Our Readers

[I. J. Parker]

In connection with John McFetridge's excellent thread about who is reading our books, it might be interesting that GALLEY CAT today has a short report from a BEA event that involved a publisher-sponsored panel of authors discussing just this sort of thing. I take it from the brief summary that the three authors had little faith in their readership.
One of them stated, "All of us are writing for college-educated middle-aged white women." (A group that is predictably going to die out within the foreseeable future and seems to hang out in libraries anyway). Another complained that her comment about reading Hemingway and Fitzgerald caused a young woman to say, "I haven't read any of those Russian authors." And the third man on the panel enthused that authors were as inspired and brilliant as ever in spite of the declining literacy rates.

Clearly there is a problem. People don't like to read. In my experience as a teacher of literature that usually means they don't understand the vocabulary. It's a problem that writers try to overcome by appealing to the lowest common denominator (the young woman who thinks Hemingway is a Russian). The rationale seems to be: let's get the kids to read. It doesn't really matter about content and style, or anything brainy. If they're reading, that's the main thing.

Mind you, the three authors were literary fiction folk, but apparently even genre has to be dumbed down these day to sell.

[Dana King]

It seems to me that "show, don't tell" encourages the reader to use his imagination. He has to think of why the character did this, or what the author is getting at. Telling him is just that. If I'm the reader, I've been told, now my mind is free to wander if what I'm told isn't constantly entertaining. If I'm shown, I have to think about why I was shown that specific things and in that manner. Far more interesting to me.

[I. J. Parker]

I translate imagination in this case as imagining being there, as in visualizing, for example. What you suggest is more intellectual analysis.

[John Dishon]

I guess we'll just have to disagree on that point then. I don't think the genre or the subject matter has anything to do with how far you can develop your characters or your plot.

Your definition of pure entertainment is what I'm talking about too. "Escapist" is another way to put it.

[Jack Getze]

College-educated, middle-aged white women buy 70% the books. That's who I'm writing for. I don't think the lowest common denominator is a fair description. I just believe in keeping my reader deeply involved in my character and my story, and I don't want to interrupt anybody -- any reader -- by using a word that is not in common usage.

I hope you are not calling my art mindless.

[I. J. Parker]

Certainly not. Neither are middle-aged college-educated females anything to sneeze at intellectually. The problem is that there aren't enough and that they won't be a reliable public forever and that one would like a broader audience. The lowest common denominator is another segment of the book-buying audience.

[Jack Getze]

It was John who used the term mindless. These boxes never seem to end up where I want them. :-)

[John Dishon]

I haven't read any of your work so it is not my place to make an opinion on it. However, I'm not going to backtrack and say there is no such thing as entertainment that doesn't engage the mind. Now, obviously, every activity requires brain activity, so let's not get too carried away with semantics. We all know what I'm talking about, right? Like when you get home, tired from work, and you flip on the TV to relax, not wanting to be seriously engaged. Well, I believe there are books that provide such entertainment, though admittedly, reading anything is a more active experience than watching TV. "Beach reads" is one way I've heard them referred as, a book meant to pass the time and entertain without much effort.

If your work fits that description, then yeah, I guess I am saying it's mindless. If that is a negative thing for you than that is your own prejudice and/or insecurities coming through, not mine. I've never said or suggested that there was anything wrong with this kind of entertainment. All I'm saying is that when compared to other, more visual media, books are at a disadvantage if they don't offer something a visual medium cannot, and that might have something to do with the decrease in readership.

[Jack Getze]

You're the one who seems prejudiced to me. Books that entertain can't show truth and give insight? That's just stupid.

You call my work mindless, and then say if I take that as negative, it's MY insecurity?
That sounds pretty stupid, too.

I see a real pattern to your remarks.

[Dana King]

I'm with you on this one, Jack. I have always had an issue with any argument where one person feels they can say what whatever they want, in whatever demeaning manner they want, and them blame the recipient of offense is taken. Not only is it discourteous, but usually reflects some insecurity in the validity of the argument.

[Jon Loomis]

A good story well told is never mindless.

[minervaK]

I'll be damned, I think John has a point.

'Pure entertainment' really isn't (my opinion here) the neighborhood of books. I say this as a reader. When I read, the experience is profoundly different than when I see a movie, or attend a concert or play, or watch TV or a sporting event. I think the main difference is that reading is a primarily internal experience -- and perhaps that's why it seems to be losing ground in the modern culture. Internally-oriented people have always been in the minority of the human population, and now I think many are being driven even further away from the mainstream by it's sheer clamor. Ten years ago it was unthinkable that you'd go into a doctor's office and find a television set blaring in the waiting room. Now you can't get away from the damned things.

The cell phone, the internet, the Blackberry, Twitter, Facebook, etc. etc., ad nauseam, are all geared toward distracting one from the internal landscape (and, perhaps not coincidentally, to make advertising SO much easier to deliver) -- those of us who don't *want* any of those things are considered, well, freaks. 'You can't get along without them,' we're told. Who the hell has time to read when lashed to these modern 'conveniences' that we're told we must have or suffer the dire consequence of 'losing touch?'

I taste a revolution in the making...

MK
www.minervakoenig.com

[I. J. Parker]

Quite right, Minerva. Reading is private and encourages dialogue with oneself. A profound experience. But it can be very entertaining, perhaps more entertaining than watching what everybody else watches.