Mood:
not sureI'm actually shocked that the poll says 3 out of 4 Americans read a book last year: they should probably reverse those numbers to adjust for the wankers who tried to look smart by claiming they had read a book (perhaps mistakenly thinking that a Chinese menu counts as a piece of translated literature...)
People don't read. That's not a shocker, especially considering the massive glut of information overload brought to us by the interweb et al...
(and yes, thank you for asking: it does concern me that the possible audience for my chosen line of creativity is shriveling up faster than a snowball in Joseph Stalin's hands...)
...think about that analogy for a second and you'll get it...
The worst part about today's fast-paced media and the entertainment industry is that they really look down on their audience (did you get that analogy yet, btw? ;). Most publishable books aren't afforded that luxury: the medium dictates narrative strength and creativity, and there's precious little time left to pander or condescend ('said the brilliant author to the callow reader').
...although Stephen King's last few books in the Dark Tower series prove that vanity and a lack of creative mojo aren't necessarily disqualifiers... but that's true only if your name is Stephen King, I suppose (please let me qualify that by saying that his earlier works are some of the finest, if not the finest, that American literature has to offer).
Anyway, Shane is currently reading McCarthy's novel The Road (despite it being a selection for Oprah's Book Club...*shudder*). Not a huge fan of Cormac's (but I love saying his first name): the guy's prose reads kinda like William Faulkner's would've if he had ever become fully literate...
...Faulknerites: don't hate the messenger, hate the truth...
