Comments on: explaining the long tale

By: whitneyanne

whitneyanne — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:22:34 +0000

This is interesting — it seems the whole post, though, would benefit from a more in-depth analysis of the sites of reading, both then and now. What time of day did people read? In what kind of light? in what positions/on what kind of furniture? for how long? for what purpose? The only time I have to read long novels is in the subway or an airport — i.e., in locations and positions not available to the 17C reader.

By: Terrrance G. Shults

Terrrance G. Shults — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:38:38 +0000

For reasons that seemed good at the time, I once took undergraduate courses in single a semester that required me to read 32 novels. Some of them were the longish tales and I read “Tom Jones”, “Barchester Towers” and others at single marathon sittings. It was an interesting experience but one I wouldn’t care to repeat.

By the time I was ready to claim The Novel as a graduate specialty for doctoral written exams, I saw that I had read 300 of the 350 listed in the back of my Thrall and Hibbard and read the other fifty (by Norris, Dreiser, Smollett, Dorothy Richardson et al) for my exams. Harvey Curtis Webster gave me an individual seminar on the novels of Hardy and I was in his C. P. Snow seminar (all of Strangers and Brothers) and met Lord Charles, who is an obvious victim of the anti-long tale trend. And I had an “itch” in those days to read the complete works of everybody I liked one of.

But I had to retake the exams (except Hardy as Major Figure). For one thing, “everybody” was talking about William H. Gass’ “Fiction and the Figures of Life” and there was a major question for which reference to Gass was the correct answer, though none of my professors had mentioned it to me or put it on a bibliography.

That seemed unfair but there was a point there it took me some years to grasp. Reading really long novels is not a skill for which there is a market, either in the scholarly or commercial world. I should have been aware of what was hot in secondary sources.

There is not, of course, any job market for video-watchers, either. But I am likelier to watch a short music video (and sometimes enjoy them) than undergraduates of my acquaintance are to read C. P. Snow. For that matter, I am likelier to read Henning Mankell than C. P. Snow and watch “guilty pleasure” television and movies.

I find if I want to read, say, Drabble or Byatt, I need to clear some time and make sure I have some fresh earplugs. All of my neighbors have one or two dogs and there are children and motorcyclists, though this is a cul de sac street quieter than I have ever lived on, man or boy.

I read “Tom Jones” those years ago while blocking out dormitory noise with The Well-Tempered Clavier, twice. Those were those days. These are these days.

Terrance G. “Terry” Shults, Ph.D.
Head of Technical Services
J. Conrad Dunagan Library
University of Texas of the Permian Basin
4901 E. University
Odessa, Texas 79762
shults_t@utpb.edu

By: AliB

AliB — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:12:12 +0000

Hello Douglas
Greatly enjoyed this piece which I found thanks to an alert on De Scudery in whom I took an interest some time ago.I hadn’t thought of a comparison with Harry Potter, but that’s the joy of seeing other people’s connections. Will be mentioning you on my blog some time soon.
Best wishes
AliB (UK writer and blogger)
http://debutnovelist.wordpress.com

By: Douglas Galbi

Douglas Galbi — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:27:54 +0000

a commitment to spend 250 hours with one work is less of a big deal because there’s less choice? Or more of a big deal, because it takes up a larger percentage of the total available options? Good questions. In generally, I don’t think persons choose over the space of all available goods. Real constraints of time, personal experiences, and mental capacity constraint any specific person’s choice set. At the same time, a greater over-all number of items probably leads, through complicated social processes, to more satisfying choice sets (but not necessarily larger ones) for individuals. The issue, then, is not the change in the over-all number of items, but the change in the relative value of different items in the individual’s choice set. It’s difficult to relate that to the change in the over-all number of items.

By: Andy Havens

Andy Havens — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:35:01 +0000

Here’s my question, though. To what extent is the length of popular works related to the total numbers (or volume) of material available? That is, in 17th century France, if I had access to X hours of total material, don’t I probably have access to something like 1-bjillion-X hours of material today. So… does that mean that a commitment to spend 250 hours with one work is less of a big deal because there’s less choice? Or more of a big deal, because it takes up a larger percentage of the total available options?

I’ve read very long series, including Harry, and have enjoyed them immensely. Dorothy Dunnett’s historical fiction comes to mind; House of Niccolo is (approximately) really bloody long. But I also enjoy the 2-second video of the startled hamster.

I don’t know about this whole “Google is making us stoopid” and the death of deep reading thing. I compare what I generally do on the Web to what I do with my TV and am glad for the change.

In the absence of hard data, I default to “more choices is better.”