9/27 Response

As I read Chapters One and Two of Revolution and the Word this week, I found myself continually reflecting on the role of the reader in the progression of the novel into an everyday, fairly affordable commodity.  I have boxes and boxes of books, and my Amazon wish list is quite extensive; however, my opportunities as a reader are vastly different from readers in the new Republic.  This difference between past and present readership is so interesting to me, as the first readers of the novel paid dearly for items that I, admittedly, take for granted on a daily basis.  As one who finds the ordinary interesting, I am quite taken with these early readers, their habits, and the struggle and sacrifice that they had in order to have books.

Davidson makes the claim early on in Chapter One that we must look at readers clues for information about the early readers of the novel: “prefatory material or any other such reading clues also serve as reader clues and indicate something of the gender, age, class, and level of literacy of the first audience to whom the book was addressed” (62).  As Davidson explores the habits of the readers – markings in the page, practiced penmanship, folded down pages – we get a glimpse of the people that read these early works.  We get a sense of the humanity of the readers and the everydayness of their pursuits.  Moreover, by looking at the way that readers valued, appreciated, and used the books, we find a connection to our personal readerships.  In Davidson’s terminology, “we search for roots not out of dispassionate curiosity about the past but because we know that the family tree ultimately produced ‘me’” (69).  I am a product of the readership of the past; I have the opportunity to read and appreciate books (novels in reference here) because of this heritage.  Call it ordinary, but to me, it is fascinating.

Moreover, I have the ability to own my books – a seemingly common occurrence now but not in the early years of novel production.  If an ordinary laborer earned $1 per day and a novel could cost between $.75 and $1.50, novel ownership would have been a sacrifice for families, especially, when food and necessities for large families take presence in terms of the necessity for daily living.  Moreover, if Davidson’s calculations are correct in terms of inflation, “ a typical late eighteenth-century novel would have cost approximately three to four times more than an equivalent hardcover volume today” (85).  Wow!  To own a book during this time period was a painful sacrifice for families, especially rural families, and “buying novels in quantity […] was well beyond the means of common people at the end of the eighteenth century.  Yet there is evidence that those of modest to low income increasingly read books” (87).  Introduce lending libraries, borrowing from friends and family, reading before returning a mistress’s novel to the library, and communal reading.  All of these factors increased access to novels, which in turn, increased demand, prompted new technology, and ultimately began the path to making books more accessible.  This past is the reason why novels are accessible in the present.

So why do I find this fascinating?  Because my readership is completely shaped by this historical precedence.  I think about how I read – yes, I mark up my books – but I am only able to do this because my books do not over my daily wage, and I can afford to buy personal copies.  Moreover, I have the ability to buy in quantity, and I am by no means “wealthy.”  With electronic books for $.99 now, almost everyone can afford to read, and even those of us who prefer paper copies can usually afford the ones we really want.  But, we take it for granted.  We only have this ability because it was at one time a sacrifice.  My freedom as a reader is not even comparable to the readers in the new Republic, and even into the nineteenth century.  These readers paved the way for modern readership, and from their struggle, sacrifice, and pursuit of novel reading, novel are accessible and affordable now.

However, are novels too accessible?  I have just spent four paragraphs exploring the link between past and present readers; however, there is a key difference that deserves attention.  I am aligning myself with the past readers because I have a love for literature and I seek out and value novels (and most all books in general).  However, with the rise in new media, the closing of libraries, and the constant allurement of the Internet, is the same desire for reading novels in the current generations as it was in the past?  I will admit that I am probably an exception to the current trend away from readership, or at least novel reading as a leisurely activity, highly valued and pursued.  We have the complete reversal from our “roots” now.  Early novel readers – I admit to mass generalization here – had the overwhelming desire for novel reading but limited resources.  Because of their pursuit to be active readers and the role of the publisher/literary agents/writers/etc., printing became more advanced, technology continually improved, and book production became more affordable.  Problem solved.  But was it?  We – as twenty-first century readers – have the resources now but is the desire gone because the novel is too accessible?  Have we, in fact, had a complete reversal from the new Republic readers?  Do we, in fact, have a new problem now? I know that I am posing quite a few questions here, but I see a very interesting relationship with our past and present.  We are exploring the progression of the novel, but I suggest that we may be discovering questions about ourselves – or at least our generations – that pose an equally interesting discussion in relation to the evolving role of the novel.