As many of you know “the deader the better” is my personal motto regarding authors; that is authors of literature, theology and philosophy (and fundamentally everything else). I have (what I think) a well founded theory of why this is so, and have chosen for the moment to spare you all of that lengthy explanation.
Living tirelessly true to my motto, my literature absorption is consumed with the works of Dumas, Augustine, Doyle, Tolstoy and other fabulously deceased individuals, most of whom put pen to paper before the concept of mass publication was construed. This has led me down a path that has never disappointed. In fact the only disappointment that perpetuated as a result was the disappointment I experience with modern publications.
None the less, I believe that when it comes to personally constructed credos, we should always be in the habit of attempting to prove ourselves wrong. This is not a current concept I have recently decided to apply to my literary addiction. However, with every effort thus far, I have failed, failed miserably, to succeed.
Most of the time I know what work awaits me next. While I’m a mere 90 pages into the current book I’m enjoying my thoughts cannot be kept from selecting the succeeding story. However, occasionally I do close the cover of one narrative and am lost regarding the selection of the next. I found myself in such a predicament one night several weeks ago.
This isn’t an all-bad situation, because the only remedy I know is to wonder the used book store with its rows and rows of mismatched shelves; sagging from years of bearing the weight of mankind’s publications. This ritual continues until something captivates me.
Something did. A novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, entitled “Love in the time of Cholera”. Taking my (what I thought were) chances, I purchased the hardback and headed home.
As some of you may know, the aforementioned novel was published in the 1980’s and it did not disappoint the public. Gaining stunning popularity, “Love in the Time of Cholera” went on to snatch up several desirable literary awards for its author.
I was truly memorized; entranced by the language, in love with the rhetoric, and lost in the plot. I was unaware that an individual, who is my contemporary, could weave together such a beautiful composition. Feeling that I had finally proved myself wrong, I turned the page to the book’s half way point only to be gravely disappointed.
For the next 200 pages or so, I was presented with the same beautiful language I had enjoyed in the previous portion of the book; however, now this language concerned itself with essentially one focus: the physically provocative endeavors of the main character. The plot was weakened, the mystery diluted. What happened to the promising novel I had started reading?
I had naturally encountered the modern literary portrayal of sexuality in other works, but I was unable to formulate my personal opinion about it until now.
The average shelf-life of a book these days is a meager six months. Six months and as an author, you have to produce something shiny and new or else your name will not survive the Barns and Nobel business model. Combine that with a culture that is fiercely saturated by visual media that, let’s be honest, floods our sensory intake with explicit material, and you get fictions that, while slightly more eloquent, are fundamentally cheesy romance novels (hold the illustrated paper-back cover).
Written media of today, in brutal competition with visual media, has only one choice: to arouse and shock us more with words than the latter does with images. Some may classify this as the progressive nature of society, but don’t fool yourselves. This societal obsession has provided authors with nothing more than a cheap cop out. The struggles with character enhancement, or plot sophistication can be casually overcome with the blunt introduction of sexuality; therefore distracting the reader from the fact that the manuscript in hand lacks any element of written genius mankind was privileged to produce once upon a time.
My apologies to Mr. Marquez, the author is clearly fantastic and had he composed 100 years earlier, he would probably stand as one of my favored authors, but he didn’t and therefore he doesn’t. So, I remain true in my motto and in my decision to consume literary works that have more to them than steamy love scenes.
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