The language of a book

[Oriole]

You know, I admire all kinds of books, old and new, fantasy, realistic fiction, sci-fi, historical fiction, YA, romance, you name it. I have favorite titles in just about every genre. I do not automatically dismiss a book just because it's from a particular genre, time period, or a country. That being said, I've been thinking about the language recently, and how much writing and reading has changed over the years.

Books go through so much before they are admitted into print. It's read and reread, and screened for current interest and engaging language. Of course, you can't please everyone, but the writers make an effort to catch readers attention right away, the editors have a luxury to select the best of thousands submissions, the stories move and develop very fast, conclusions are explosive and emotional, etc. One may say that the quality of writing has gone down, and another may say that writers are learning how to engage readers from page one, and are challenged to keep that attention until the very last line. I have my favorite share of classics, but most of my favorite books are current, and books that I can't put down (Jane Eyer aside ), are usually written within the past 10-20 years. I read "The Hobbit", and I enjoy the beautiful wording, but then I pick up "The Hunger Games", and I can't say up till midnight just to find out exactly how it ends.

Not sure if I am clear with my point here... but do you think writing is improving and becoming closer to the reader as time goes on? Do you think it is suffering? Do you appreciate both?

[Ambishop19]

I appreciate both. If I were to make generalizations, I get more out of older "classic" books, but I enjoy reading current books more. There are exceptions to both rules though, and we of course don't know what the "new" classics will end up being. That being said, I loved The Hunger Games so much! I think her writing is good, and it's definitely better than Stephenie Meyer's writing.

[ollyoxenfree]

I enjoy reading across almost all genres - including children's and young adult fiction, which is often dismissed as unworthy, yet a lot of it is better written than the popular best-sellers these days.

I'm not entirely sure I understand your thoughts, but here are some of mine. Language styles, vocabulary, word usage, sentence structure, and literary styles are constantly evolving. Generally, I'd say that today, readers tolerate much less description and prefer action to move forward in books. I suspect there are probably a lot of PhDs writing about the influence of television, flim and video games on literature. We aren't a society that appreciates delay of gratification. Dickens would not survive on serializing his books, chapter by chapter, in this era. Instead, he would have had to write a 6 volume series about Oliver Twist and his Series of Unfortunate Events.

I think there is a trend in "literary fiction" to experiment with lots of different devices - non-linear storytelling, "poetic" writing, using different voices, blurring memoir and fiction etc. It's the sort of stuff that's made Michael Ondaatje and Peter Carey famous. Some of it is fascinating and enjoyable and it succeeds brilliantly. Some of it is just work on the part of the reader, and it fails badly. I read a lot of these books because they are intriguing and thought-provoking and remarkable and often quite beautiful.

Then there is the popular fiction - the chick lit and lad lit, beach novels etc. Stuff you chew up and swallow whole like it's fast food. A lot of them pass through the best sellers lists, but I don't think they are all that memorable or, for that matter, enjoyable. They are written at a fairly low literacy level so that they will appeal to as many people as possible and make lots of money. Series are popular with publishers because once a reader has bought into the series, they will keep spending money on it, even if the writing degenerates and becomes a tiresome repeat of previous books - which is what usually happens. I read a lot of these books because I they are a pleasant distraction and don't require a lot of attention.

There is a lot written that falls in between the two, with the action-oriented stuff dominating in the popular fiction end of the spectrum.

It's difficult to say which books will survive to become classics for future generations. I suspect that there's always been this kind of spectrum. After all, "pulp fiction" has been around for generations. There were a lot of books written at the same time as Jane Eyre that we don't know anything about today, because they haven't survived.