[editedit]
and this is why I was, am, and always will be such a nerd. Go figure. :P--and by that I don't mean writing as a hobby, as in blogging (like us xangans), or fanfiction-writing, or even writing in a story-diary. No; what I mean by this is that somehow, we've lost the art of published writing.
This occurred to me about around the time when the second semester of school started. I had pretty much bulldozed through a fourth, maybe a third of the classics section of my little "library." Instead of reading classics, I had immersed myself in the modern era's "novel" group of novels: satires such as Kurt Vonnegut's and Chuck Palanuik's (spelling?), realistic fiction such as--oh, I don't remember, they weren't that memorable-- and yes, as the summer rolled around, even
Breaking Dawn, the alleged-to-be oh-so-great last novel in the Twilight saga. Various books caught my eye, and I read pretty much most of the introductions and first chapters of the novels I did, but somehow, every time, I found myself reading the same style; the same story; the same plot development and themes.
This became strikingly more so after I visited
Barnes and Nobles and found nearly three shelves-- or more-- chock-full of vampire stories. Some of them were set in the future; some of them had a scientific twist to it (don't worry, I didn't read all of them; I only read the back covers); and some of them were just pure romance. Before
Twilight and only a little while after Anne Rice made her debut, there weren't that many vampire stories out there. But after the Twilight saga made a huge hit... maybe the booksellers decided that the audience liked those types of novels, or maybe various want-to-make-easy-money authors (sorry if you're offended-- I just don't have respect for authors who tend to regurgitate other authors while trying to sound original) had a sudden stroke of inspiration and decided to write. I don't know what exactly happened, but poof!-- suddenly vampire stories hit the markets anywhere.
I don't have a complaint with deriving inspirational ideas from other authors. I just think that... let me describe to you something first real quick: our summer assignment was to read
How to Read Literature Like a Professor. In one of the chapters, the author claimed that all stories illuminated an aspect of the same story. He said that all of the novels out there are part of one story, and that story is the story of humankind. I had finished reading it, and while I was browsing the bookshelves at Barnes and Nobles, I thought-- instead of expounding on the same facet of the human story all over and all over again, can't our modern era's writers write something more original?
I don't know if it's just me, and if I'm viewed to others in this age as old-fashioned and outdated (and I'm certain there's a word for that, but my vocabulary is limited-- proof of what this day and age has done to our literary lives), but it just seems to me that... today's novels, along with being repetitive, are so elementary. If you compare one of the "adult" novels to writing done by Charlotte Bronte or Charles Dickens, there's certain to be a drastic vocabulary level difference there. It's not only the style of writing; as I mentioned before, it's also in the ideas. Take Harry Potter: before it came out, fantasy novels were more along the lines of the
Wizard of Earthsea and the Darkness Rising series (forgot exact name-- it was by Susan Cooper). After Harry Potter became famous, suddenly a lot of fantasy stories like
Inkheart and
The Prophecy of the Stones sprang up. Twilight led to the vampire story burst. Heck, there's even a relatively new manga called "Vampire Knight." Maybe, one might protest, it's the dawning of a new age for books.
After all, our novels are supposed to be a reflection of society's
ideas-- right?-- and society today is fairly different from that the
era of petticoats and knickerbockers.
Then, I would like to ask in return, is it good that we have undergone such a change? Is it good for our novels to be changed, not only in style, but in content, as well? Is it good that we have "chicklits," teen novels which talk about the sassiness of girls and all of the other things which make us seem more immature than we really are? Is it really good for the most popular novels to have vocabulary levels equal to that of a high-schooler? Heck, even my friends can write better. Is it truly good for the novels to have kissing scenes, and below-the-waist-touching scenes (some people I knew liked those novels-- they scarred me forever)? Is it truly good for our era to be dominated by novels which make us
feel but do not make us
think? Is it truly good for our society to be caught up in an era where American literature is unpolished and shallow, and the truly touching works seem to come from others outside of the country?
Ladies and Gentlemen-- there are some ladies and gentlemen out there (the featured xanga entry on the lack of ladies today had a vibrant ring of truth to it), right?-- I would like to point out that there are three real drastic errors in the world today, each with its own symptoms:
1. global warming<-- "development"<-- caused by human lethargy and greed.
2. dropped performance in literature<-- sensual fiction opposed to moving fiction<-- pleasure-driven society.
3. lifestyles of people <-- fitness problems, wasteful spending and lack of depth in general <-- again, caused by lethargy or lack of a stimulating environment.
I would like to make a proposition: please. let's stop. Let's stop with the rolling about in couches and throwing paper, food and plastics into the same bins. Let's stop with putting our kiddies in front of the TV. Let's stop TV dependence in general, and see how daily conversations change, and how they change from "did you watch that? He's so hot!" to more life-focused, meaningful questions. Let's stop thinking that we can alter the current state of the planet without pain, because, guess what? What we've done to our earth is too drastic to the point that we've passed the time when we can turn it around without losing something. Let's stop reading sensual fiction and start reading thoughtful fiction. Overall, let's add some DEPTH in our lives, and hope that, in time, it will be reflected by the books we create.
And Ladies and Gents, peace. Peace man, peace. Let's have some peace in our hearts. Because in this hectic world, that's what we need the most. (Well, I as a Christian can go further and say that we need God. But I have a feeling that the atheists and other religious sects won't like that).
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