Then today I read this Wired post from Bruce Sterling and the supposed challenges contemporary literature will have to face.  If print is soon to be dead, what new, wondrous things might arise like the phoenix from its ashes?  The convergence of media, from video games and television and online content into one vast electronic whirl of noise, might lead into new forms of creative expression we have yet to imagine.

But where does that leave us, humble writers of traditional short stories & novels (traditional in the sense of being told purely in text)?  Personally, I do not believe that the written word will vanish simply because of the glut of available media.  Stories are a part of human culture too and will never go away.  But the way in which such stories are delivered will undoubtedly change, and do so rapidly in the next decade.  Wise and prescient storytellers might capitilize on this new model, but what if I want to be old-fashioned and write a textual novel?  In 2050, will people sit down to read their favorite book by e-reader?  Or will content be so balkanized, rehashed, user-generated by then that the novel as we know it will be essentially dead?  Someone tell me please because a part of me is quite scared.  The other part is quite excited.

Check it out.

Fifth Estate #380 (Spring 2009)
issue theme: “Subtext, Subversion & Sabotage”
www.fifthestate.org

* Henry Reed – “Between Orwell and McCarthy: The Crucifixion of Marie Mason”
* anon – “The Green Scare Rolls On”
* Cara Hoffman & Joe Ricker – “The Jumper”
* Ambrose Nurra – “Miscarriage” and “Proverb”
* Gavin Grindon – “Second-Wave Situationism?”
* Jason Cook – “Eschatology”
* Jacob Bennett – “An Elegy for Malachi Ritscher”
* Jack Bratich – “Subjectivity Rosa: Undercurrent Affairs”
* Bianca Shannon – “Tracks”
* Walker Lane – “Nope to Hope: False Capital & the Spectacle Triumphant”
* Peter Lamborn Wilson – “Seven Subversive InstaSonnets”
* Don LaCoss – “Sucker”
* Cara Hoffman – “Rachel Pollack is Willing to Change Everything”
* Kristian Williams – “Sexual Liberation and the Possibilities of Friendship: Foucauldian Proposals and Anarchist Elaborations”
* anon – “Our Hearts Never Hibernate, Neither does the State: An Update on the RNC 8”
* John Gibler – “ ‘We Will Continue’ – Street Art in Oaxaca”
* Charles Hale – “Solidarity in Slowmotion”
* Jim Feast – “ ‘The People’s Luck’: Anti-Authoritarian China”
* Stevphen Shukaitis – “Workers’ Inquiry, Militant Research, and the Business School”

BOOK REVIEWS

* Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark, edited by Paul Bogard. Review by Don LaCoss * AKIBA: A Gnostic Novel, by p.m. Review by Dave Meesters
* CYCLONOPEDIA complicity with anonymous materials, by Reza Negarestani. Review by Peter Lamborn Wilson

Issues are $4pdd (US) each and subscriptions are $14 (US), $20 (Mexico & Canada) and $24 (world).
www.fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, PO Box 201016, Ferndale, MI 48220.

***

SUBMISSION CALLS for #381 and #382

for #381, SUMMER 2009
Now accepting submissions; no theme. Deadline is June 1, 2009. Write to: fe@fifthestate.org or Fifth Estate, PO Box 201206, Ferndale, MI 48220

for #382, FALL 2009
In honor of Ursula K. LeGuin’s 80th year, the Fifth Estate plans a very special issue with writings by and about this esteemed and visionary author. In particular, we seek artwork, poems, essays, and short stories that explore LeGuin’s living legacy of ambiguous anarchy, of her utopian, feminist, ecological, Taoist, and anti-authoritarian work.

Please write with any questions.

Submissions accepted starting July 1, 2009!
sunfrog@gmail.com or Fifth Estate, PO Box 6, Liberty, TN 37095

What I find interesting about Sterling’s piece is that it deals not with the death of print, but with the death of the book.  He says “but I do wonder what weird form of American culture emerges when nobody has ever cracked a book”.  As a lover of books I agree on some level, but I also have to wonder if Aristotle ever wondered what weird world would result if no one ever unrolled a scroll?

To me the word is the thing.  Yes, I want a nice thick novel with my name on the spine to sit on my shelf.  But perhaps that book can be one of a few copies that I and a few family members and friends have custom made, limited edition works of art, while the rest of the world reads my work on a Kindle, iPhone, computer screen, or whatever else comes down the pike.

Mr. Sterling brings up book publishers as the biggest losers in a such bookless society.  I agree.  I worked for one of the big publishers he lists in his piece, and every six months we listened to management wring their hands about how “nobody reads” anymore (this speech was generally right before raises were announced) and the implied decline in literacy it pointed to.  By their admission, though, their statistics only extended to those who read novels; other printed media and most non-fiction books did not count in their tallies.  During my childhood I remember my father reading exactly two novels (“Dillinger Days” and “The Right Stuff”), so he definitely falls into that group of the publisher’s “non-readers” sliding towards illiteracy, even through he reads a newspaper cover to cover every day and has subscriptions to several monthly magazines.

The death of the print world has been foretold many times in the past.  The arrival of radio, television, and the internet have all been its heralds.  Maybe this time it will come to pass, or maybe not.  Maybe what we are looking at is a shift in the medium, not the content.  I truly love the feel of a book and magazine in my hand, it’s more solid and real to me, but I have to admit I spend more time clicking through emails, blog posts and news articles on my computer than I do turning paper pages.  Perhaps in that case a fundamental shift in the publishing world wouldn’t be a bad thing.  Look at the music industry and digital music’s impact; the fans and musicians have welcomed it, the record labels bemoan their lost revenue.

Will the written word die?  Not for a long time.  But, the book might outlive its usefulness, and for that I am truly sad.