Simplicius takes a break from the geopolitical and explores seemingly bygone literary art.

Many writers developed cultic appeal because they not only lived the lives they wrote about, they seemed to exude a mystic aura in the most direct and overt sense: that is, they engaged in occult practices, spoke of mystical experiences—Philip K. Dick’s infamous ‘V.A.L.I.S.’ incident comes to mind; Burroughs’ life was wrought with possessions and ‘visitations’. That’s not to say this necessarily makes them great writers, or even better ones than today’s stock; it’s just an observation on their image and parasocial relationship with the public, and how that served to create a sometimes grandiose representation of their work, which, illusory or not, made it seem to impart more truth, more grist of enlightenment about our puzzling, isolated experience.

But all of this so far has been from the frame of the authors themselves. The more nuanced and tangled perspective comes from that of the audience, the receptor rather than the transmitter in this two-way dynamic. The modern audience has changed just as assuredly as the author. There are myriad ways and reasons for that, primary among them the internet and spread of social media. These have changed not only the parasocial dynamic between the two, but more importantly, have given audiences a previously unknown capacity to plumb an author’s intimate depths, wash and launder every loose knickknack of their character for the public consciousness, secularizing their romanticized ‘auras’ and clinically cataloging their fey intangibles.

More than that, the audience’s tastes and consumption appetites have fundamentally changed. In the age of the quick-fix and low impulse control, grunting audiences nose through the literary truffle garden for the next novelty, eschewing the difficult or committed. The relationship between author and reader has always been a sort of channeling seance: it takes two for the creative spark to alchemize into revelation, or transcendence. If the audience is not attuned or even developed enough to be receptive to the connection—the shades of meaning and subtext—then the power will not transmit properly over frayed wiring.

The best authors sketch the secret patterns of the world, reorienting the reader through the privileged passageways and penumbras of the unseen and untouched semiotic realm. An uninterested or distracted reader—or one benumbed to the world’s artesian currents by the diffusive excesses of modernity—will not be receptive to the engagement. The vast amount of information we process in the average day today nearly alone precludes the existence of a ‘great writer’, as his shadow in the ‘great audience’ has dissipated with the times. Dilution and overstimulation leave a gray mesh of attention spans squandering the fertilization process necessary for fermenting ‘Exceptional Material’. That’s a long winded manner of saying: attention spans, over-dilution of choices, coupled with this internet-mediated demystification of authorial personas has left the audience disinterested, disengaged, and more apt to seek novelty in the form of trend-hopping or variety for its own sake.

The other contributing factor is the general direction the industry itself has taken. The total overhaul of the literary and book publishing industries from the ground up has transformed them into a fair caricature of the Longhoused DEI subversion-machine stereotype applicable to the managerial and ‘professional’ classes over the last few years. Those who haven’t followed would likely pale at the sheer depth of the industry’s total disembowelment and ideological revampment.

Read the whole thing. In fact, just read. The characters and the stories are still out there. And when one comes across a good or great reader, be she a Hawari or he a Graham or even a Lovett (hey!), then, by all means, buy, support, and spread the word!