{"id":150,"date":"2021-10-28T14:01:45","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T13:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pauseforthought.net\/?post_type=entry&p=150"},"modified":"2021-11-03T13:09:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T13:09:44","slug":"theinconvenientnovel","status":"publish","type":"entry","link":"https:\/\/pauseforthought.net\/entry\/theinconvenientnovel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inconvenient Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let us say, for our purposes here, that things feel<\/em> faster \u2013 that modern life, and in particular our experience of information technology, feels \u2018sped up\u2019, and that as a result it can feel not only as if there are more, and more insistent, demands on our attention, but as if our attention itself has become fragmented, or strained.<\/p>\n

Let us agree also that even if this phenomenon is not verifiably \u2018real\u2019 \u2013 i.e., it is more a sensation or a suspicion than an aspect of material reality \u2014 we are told<\/em> it is real so frequently, and in such fearful and hyperbolic terms, that we begin to feel we must guard against it whether it is real or not. Both our attention and our time, we believe, must be carefully invested. When they are not being invested, they must be protected.<\/p>\n

This state of self-conscious anxiety about whether we are using our time and attention wisely gives rise to a climate in which any use of, or incursion into, our time and attention must justify itself. Every investment \u2013 temporal, mental, emotional, or psychological \u2013 must be, quantifiably, \u2018worth it.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Reading\u2019 (a word I think should be more actively problematised), particularly the act of reading long-form fiction, fits uneasily into this fretful, pressured environment. In a world that prizes immediacy, convenience, and the measurably transactional, the weeks or even months required to finish a long and challenging novel, not to mention the solitude, the silence, the singularity of purpose and focus, can feel anachronistic, even burdensome. By the same token, however, the very act<\/em> of that investment can be made to feel vital, and central to literature\u2019s unique appeal. After all, what better way to subvert and resist the overstimulated, time-poor atmosphere of pressure and distraction we all now seem to accept we inhabit than spending quality time alone with a novel?<\/p>\n

More and more, it seems, the novel serves as a subject of cultural discussion only insofar as that discussion addresses the novel\u2019s relationship to culture. The result is a bizarre, often extreme contradiction. In one popular and oft-repeated formulation, the novel is \u2018dead\u2019, killed by Netflix, social media, and highly immersive video games. In the opposite formulation, it is not only not dead, it is fundamental to our health and humanity.<\/p>\n

\u2018To the onlooker,\u2019 says the BBC education website, under the heading Why Is Reading Good For Me<\/a>, \u2018reading can appear to be a solitary and passive activity. But the simple act of picking up a book can do us the world of good\u2019. Among the benefits listed are increased emotional intelligence; delaying the onset of dementia; improved confidence and self-esteem; better sleep; reduced feelings of loneliness. \u2018Reading as little as six\u00a0minutes a day,\u2019 says the MHFA England website<\/a>, \u2018can reduce stress levels by 60% by reducing your heart rate, easing muscle tension and altering your state of mind [\u2026] Reading [is] better at reducing stress than music, drinking a cup of tea, going for a walk and playing video games\u2019. In 2020, responding to retail challenges caused by the global pandemic, Publishers Weekly<\/em> launched its #BooksAreEssential campaign<\/a>, which aimed to emphasise \u2018the belief that books are essential to the health, well-being, entertainment and education of society and culture, particularly in times of crisis\u2019. \u2018Whether you are working in a hospital, teaching your children at home, laid off or furloughed from a job or simply trying to make sense of this pandemic,\u2019 said PW<\/em>\u2019s editorial director Jim Milliot with no apparent sense of irony or perspective, \u2018books are a lifeline\u2019.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s striking about these examples, aside from the vagueness of words like \u2018reading\u2019 (looking at social media is, after all, an act of reading) and \u2018books\u2019 (not all books, one assumes, offer equal health benefits) is that they don\u2019t just reduce reading to the level of the strictly utilitarian, they unquestioningly medicalise<\/em> it. Or to put it another way, they reduce daily quotidian existence to a set of symptoms effectively \u2018cured\u2019 by \u2018books\u2019 and \u2018reading\u2019. And nor is this phenomenon limited to literature. Everything now must demonstrate its use, and what better way to demonstrate something\u2019s use than to position it against a perceived threat? In this formulation, sleep is an effective inoculation against burnout, meditation a proven treatment for stress, \u2018enjoyment\u2019 a ready cure for depression.<\/p>\n

I do not disagree that the novel, as a form, gains at least part of its ongoing value from the ways in which it stands distinct from almost all other media (durational, non-networked, resistant to being consumed in an ambient way, etc.). I also understand the instinct, in a culture in which everything apparently has to make a case for itself, not only to defend the novel as a form, but to sell it by touting its benefits. What interests me, though, is why, when I do so, I feel uncomfortable. It is because, I think, something happens to the novel, and indeed all art, when we\u2019re lured into discussing its benefits, when we, even with the best of intentions, render it merely<\/em> useful.<\/p>\n

Let us say that at least part of literature\u2019s value does<\/em> lie in the ways it moves against the grain of contemporary culture \u2014 its slowness, its demand for solitude and silence. Let us say that the act of \u2018reading\u2019 does<\/em> demand, and by extension, hone, a mode of attention distinct from the modes of attention to which modern daily life increasingly habituates us. This is not utility, and nor is it efficacy, it is the opposite \u2013 awkwardness.<\/p>\n

All art, I would suggest, depends at least in part on awkwardness for its power. The moment we position it as a handy, affordable, convenient, and reliable antidote to the ills of modern networked living, it may seem as if we are celebrating it by affirming its use, but in fact we are negating it by eroding its awkwardness. What we will end up with, if we are not careful, is the literary equivalent of muzak: books which slide effortlessly into the slim and shrinking gaps our lives provide; books which are \u2018prescribed\u2019 for specific feelings and experiences; books which are proscribed<\/em> for specific feelings and experiences.<\/p>\n

This, I think, is the source of my discomfort whenever I find myself, like anyone else who cares about literature, making a case for its importance. It\u2019s because I have the distinct impression that, far from helping art to thrive under capitalism, all I\u2019m really doing is complying with the means by which art under capitalism is neutered and rendered safe: by making it convenient; by making sure it exists not in opposition to the prevailing conditions of the moment, but perfectly, frictionlessly in harmony with them. Art that exists only as a cure depends on the ailment for its success, and so can never, as it should, ail the society that produces it. Art that only cures is art that can do no harm, meaning by extension it is art that has no power.<\/p>\n

And what possible use is that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","group":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauseforthought.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entry\/150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauseforthought.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entry"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauseforthought.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/entry"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauseforthought.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"group","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauseforthought.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/group?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}