Revision

You call this literature? Mk. II

Looking through the "Literature" section of the newspaper and expecting to find articles on Woolf and Morrison, Pound and Hazlitt, I was astonished to see "Dan Brown" littered all over the place like candy wrappers in a field, and I realized that the place of literature in society has changed for the worst. This is not to criticise Brown, but what I find appalling is how a bestseller, based on plot instead of arguments and thematic content, is what defines what our society talks and thinks about.

Popular literature nowadays is of exceedingly low quality. Chapters, supposed to bookstore, "aiming to achieve Wal-Mart excellence", has candles and pens at the front of the store now. The tables nearest the entrance are covered with shiny, colourful bestsellers written by Dan Brown and anything with Oprah's Book Club's seal of approval sticker, while the rest of the books are at the back. This is a reflection of how today, most people read what Oprah tells them read, find it at the front of Chapters, and are satisfied. The select few of us who actually want to read more of an author's work are hardly able to find anything else he wrote in the store. It seems most people want what is generally considered "best," without doing any research, digging through piles of books, or finding the overarching narrative of an author's career. After all, it is much easier just to read the author that the New York Times deems "Dazzlingly unique" and rely on the most accessible opinion.

It seems everyone wants to "escape." Everyone wants to read for enjoyment and to experience situations and ideas that are easy to relate to when they are reading. Because of this, many people choose to simply read best-sellers. However, great and challenging writers like Brand and Rhys and Joyce and Chesterton can inform and inspire as well as delight. This is the true purpose of literature; it is what makes us human. And if we are reading clichéd, predictable books, I'm concerned about us, and, more importantly, where humanity is headed.