Will the Novel Survive?

Political polarisation, Substack, Netflix, TikTok – the modern world seems to conspire against the introspective reading of long fictional texts. Anna Gát looks at the chances of survival for the novel in the 21st century.

A seminal experience of my adolescence: withdrawing and curling up with a book, re-emerging days later shaken, fulfilled, accomplished, a thick volume lying by the couch all consumed.

Like many working adults, I find it harder and harder to find time for such escapes from the world, or to be able to fully hand myself over to a book – so many things are calling for my attention, reality has me in its grip.

Is this a unique experience, or a fact of our era? We seem to be buying more books than before, but reading fewer of them. Will the most time-demanding and emotionally challenging literary format, the novel, survive such personal and collective distractions?

Will the binge-watching and the doom-scrolling triumph?

Join us to share your stories, and discuss the future of the novel!

To read before the event:

• https://thepointmag.com/criticism/conserving-the-novel/
• https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/virginia-woolfs-art-of-character-reading
• https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/books/review/michel-houellebecqs-submission.html
• https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/art-is-for-seeing-evil/
• https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/bret-easton-ellis-future-fiction-olah/

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