Novels are an obsolete technology

Mark Tapley

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I've read a lot of books and I've gradually come to the conclusion a few weeks ago that novels are an archaic, outmoded entertainment technology. They're only useful for people to create worlds when they cant make films, whether through lack of talent/interest or finances. Otherwise anything a book can do a film can do better. Think about it, the internal monologues that ramble on for pages can be summated in the expression or glance of an actor. The lengthy, prosaic descriptions that go on and on forever can be conveyed in one beautifully framed shot, which will make an infinitely more indelible impresson on the mind as a striking image rather than the assembled idea of one. Example Game of Thrones, meandering, lengthy novels. Game of Thrones the tv show does everything that the books do but better.

Also the lack of technological or cinematic limitations ie what looks or sounds good, gives writers far too much leeway for the absurd, when they want to appear as serious. Eg Fight Club, Jack saying to Marla in front of the support group on the roof of some building (it's been 9 years since I read it so I might be wrong on the location), 'I kinda like you too.' and then her saying 'I kinda like you too' while the support group goes awww. Pass the bucket please plus it's ridiculous. Or American Psycho which just turns into a sordid little grief tale with the monotonous descriptions of torture. In the film they took the essence of the novel and dumped its excessive indulgences, thereby improving it. Or take for example Stephen King, his tales are excessively long winded, meandering and ultimately silly. If I was filming the Dark Tower there would be about 6000 pages worth that I would cut because it's ridiculous. Stephen King appearing in his own book would be the first thing to go. So authors in having too much freedom often write crap. The production of Back to the Future entailed financial limitations which prevented them from building the set for a nuclear power station that would act as the time machine. Instead they came up with the Delorean and movie history was made. Necessity is the mother of invention. Films/tv and games have replaced the novel as the primary means of fictional entertainment. Novels are a chore to read, an ineffecient use of time (they take long to assimilate compared to films/tv), aren't as affective and are ultimately boring. People should be encouraged not to read. Novels are obsolete, print is dead, long live motion pictures!

tl;dr

--Kaiser--

Mark Tapley wrote: »

tl;dr

He should make a film of his thoughts. The written word is obsolete

_ciaran_

[...]I expressed my dissatisfaction with the format and proposed how in the near future it will become obsolete like the scroll

Jesus.....

The scroll was/is not a format. It's a medium.

Do you have difficulty visualising what you read? Some people just lack the creative capacity to enjoy a book. And that's not a dig at you or anything, I've a friend who is the exact same and I can see how books would be boring if that was the case.

Either way, for the love of God, if you take anything from this thread let it be that publishing formats (novels) and publishing mediums (scrolls, books) are not the same thing.

I have to go and bang my head off a wall now.

coffee_cake

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

What makes you, a human, so different to other humans OP?

He's not a person, he's grumpy cat

Kabl3s

Don't think novels will ever be obsolete. For a few different reasons:

Books are everlasting. The special effects on a book are never going to be out dated. A book is never going to fail because the electricity is out. (Candles can do for lighting)

Look at children's books, I'm going to use Skulduggery Pleasant and the Demonata series for this. In these books people have literally been ripped apart, if you were to put that to a screen and show the children that read these books the scenes of characters they know being split in half by monsters or magic, they would be scarred. However, in their book, it is just cool.

If novels are ever obsolete, reading isn't. So again using kids, it's an easy way to teach children, and it's an interesting way to develop vocabulary and reading ability for a foreign language, if you were so inclined to use a novel. I realise the OP said entertainment reasons, but frankly this is a good way to entertain yourself instead of filling in some grammar exercise, while achieving the same results.

Mardy Bum

A few writers have said the novel is dead albeit not for the reasons the OP has pointed out which are so erroneous, anti-intellectual, embarrassing and immature I'm not bothered with entertaining (Sounds like it was written by a disgruntled Junior Cert).

It is more of an exhaustion of the narrative form which some writers have referred to. A few writers have came along and changed that in recent years with Infinite Jest probably being the height of narrative experiment. A good few theorist and prominent writers, Updike being one, believed there was nothing left to experiment with. He may be right. However drama and poetry have been around for over two thousand years and the novel is less than 400 years old.

The 21st century so far has been characterised by interactivity. Can the novel be interactive? A kickstarter project to make an interactive/ choose your way Hamlet raised a fortune in a matter of months which may signal a new direction for the novel to bring it back to popularity.

echo beach

Mardy Bum wrote: »

The 21st century so far has been characterised by interactivity. Can the novel be interactive?

The novel is already interactive. It requires you to interact with the written word to form a picture in your mind of the scenes and the characters. You decide if you like or dislike them, if you agree or disagree with them and if you would do the same thing in the same circumstances.

Maybe some adults have lost the ability to interact without technology to help them but even the smallest child looking at a picture book can do it.

Mardy Bum

echo beach wrote: »

The novel is already interactive. It requires you to interact with the written word to form a picture in your mind of the scenes and the characters. You decide if you like or dislike them, if you agree or disagree with them and if you would do the same thing in the same circumstances.

Maybe some adults have lost the ability to interact without technology to help them but even the smallest child looking at a picture book can do it.

Interaction in the 21st Century is about choice.
It is not truly interactive in the sense that you can change or choose a different narrative. Meta-narration is the closest to interaction between author and reader, best exemplified by Foster Wallace. This is still not choice.

The logical follow on is does it have to bend to post postmodern tendencies and whims which appear shallow and void of any actual substance i.e. reality tv, facebook, instagram, twitter etc.
I don't think it does.

wilkie2006

Books are obsolete? Malala Yousafzai - the teenager shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education - doesn't think so...

"I am honoured to be part of the opening [of Birmingham's new library; one of the largest in the world]," she said. "The content of a book holds the power of education and it is with this power that we can shape our future and change lives. There is no greater weapon than knowledge and no greater source of knowledge than the written word.

"It is my dream that one day, great buildings like this one will exist in every corner of the world so every child can grow up with the opportunity to succeed."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/02/malala-yousafzai-birmingham-library

Sky News broadcast her speech in its entirety earlier this morning and it's really very moving. Would recommend people try to catch it (it doesn't appear to be online yet)

Stereomaniac

That girl is amazing. Did anyone see her or get to meet her when she was receiving the Tipperary peace award? The novel will never die for me. I read them regularly. Like the OP said, I have read some of the classics in the past couple of years, American Psycho, Fight Club!

sceptre

My fault for letting this thread go on about six pages longer (you could make a case for seven) than it needed to. Not that there weren't a few people with good contributions in any case. I reckon we're long done.