Ernie : Terrific explanation. But I would demur about this : "most of the greatest books were novels, rather than treatises." Again, its not just me. Until about 1970 fiction outsold non-fiction, barely, but there was a margin. Would have to look it up to be sure, but I think it is now about 2 : 1 non-fiction ahead of fiction. What has been happening is that "information desire" has been creating new reader demands. I agree completely with the point you made about narrative. But good writers are able to take hard information and craft it into a narrative. Billy =================================== 4/20/2012 11:06:34 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Billy, On Apr 20, 2012, at 11:01 AM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote: All of this said, one of my heroes, Henri Saint-Simon , was addicted to cheap novels and was Dostoevsky himself. Maybe I am being too judgmental, but maybe not. What explains some people's fascination with trash fiction ? There would seem to be some sort of lesson worth learning, if the answer could be found out. The lesson is that people love narratives. There's a reason most of the greatest books were novels, rather than treatises. People consume junk because great food is too expensive (in some measure of time/effort/psychological cost). Figure out how to reduce the cost of creating and experiencing a great narrative, and you can drive junk out of the market... -- Ernie P. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: _http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism_ (http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism) Radical Centrism website and blog: _http://RadicalCentrism.org_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/) -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
