The A.V. Club has a list of quotes by Kurt Vonnegut that they think are cool, or something along those lines. One in particular stood out for me, as it relates to writers and readers:
"Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"
This reminded me of an essay by Jonathan Franzen about what readers get out of reading literature. It certainly resonates with me.
Mike Daisey’s ‘Truth’
20 minutes ago
2 comments:
This all begs the question - and I think about this a lot - do people really read any more? And why, or why not? Do you think you would read if your parents weren't readers? Whose job is it to instill in us a fondness for books? Will people read less in twenty years? Or more? Or more of the same? Will writers and publishers find new ways to reach people? And if so, how? Please provide definitive answers to all these questions by midday, pacific standard time. Thanks! Great blog!
I think people still read. At least, lots of people I know still read, including most of the members of the bands I'm in, even though they're all fairly different in terms of temperament and upbringing.
But I don't know. Obviously my parents played a big role in me becoming a reader, but I know people whose parents don't read at all who read also.
I figure that as long as there are people out there who want to write novels, there are going to be people of that generation at least who want to read them. The problem might be that the novel becomes so old-fashioned that no one really feels like writing them either. That's when you know there's been a big change.
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