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| 5:17 p.m. |
“Aliens didn’t come down to Earth and give us technology,” (Douglas Coupland) said ...“We invented it ourselves. Therefore it can never be alienating; it can only be an expression of our humanity."
So what is the place of the novel — that rather old-fashioned technology — in a world where newfangled “content delivery systems” are continuously changing the way we read? “Two decades of profound technological shifts have literally, biologically, rewired our brains,” Coupland wrote. “We all know it. We all feel it. I think new work needs to address this astonishing shift. My agent tells me the only books people are writing or reading right now are fantasy. Great, but I want to see how our new brains tell stories set in present times as long-form fiction. I miss my pre-Internet brain, but that doesn’t help anything. We can only go forward.”
So what is the place of the novel — that rather old-fashioned technology — in a world where newfangled “content delivery systems” are continuously changing the way we read? “Two decades of profound technological shifts have literally, biologically, rewired our brains,” Coupland wrote. “We all know it. We all feel it. I think new work needs to address this astonishing shift. My agent tells me the only books people are writing or reading right now are fantasy. Great, but I want to see how our new brains tell stories set in present times as long-form fiction. I miss my pre-Internet brain, but that doesn’t help anything. We can only go forward.”
from today's NY Times Book Review
