Yesterday the Guardian reprinted from its archives an original note from 1958 about Pasternak’s refusal to leave the Soviet Union to receive his Nobel Prize. It’s terrific newspapers take the time to sometimes show their historicity (even if a lot of it is pre-conceived).
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As a student — maybe at any age — it’s really hard to determine the end point of an historical movement to understand what followed. This is a concern because ultimately one wants to know what is going on “now”, and what will be next. An example most young writers have to negotiate is Modernism. While “Post-Modernism” seems largely over as an historical theme, understanding the join, as it were, to the so-called Moderns at the end of the 19th and early 20th century is key to at least understanding how Post-Modernism began. And again, what might be next. The logic being if we can never catch up fully to the now we can at least see where things started and project what might follow. But those origins I think are largely illusory, because like most things they were the product of someone and did not evolve spontaneously. History is a long sequence of people interfering with one another. I don’t think Sebastian Faulks was trying to create controversy when he stated he was ambivalent about the Web recently in an interview in the Telegraph, but the response from the Internet Literati didn’t believe him. To be fair, he says he is worried by an increasing popular dependence on attention technology, and for a writer it’s a difficult problem. But the broader issues that touch publishing may escape him, or more accurately, may not interest him. A recent error in copyright has had an unfortunate impact on a few of Amazon Kindle’s customers. Without more detail I think it’s safe to say this won’t be the norm, and particularly where the text in question was 1984… well, I expect this wasn’t planned. Sam Jordison in the Guardian the other day has put up his hand to ask questions about what this means for eBook readers in general. If the trend in publishing is to move to the Web, with or without DRM (queue Cory Doctorow) then how can customers be assured that their purchases are safe? Or more importantly, how will they know their privacy will be respected, their habits protected (e.g. lending books to family and friends), and most importantly, that their texts will not be censored or interfered with in any way (e.g. abridged and edited versions, and preferred translations over others)? These in my mind are some of the vital questions for the future of publishing. I found an audio interview with Nam Le off of Bookninja that I will try and listen to someday. Le was a celebrated newcomer in 2008 with his short story collection, The Boat. I’ve read it and indeed a couple of the stories are noteworthy, particularly the first, the hallmark story “Love and Honor”. Here are some references. References: Nam Le’s Website NYT interview with Nam Le Kakutani’s glowing review of The Boat |
 
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