A Little History of Literature (39 page)

Annotation and comment will, however, thrive in the new electronic margins. What, exactly, do the moors of
Wuthering Heights
's Yorkshire look like? It would be informative for readers to be able to call them up. Particularly those readers – now that literature is a global phenomenon – who have never been to the wilder areas of the north of England and probably never will.

New technology, will, for a certainty, stimulate the production and consumption of ‘graphic’ fiction, and ‘poetry’ (however loosely defined). Literature has up to now been overridingly textual – essentially words on the page. It is one of the things that, regrettably, can render it unattractive to readers (particularly younger readers)
whose culture (via screens and game consoles) is richly audio-visual and increasingly ‘virtual’. Getting your stories from black marks on a white surface is not so exciting. The graphic novel is exciting, as is poetry set to popular music. All those Guy Fawkes masks, worn by the young agitators of the Occupy movement, were inspired by a graphic novel, Alan Moore's
V for Vendetta
– the masks are directly copied from the illustrator David Lloyd's design. Graphic fiction, like the comic book to which it is related, eases itself into film readily, creating a large knock-on readership. The economic rise of Japan and China, whose writing systems are traditionally pictographic, will add force to this mutation.

Interactive literature, which requires the reader to co-operate rather than passively consume, is already a presence. In the future we can expect what Aldous Huxley, in
Brave New World
, called ‘feelies’ (Chapter 30) – that is, narratives, poems and plays that are multi-sensorial: felt, smelled, heard, seen. ‘Readers’, as they formerly were, will be ‘participants’. ‘Bionic literature’ will happen, one may be sure, much sooner than Huxley prophesied. We shall become ‘whole body’ readers.

‘New packaging’ is the third of the large ‘climatic’ changes that will refashion literature. One of the most interesting moves towards it is evident in the explosive rise of ‘fanfic’ on the web. Fanfic (fan-fiction) is created, as the name suggests, by fans who either want more
of
their favourite fiction, or who want more
from
it. It starts from the premise that works of literature are not ‘fixed’ things like stone sculptures. The old division between author and reader melts away.

Fanfic thrives on the Web, where there is currently little regulation either of content or copyright. A huge quantity of it is produced – much more than printed fiction. There are vigorous growth areas around classic fiction: as I write, ‘The Republic of Pemberley’ website, dedicated to ‘obsessive’ lovers of Jane Austen, has a ‘Bits of Ivory’ annex in which fans devise sequels to the six novels. Fanfic is not limited to works that are out of copyright. Whole alternative versions of works such as
The Lord of the Rings
have been generated. A lot of fanfic is poor stuff, but some of it is as good as anything you'll find in print.

It is now not unknown for novels that go on to be bestsellers, or otherwise successful, to originate as fanfic productions. As a genre, fanfic is material generated by small groups and intended for circulation among those small groups. It is not commissioned, nor is it paid for, nor is it ‘reviewed’, nor is it bought. It is not, as the term is usually applied, ‘published’. It is fiction written principally for readers who also, many of them, write it – a party where everyone joins in. Fanfic is not a commodity. It is neither commercial nor professional. It is never traded in any kind of market. In many ways, it is closer to a literary conversation – ‘talking about books’ – than to the printed word. It can also be seen as literature's return to its preprinted origins. Did the first listeners to the
Odyssey
, or
Beowulf
, or
Gilgamesh
‘pay’? Probably not. Did they join in the literary fun – even suggesting improvements? Quite likely they did.

One of the most interesting things about oral literature, which we explored earlier, is its fluidity. Like conversation it is flexible and changeable; it takes on the personality of whoever is then in charge of it. It flows, like water, over whatever environment it finds itself in.

What this means in practice can be shown by one of the oralnarrative forms that has come down to us over the millennia: the conversational joke. If I tell you a joke, and you think it's a good one, you may well pass it on. But it will not be identical to what I originally told you. You will make it, with any number of small variations, yours – by elaborating some points, or by removing certain details. It may be improved, or it may not. But if you tell the joke, it will carry some of you in it, just as my telling will carry some of me in it. As it passes on to a third person, it will carry some of both of us. We can see something very similar in fanfic. The original fluidities (so to call them) of literature are being recovered. I find that exciting.

