Declining readers

From "Reading Ethnic Literature Now"

Touche.

I can't take a lot of pride in the ethnic literature I've read when I read it for a class. I guess I can take a little pride in the fact that I read it instead of just listening to the discussions and bsing my essays based on notes. (At least, I didn't do that most of the time.)

Touche in many ways. I don't even read myself, regularly, and I want to be an English professor; my kind of student is going to put my kind of person out of a job.

Doesn't it just wreak with pungent hypocrisy when my primary concern is my future job and my secondary concern is the fact that readership is declining? I roll my eyes with a philosophically submissive "how can we change this? What can we do and what must I do?" Or even...is there a way to change it?

I can't say I know. Honestly I think readership is going to continue to decline, and a small community of "save the books" fans can read all they want and buy all the books their finances will allow them and we will still degenerate because of the fast indulgence that films and motion picture allow. They satisfy our artistic desire; they allow us to escape our lives, bring us into a story, and can be decently engaging/moving/thought-provoking.

One thing they do not have that books do...that mysterious quiet, where reader determines the tone, and creates all the visuals in his/her head. The miraculous transportation from squiggles on a page to other lives in a physical place created by our imagination.

Movies don't have as magical a transportation method, in my opinion. But they're easier. Which is why they're taking over.

I hope literature stays alive, and I WILL say that people will stop buying books long before people stop writing them, if for no other reason, because the easy-factor comes into play for the writing. It's easier to write prose than a film script. And, like Dr. Powers said about writers who don't read, everybody wants to be heard. People won't shut up anywhere, especially when expressing oneself turns into an art. So I don't think books and literature will ever go away, but the market and taste for them is on its deathbed.

Sorry for such a depressing post.