When I began reading Serious Literature just under 30 years ago, I instinctively focused on fiction; I didn’t see much point reading history, as I felt I would just forget all the details, whereas I could forget plot details about e.g.
....btw, I've found that the market place free book offers in kindle direct publishing allow me to circulate my various low-rate grumble stories to a limited audience at least, which amuses.
Stories are our way, and always have been, of making sense of our world and our place in it. The reason why people have less interest in literature is perhaps because they now mistake story for entertainment and story has been forced to fit into entertainment through the medium of TV. Meaning, they realise, can be cheated, so long as the story contains the accepted format of something meaningful, cribbed from stories of past, it has paid its lip-service and the entertainment can be pasted heavily on top like those grotesque doughnuts they sell to the broccoli heads. People today are scared to engage with their world and their place in it, afraid of facing meaning in any real way. They seek distraction and diversion. TV is great for this. Literature is too raw, too poignant, too transformative.
....btw, I've found that the market place free book offers in kindle direct publishing allow me to circulate my various low-rate grumble stories to a limited audience at least, which amuses.
You have become...a purveyor of smut!!!
Stories are our way, and always have been, of making sense of our world and our place in it. The reason why people have less interest in literature is perhaps because they now mistake story for entertainment and story has been forced to fit into entertainment through the medium of TV. Meaning, they realise, can be cheated, so long as the story contains the accepted format of something meaningful, cribbed from stories of past, it has paid its lip-service and the entertainment can be pasted heavily on top like those grotesque doughnuts they sell to the broccoli heads. People today are scared to engage with their world and their place in it, afraid of facing meaning in any real way. They seek distraction and diversion. TV is great for this. Literature is too raw, too poignant, too transformative.