and notes immediately connect us to other on-screen texts. A few years back, I encountered an online version of Milton’s Paradise Lost. It had links that explained obscure words, references, and allusions (there are lots of these in Milton); it also had links that took you to illustrations by Doré, Blake, and other artists. It rather amazed me, who grew up with a Gutenberg mind, and who remembered constantly glancing down to footnotes at the bottom of the page when I first read Milton’s epic. I would say note/links is a vast improvement. But how does this kind of digital technology spell the end of the novel?

One of the authors, writing for The Guardian proclaims, “the advent of digital media is not simply destructive of the codex, but of the Gutenberg mind itself.” The book will go the way of the scroll and the sun-baked cuneiform tablet. The destruction of the book by things shown on screen will also mean that readers will not think of other books in cross-referencing literature, they will think of other screens. The author is vague, and his article a bit desultory, but I get the idea that he equates the death of the novel with the demise of the paper book.

As I said, the article is desultory—it jumps from point to point, and though it is written in precise and entertaining prose, its thesis is not as clear as the author’s prose style. It goes on to talk about changes in the publishing industry, and makes the usual references to reading “serious novels.” It also takes aim at the condition of the publishing industry and the idea that “solitary reading” is necessary for in-depth understanding. In other words, it points to a number of failings, weaknesses, and anomalies in publishing and writing but does not successfully demonstrate (at least to me) how this will bring about the demise of the novel.

I say this because all the things that may be done with a codex—a book printed on paper, bound, with a physical weight and presence—can be equally done with a digital book. Some would object to this. I once heard a book seller, in the early days of e-books, tell me that nothing could ever replace the “kinetic pleasure” of reading a book. I thought this was a delightful way to put it. And I know the pleasure of feeling the weight of a book in my hand, the pleasure of turning pages . . . and yet I do those things on my Kindle Fire as well. It has weight and I swipe the screen. There is a physical aspect to it. The material may be a little harder than a well-worn paperback. And yet the leather cover feels nice in my hands. I can’t write in my Kindle, but I can put notes in it.

But that is not the question with which we are here dealing. Will the novel die due to digital technology and due to the fact that digital texts will bring an end to the Gutenberg mind?

After considering, I have to say no. It is not necessary to think in terms of printed entities, tomes (to use an archaic word) to have intertextual reference. If I read (as I recently did) an obscure novel from the 1970s, Barbara Comyns The Juniper Tree on my Kindle, does that mean I can’t cross-reference it with Stardust by Neil Gaiman, which I also read in digital format? The books have little similarity and scant material one might compare, but they could be compared. A Gutenberg mind isn’t necessary to compare two on-screen texts or an on-screen text with a cloth and paper text.

I think the article to which I refer, which I’ll provide a link to at the end of my blog (a little irony here?) does not make clear the reason the author thinks the novel will die. The advent of digital technology and e-books does not seem a threat to novel-writing at all. What is done on paper can be done on the screen. Young people are reading more—witness the number of copies (paper or downloaded) for the Harry Potter series or The Fault in Our Stars. And digital technology demands that people read. Continuation of the popularity and the profundity of the novel does need people with Gutenberg minds. It needs people who read, and digital technology seems to have actually given that a boost.

More on the death of the novel to come.

Here's the article I reference in the blog. Read it and tell me what you think!

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Brand new:  The Last Minstrel. Novel about a quest, evil and good goddesses, magic, and right and wrong. This story is family-friendly, G-Rated--or maybe PG-Rated due to some scary scenes.

ShadowCity is also newly released and available in digital and print format.

Death of the Novel Part II

The Death of the Novel continues to be broadcast. We surveyed the outlines of the “movement” in the last blog, and I want to get a little more specific in this one. What leads people to say that novel is dead or dying? Why did John Barth write something like “The Literature of Exhaustion”? And why were several other critics around that time asserting that the novel had come to the end of the road?

Barth’s essay spends a lot of time talking about creativity. He focuses a great deal on the writing of Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentinian writer Barth admires and on his innovations as a writer. He appended a preface to the article and says that it is often misquoted, and I’ll agree with him to a degree. He is speculating on where the novel will go more than saying it is dead; and he confesses that he isn’t sure. His most direct move toward the subject is when he says that the novel may be at the end of its primacy as an art form:  that like the epic poem or the sonnet sequence, the novel may sink to a secondary place in literature and not be the most read or admired art form. It may “die” in this sense. Still, he does seem to think it is in decline and danger due to lack of creative paths for it to take.

 

Barth holds to a modern view of the novel, and this is part of his concern over the continued life and health of the novel.  Modernism held to a sort of sacrosanct view of the literary canon. There were certain novels that were “serious” literature and certain novels that were “popular” literature. Popular literature did not really matter. The line of novels that began with Pamela by Samuel Richard and included greats like Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Joyce and Kafka, and all the other names that cluster around what was called “great” literature as Barth saw it, was starting to dribble out.

Borges

Barth sees some hope in the work of Borges. It’s creative, quirky, surprising, and innovative but still operates within the grand tradition of novel writing. But, he asks, how many people like the Argentine novelist are writing? And who could be as creatively daring as Borges?

I will agree that Borges is remarkable. His story “The Garden of the Forking Paths,” is one of the most amazing stories I’ve read and one of my favorites; the same is true for “The Gospel of Mark.” They are dazzlingly creative. I would have never thought of either of them, and they are written to surprise and delight. Very few people (certainly not I) could write stories as innovative and brilliant as these. This is the source of some of Barthes pessimism.

But is the grand tradition necessary? Does one have to write a certain way and create novels that carry on the tradition of Wuthering Heights or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? If the definition of what is a novel is restricted, there is not very much room to move around. You may be creative, but one can only imitate the "great" novels that went before your own. The canal gets more narrow and filled with more and more silt as time goes along. Not many will be able to craft a novel that will sail well in such circumstances.

So it is that the death of the novel seemed to loom. The idea of a grand tradition—the idea of “fine art” and “great novels,” as opposed to inferior popular literature limits the range of possibilities for new works of art. Hamlet lamented that virtue cannot “inoculate our old stock.” We think of vaccination when we use the world “inoculate.” Shakespeare (and his audience) would have thought about cattle breeding. To inoculate was to bring fresh, healthy, strong animals in to interbreed with a herd of animals that was becoming infertile from inbreeding. Barth seemed to think that the novel was dying out because it was to inbred, its possibilities almost exhausted, its creative resources growing thinner and thinner.

This could be the case—unless the old stock can be inoculated in the old sense of the word—unless new and healthier specimens can be brought in to restore life and vitality. More on this in the next blog.

Check out my newest short novel  ShadowCity, a paranormal story of a world that exists as a shadow of our own and the quest of three people to keep darkness from completely engulfing it.

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