The Twilight of the Novel

"It hardly needs pointing out that that at this moment the prestige of the novel is extremely low ... the novel is likely, if the best literary brains cannot be induced to return to it, to survive in some perfunctory, despised and hopelessly degenerate form, like modern tomb-stones, or the Punch and Judy show."

Only twenty-nine days to National Novel Writing Month! I will resist any cheap shots about writing a novel about a frustrated Nanowrimo novelist who bitches endlessly about wordcounts on his weblog. Oops. I guess my powers of resistance are at a low ebb. I have caught the Nanowrimo bug, thanks to the endless enthusiasm of the Great Androoo (thanks again!), and cannot be dissuaded from writing another one. I posted the first one two months ago, and so far it has been read by... my Mum. She liked it. So it must be alright, I guess. I don't think it is perfunctory and hopelessly degenerate. It doesn't have any abortionists in it and never mentions John Kerry. In fact, it doesn't mention any Americans at all. It isn't a propaganda vehicle for my outlandish opinions and it isn't written in baroquely florid unending sentences. In fact, it has hardly any adverbs. You should read it. Please read it. If you exist...

A close relative has suggested that I chose the time and place for my next Nanowrimo novel by rolling dice. I think this is a good idea, and will do so on November 1st. For time, I thought about constructing some sort of function to give a greater likelihood at times when there were more people around, but couldn't figure out an elegant way to achieve this. So I am thinking of using the Jewish calendar, which starts with the theoretical date of the creation of the world. I am not yet sure whether to roll 1-5765 or 1-9999. I plan to roll longitude (E or W, 1-180) and then latitude (N or S, sin^-1(0-1), to avoid stacking the deck in favour of the poles). Hmmm. It seems like I have capitulated entirely to the blogging medium, and have ended up writing about the mind-numbingly dull minutiae of my life again.

The quote I found in a Salman Rushdie essay. It is George Orwell, writing in 1936.