Don’t Knock the Classics

I don’t go off on rants very often. I don’t like conflict, and most of the time it just seems futile anyway. But there is one thing that I see cropping up in the world of how-to publishing blogs now and again that always makes me boiling mad.

These are blogs that offer a lot of good basic advice to new authors on how to decide what form of publishing is right for them, how to behave online, how to avoid amateurish mistakes in writing and indie publishing, and so on; a lot of that stuff is very worthwhile. But mixed in with other tips on how to write a book that will sell, I often see advice that boils down to this: don’t pay attention to the classics. Don’t write anything remotely like the great authors of yesterday, because modern readers have no patience for elegant prose or description of any length. I’ve read posts that literally go so far as to claim descriptive passages aren’t needed any more, because nowadays people have already seen pictures of practically the whole world, unlike the ignorant readers of past centuries who needed word-pictures painted for them. Modern readers, they say, are held by such a slight thread of attention that if we use too many long words they’ll drop the book and look for something that’s simpler and moves faster.

I can’t think of a better response than this masterful, no-punches-pulled assessment by 19th-century author and minister J.R. Miller, which I read just this week:

We live in a time when the trivial is glorified and magnified, and held up in the blaze of sensation, so as to attract the gaze of the multitude, and to sell. That is all many books are made for—to sell. They are written for money, they are printed, illustrated, bound, ornamented, titled—simply for money! There was no high motive, no thought of doing good to anyone, of starting a new impulse, of adding to the fund of the world’s joy or comfort or knowledge. They were wrought out of mercenary brains. They were made to sell, and to sell they must appeal to the desire for sensation, excitement, romance, diversion or entertainment. 

So it comes to pass, that the country is flooded with utterly worthless publications, while really good and profitable books are left unsold and unread! The multitude goes into ecstasies over foolish tales, sentimental novels, flashy magazines, and a thousand trivial works that please or excite for a day—while the really profitable books, are passed by unnoticed! 

Hence, while everybody reads, few read the really profitable books. Modern culture knows all about the spectacular literature that flashes up and dies out again—but knows nothing of history or true poetry or really great fiction. Many people who have not the courage to confess ignorance of the last novel, regard it as no shame to be utterly ignorant of the majestic old classics. In the floods of ephemeral literature, the great books are buried away.

Doesn’t that sound like it was written yesterday?

Miller is talking about reading here, but it applies equally well to writing. That passage was written in 1880, but fast-forward to 2014, when hundreds of ebooks are being uploaded to the Kindle Store every single day, and it’s even more relevant.

Now let’s admit it upfront: we do want our books to sell. I want my books to sell. Not necessarily to be runaway bestsellers. I’d like to know people are reading and enjoying them, and I surely wouldn’t mind making a bit of income off them. And I believe 100% that we should expend every effort to make sure our writing meets the highest standard of quality we can achieve, and that we should earnestly endeavor not to bore or confuse our readers. But I’m not in this business to trick a dollar out of someone with an attention span that’s only long enough for things that can be done inside thirty seconds on a smartphone. I am not going to chop my sentences in half and write in words of one syllable with that goal in mind.

I don’t dismiss all contemporary literature offhand either. I’ve read several excellent recently-published books this year, some of which will likely end up on my top-ten favorites list. But for each of those I can think of a dozen instances where I tried a few sample pages of a newer book and gave up in despair at the childishly over-simplified and uninspiring writing.

I know literary styles change over the centuries, and I know that we are not all of us Austens and Dickenses and Tolstoys and Hugos. But the works those authors produced still stand as the benchmarks of our literature, and we are doing a disservice to ourselves and to our own readers if we dismiss them as antiquated and only good for our great-grandfathers (most of whom probably forgot more than we’ll ever know about literature and other things as well). Literature has suffered enough dumbing-down over the past fifty years; it doesn’t need any more help in that direction.