Too Many....
Apr. 17th, 2005 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloRichard and Judy's novel-writing competition (which I didn't win) drew 46,000 entries.
46,000 novels. Think of it. You'd need a lifetime to read them all.
46,000 novels. And one has been selected for publication.
According to the Economist something like 10,000 novels are published in the UK each year.
Of that 10,000, how many will be remembered?
In a good year- one, two, three? In many years none at all.
And how many classic novels are there altogether? Count up the novels that really matter- the novels that form the Western canon, from Don Quixote to Catcher in the Rye- and I doubt if they number more than 1,000.
The novels that matter are a tiny proportion of the novels that have been published and the novels that have been published are a tiny proportion of the novels that have been written.
It makes me feel sick and giddy.
And small....
46,000 novels. Think of it. You'd need a lifetime to read them all.
46,000 novels. And one has been selected for publication.
According to the Economist something like 10,000 novels are published in the UK each year.
Of that 10,000, how many will be remembered?
In a good year- one, two, three? In many years none at all.
And how many classic novels are there altogether? Count up the novels that really matter- the novels that form the Western canon, from Don Quixote to Catcher in the Rye- and I doubt if they number more than 1,000.
The novels that matter are a tiny proportion of the novels that have been published and the novels that have been published are a tiny proportion of the novels that have been written.
It makes me feel sick and giddy.
And small....
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-17 05:23 pm (UTC)The processes of canon formation are so long, complex and arduous, and so intertwined with the narratives of politics and history, that I think it is kind of impossible to think about what will be canonised from today's world. It takes a lot of distance to be able to say 'Wow, we think that this is part of the canon now.' And in some ways canon formation is kind of arbitrary. So yeah, of those 10,000 novels, I think we can only really talk effectively about how important any of them are to us right now.
Plus I might cheekily suggest that first year undergraduate students of the year 2205 who study the art of today might not be given any novels to read at all. ;) Just kidding.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-18 01:07 am (UTC)Yes, we shouldn't bother ourselves too much about what happens next. Keats died thinking he was a failure. Emily Dickinson and Gerald Manley Hopkins had nothing (or next to nothing) published in their own lifetimes.
Oddly enough I can't think of any novelists who were only published and/or famous after death, but there must be some.
You could be right about the year 2205. By then the novel itself might be utterly obsolete.