"That loss of depth and memory means that if the decline of the novel is not the internet’s more troubling influence, it might be one of the more telling."
Ross Douthat
I caught Crazy Henry reading a book the other day. And he wasn't even ashamed that I caught him.
"Aha!" I said, when I saw him with his nose in a paperback. "Caught you red-handed! Don't you know reading books is subversive?" I was only half joking; I wanted to see what he'd say.
"You want some ramen noodles? I was just gonna make some" he asked me.
"Sure" I said. "Can you put an egg in it?"
He didn't reply but went into his kitchen and came out ten minutes later with two bowls. There were lots of scrambled eggs mixed in with the ramen. We ate companionably in silence for a while. Then Crazy Henry said "The last great novel published here in America was 'Chad Hanna' in 1940. It's all been propaganda and pornography since then. So I only read old books." He showed me his paperback; it was Dicken's 'The Pickwick Papers.'
"Blogging has killed good literature" I said wisely.
"Twitter, more likely" he replied. Then he set down his bowl to rummage through the drawer on his coffee table to hand me a yellow legal pad. "That's my new tweet novel" he said proudly. "Done all in tweets, like Donald Trump. It'll turn the novel publishers on their heads!"
I read the first three pages -- it was all incomprehensible gibberish to me; the only thing I understood was 'LOL,' which was used constantly.
"This blows chunks" I told him. "I'd rather read a ramen package."
"Here, you wanna finish the rest of my noodles? I'm full." was his reply.
"Sure thing" I said. "I believe in supporting lame artists like you."
But then I started to repent of my words; they were really mean, and what had Crazy Henry done to deserve such ridicule? Just penned a lousy book. Thousands of people have done that, and it didn't make them bad people or anything. So I told Crazy Henry I was sorry I'd called him a lame artist. Maybe his book would become a bestseller, I dunno.
"That's okay" he replied cheerfully. "Actually, I already got an advance on it from Random House. Ten thousand dollars, and they're gonna publish it in the fall."
"They're gonna publish that piece of . . . stuff?" I asked incredulously.
"Yep. And they even sent me a big bottle of pickled quail eggs" he said. He went in the kitchen and came back with a tall glass jar full of pink quail eggs; the label said: "For Our Best New Authors, Courtesy of Random House Publishing."
Much chastened, I stayed quiet for the rest of the afternoon while Crazy Henry looked up quail egg recipes online.
When I got home that night I dug through my footlocker until I found an old paperback of 'Great Expectations' by Dickens. I read it until I fell asleep -- which was in about five minutes.
