the decline of the novel

This is an excerpt from Ted Gioia’s consistently provocative Substack, The Honest Broker. For the whole post, see here.

      Fewer than half of U.S. adults read a book in the last year, according to the NEA. But fiction readership has been hurt most of all, falling 17 percent over the course of a decade.

      The result is that 62 percent of those surveyed read no fiction whatsoever—neither novels nor short stories.

      I’ve personally encountered a growing hostility to book-readers in recent years. If you mention a contemporary novel in conversation, you will hear dismissive comments in response—such as:

      You read novels? Who has time for that?

      That seems innocent enough, but the facial expressions that accompany these remarks are unsettling. I can’t help remembering Pol Pot who, when he took over in Cambodia, killed everybody who read books.

      Maybe I’m misinterpreting the pervasive vibe of brat culture. But the result is that, over time, I’ve become self-conscious about reading in public—something I’ve done all my life, but never before with such unease.

      From the stares and passing comments, I can tell that this is considered odd behavior, and inspires distrust in some circles.

      The same day I did a survey of bestsellers, The Atlantic published a scorching indictment entitled “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.”

      The author talked to 33 professors about the reading skills of college students today—and their verdict is gloomy.

• A Berkeley professor admits that she has cut required reading in half—and no longer expects students to read entire books, just extracts.

• A Georgetown professor complains that students lose focus now when reading a sonnet—a 14-line poem!

• A University of Virginia professor says that students are now “shutting down” when faced with new ideas.

• A Columbia professor sums up the crisis: “It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how.”