While technology has lured millions to abandon books in favour of films, YouTube videos and Spotify, it has also made literature more readily available as keen readers are no longer cumbered by heavy books. They only need the appropriate gadgets to have an entire library at their disposal. Moreover, readers can get hold of their favourites in an instant, at a fraction of the price, or even for free in the case of Google Books. But has technology only facilitated an increased supply of literature, or does it affect the creative process as well? Technology has certainly had this effect on music, as mp3 has transformed the internet into a creative platform for musicians and a means to escape the hegemony of established institutions.
The free exchange of music through the internet, starting with Napster, has led to the point where music has joined the public domain. Almost any song can be found on YouTube or Spotify, without (for some) the guilt felt for allegedly robbing the artist or record company. Furthermore, the internet has become a forum for aspiring artists to show their work, collaborate with others, be reviewed, and hopefully be discovered.
Given that literature is now going through a similar process of proliferation, is it likely that the internet will become a free market of ideas, techniques and examples for literature too? Granted, creative writing has been around on the internet since its inception, notoriously in the form of badly written and occasionally disturbing fanfiction, but a revolution has never occurred. Publishing houses remain lord and master in their domain, while record companies are slowly withering away. Is the introduction of e-readers an indication that this might change?
As a medium, literature is noticeably slower than music. While pieces of music that last longer than three hours have left the mainstream over a century ago, books still take days to read. My mother or best friend might take the effort to read a book I have written, and since she loves me she will say it’s great. If I post it on the internet, however, I will most likely receive a short, dry review: ‘too long; didn’t read’. A publishing house cannot appeal to public verdict to see if a book’s well-written. A writer’s debut’s publication will depend largely on the readers paid to work through the ‘slush pile’, determining its quality. A good song, however, is easily recognisable and usually takes less than four minutes to listen to. Fans, be it in the local live-music café or a legion of YouTube subscribers, attest to the song’s quality.
So is technology’s greatest contribution to literature merely an increase in availability, as virtually any book has become available anywhere through an iPad or Amazon Kindle? Or does it have more to offer, as it provides a stimulus to the creative force behind literature, bringing forth new ideas, techniques and perspectives, new ways to be read, or new ways to read?
The internet is a great learning resource for both musicians and computer programmers. From guitar tablature to YouTube videos, learning a musical skill no longer requires expensive teachers or handbooks. For computer programmers, open source software – which allows a look inside the code that determines computer programs – has been an invaluable learning tool and has even lead to the development of new, free programs. As a result, there is a buzzing community that keenly looks forward to the next time Microsoft is forced to give up the secrets behind its programs due to competition regulation. There is a wealth of learning resources on the internet, like never before.
But books have always been easily accessible. The books that I can read on Kindle now have been in the library stacks for the past fifty years. If I wanted to learn from the master, I could read a book by Dickens, Hemingway or Tolstoy; I did not have to wait for some novel communication technology and the willingness of big companies to show the mechanisms underneath their finished product. Hemingway’s product, on the other hand, has always contained the underlying mechanisms. To a casual reader, A Farewell to Arms has as much learning value as the code that Mozilla Firefox uses; but to a writer, it is as much of a goldmine as the code to Windows is to computer fanatics.
It seems, then, that the internet and eBook readers have altered the consumption of literature at most. It’s now possible to take several books anywhere without too much hassle, but it seems unlikely that the way literature is produced and brought to people’s attention will go through fundamental changes like the music industry has. Two aspects of literature are candidates for some interesting developments, however. First, since the internet is not always the best place to go for an audience with a long attention span, short stories may become popular. In fact, this has already happened to some degree as humorous writers like Maddox and Tucker Max, who started out with websites, have become best-selling authors.
The second is an issue close to my heart. As a Dutchman, I have noticed that very few books by Dutch authors are translated into English, especially compared to books by Spanish, German and French authors. And, from my experience, if they are translated it’s usually done poorly. Perhaps the translation of books will take on the same form as the continuous improvement of free software by amateurs. Wikipedia’s multi-lingual efforts and Facebook’s recent campaign appealing to its users to translate it are all clues that this is not very unlikely – although it might fail due to copyright complications. Let’s hope not – it would be a pity if the internet’s only contribution is easier consumption. And believe me: some of those Dutch books are worth a read once they are translated well.
[Entry for a competition ran by Exposition, an Oxford student magazine]