An interesting article on the perpetual and essential appeal of storytelling over at the Telegraph online says “Grand Theft Auto, Twitter and Beowulf all demonstrate that stories will never die.” Twitter? Really? Anyway, I agree, and the essay’s author Sam Leith goes on to say plenty of interesting things about the changing face of the narrative package, but how the core truth of the need for story never changes.
Firstly he reacts to a statement from someone at MIT’s new Center for Future Storytelling. Honestly, based solely on the news item I’ve linked to, I think the Center sounds like an intriguing and fun idea. But Leith seized upon a bit of hyperbole from its spokesmen to address a broader perception current in a lot of thinking today:
The Center for Future Storytelling is a sign of the times. The notion that the narrative arts are under threat from information overload, shrinking attention spans, text messaging, social networking sites and slam-bam CGI blockbusters is one widely given voice.
What’s so odd is that the remedies proposed, as often as not, seem to involve a massive increase in just such things.
True enough. He goes on to talk about the internet, and digitized books vs. the real thing, touching on much of the ground covered in the article I linked to last week in my post New Life for Old Books? Much of this was prompted by Philip Pullman’s campaign to preserve the library — and role of the librarian — of a small school in Chesterfield, UK.
The thing is, the internet does some things very well, and the codex book does other things very well. There is an overlap – they are both means of preserving and sharing information – but it’s foolish to see the two as interchangeable, or the former as supplanting the latter.
There is something seriously wrong with educators who do not see this, but given the emphasis on shallow, pop-psychology notions and progressive-sounding buzz words in the educational thinking on both sides of the Atlantic, I’m not surprised to see administrators eager to replace a library with an ‘internet learning center,’ or whatever they want to call it. Out with Shakespeare, Dickens, and Twain; in with Minesweeper, My Space, and Porn.
Leith continues with an observation that is obvious to all of us that have actually read books — which of course excludes many school administrators:
Reading a full-length novel on a screen is next to impossible. Your back aches. Your mouth parches. Your eyes fall out. For portability, browsability and ease of annotation the book is the best form of technology we have; and has been since its invention.
Then he talks about just what is important about stories and storytelling, and how none of these emergent technologies is worth a bent penny in relation to the actual process of engaged and serious reading. The universals of storytelling are not only palatable ways to impart didactic lessons, but fundamental to the shaping of our intellectual, moral, and creative reasoning:
Myths, it has been said, are “good to think with”. Storytelling is a way of trying out situations imaginatively, of preserving knowledge and social value, of attesting to a commonality of experience.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
True enough. I believe the digital era did indeed take the world by storm. Comparatively speaking,digital vs. conventional media— conventional media would be carrying a book bag full of literature,while digital media has you literature store nicely on a portable device, pc or memory card/stick. The bigger the digital reader,the bigger your “book bag”. While conventional media will always have room on our bookshelves, I believe the digital era is the way to go– compact device means even more portability and arent restricted by cumbersome books. Theres no real limit on how many you can fit onto you reader’s storage either. Im thinking that the “old school” writers are realizing this and are in somewhat of a fear of this having an affect on their future. Well, if you, Bill, stopped writing in magazines and solely distributed via digital distribution, Id still purchase.
Great article. I just hope I got ‘some’ of my thoughts across.
Thanks for that, Jesse. I think digital e-readers will give people a lot of options, and it would certainly help a lot in situations where people can’t have or don’t want a lot of books on hand (would have saved me a lot of sweat in college, that’s for sure). I think the marketing and publishing paradigm is going to shift in interesting ways as well.
But I also think print is here to stay. The physical object itself can’t really be improved in any terms other than storability and searchability. Also, I think a lot of predictions for a big switch to e-books misses some of the cultural imprinting that goes on in favor of the physical object, even among a generation of non-readers — such as the success of graphic novels, which are physical objects that are fetishized even beyond the degree of a normal book owner and a paperback. Then, too, there are the huge amounts of used books floating around in stores and online, that will probably remain a cheaper source of literature than even the cheapest e-file.
I’m certain people will continue to prefer books for some types of reading, but I think the e-book will replace many other types of reading, and also elevate the e-book to a more viable format for publishers. However, once e-books become mainstream, and literally everyone can publish an e-book and deliver it to a huge amount of users the problem of authenticity and choice comes into play — ie. what is worth my time to read? What is a real book, from a real writer? Publishers, bookstores, and hard copies can present that authenticity, and direct the reader’s attention, in ways that a store of a million e-books can’t. We are still a physical species, despite our increasing virtual addition.
Maybe this should have been another post, rather than a comment?