Change is inevitable. To play the prophet (always a risky venture), the best thing that could happen to the future world of literature, its practitioners and participants, is that it will recover that quality of ‘togetherness’. This book has explored how, taken in its totality, literature is something communal: a dialogue with minds greater
than our own; entertainingly-clothed ideas about how we should live our lives; a debate about our world, where it is going and where it should go. This kind of meeting of minds, enabled by literature, is central to our existence now. If things turn out well that meeting of minds will become more intense, more intimate, more active.

What's the worst thing that could happen in the future? If readers were to become swamped – buried under a mass of information they could not process into knowledge – that would be very bad. But I remain hopeful, and with good reason. Literature, that wonderfully creative product of the human mind, will, in whatever new forms and adaptations it takes, forever be a part of our lives, enriching our lives. I say ours, but I should say yours – and your children's.

Index

Aaron's Rod
(i)

Achebe, Chinua
(i)

Adam Bede
(i)

Adorno, Theodor
(i)

Aeneid
(i)
,
(ii)

Aeschylus
(i)

Aesop
(i)

Agnes Grey
(i)
,
(ii)

Akhmatova, Anna
(i)

Albee, Edward
(i)

Albert (Prince Consort)
(i)
,
(ii)

Aldus Manutius
(i)

Ali, Monica
(i)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
(i)
,
(ii)

All Quiet on the Western Front
(i)

American Psycho
(i)

Amis, Martin
(i)

Animal Farm
(i)
,
(ii)

Anouilh, Jean
(i)

Antony and Cleopatra
(i)

‘Are You Digging on My Grave?’
(i)

Areopagitica
(i)

Aristotle
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Arlen, Harold
(i)

Armstrong, Louis
(i)

Arnold, Matthew
(i)

Atwood, Margaret
(i)
,
(ii)

Auden, W.H.
(i)
,
(ii)

Augustus (Emperor)
(i)

Augustans
(i)
,
(ii)

Austen, Cassandra
(i)

Austen, Henry
(i)

Austen, Jane
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
,
(vi)
,
(vii)
,
(viii)
,
(ix)
,
(x)
,
(xi)
,
(xii)

Auster, Paul
(i)

‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’
(i)

Ballard, J.G.
(i)

Balzac, Honoré de
(i)

Barchester Towers
(i)

Barnes, Julian
(i)

Barthelme, Donald
(i)

Baudelaire, Charles
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Baum, L. Frank
(i)

Beauvoir, Simone de
(i)

Beckett, Samuel
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Beethoven, Ludwig van
(i)

Behn, Aphra
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Bellamy, Edward
(i)

Bellow, Saul
(i)

Beloved
(i)

Beowulf
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)

Berger, John
(i)

Berkeley, Bishop
(i)

Berryman, John
(i)

Between the Acts
(i)

Beyoncé
(i)

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
(i)

Birth of a Nation
(film)
(i)

Blake, William
(i)
,
(ii)

Bleak House
(i)
,
(ii)

Boccaccio, Giovanni
(i)
,
(ii)

Boethius
(i)
,
(ii)

Booker Prize
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)

Borges, Jorge Luis
(i)

Boswell, James
(i)
,
(ii)

Bowie, David
(i)

Bradbury, Ray
(i)
,
(ii)

Bradstreet, Anne
(i)

Branagh, Kenneth
(i)

Brave New World
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Brawne, Fanny
(i)

‘Break of Day in the Trenches’
(i)

Brecht, Bertolt
(i)

The Bride of Lammermoor
(i)

Bridges, Robert
(i)
,
(ii)

Bright Star
(film)
(i)

‘Bright Star’ (poem)
(i)

Brod, Max
(i)

Brontë, Anne
(i)

Brontë, Branwell
(i)

Brontë, Charlotte
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)
,
(v)
,
(vi)

Brontë, Emily
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Brontë, Patrick
(i)

Brooke, Rupert
(i)
,
(ii)

The Brothers Karamazov
(i)

Brown, Dan
(i)
,
(ii)

Bunyan, John
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

Burgess, Anthony
(i)

Burns, Robert
(i)
,
(ii)

Byatt, A.S.
(i)
,
(ii)

Byron, Lord
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)

Calvino, Italo
(i)

Cameron, James
(i)

Camus, Albert
(i)
,
(ii)

Cancer Ward
(i)

Candide
(i)

canon
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)
,
(iv)

The Canterbury Tales
(i)
,
(ii)
,
(iii)

The Caretaker
(i)

Carroll, Lewis
(i)
,
(ii)

Carter, Angela
(i)