Talking to myself and trying to get some answers about the Hound.
Why did you write this book?
I had a story in mind about the death of the book after 500 hundred years and what that meant. This medium has changed everything, more than any other since the invention of fire, and the world it created is dependent on the book in ways which have become subtle through the familiarity of everyday use. It seemed most odd to me that the very people who depended on the book the most are least aware of its demise.
What do you mean? More books are published today than ever before.
That’s illusory. Most books today are not the product of individual minds but of machines. They are manuals. Directions. Instruction. Recipes. Tools for education. Lists. Data. This is all material which can be recorded by machines and reported by machines. In the case of novels, we have the predominance of a few authors over the many out of an artificial economic paradigm. This is not a natural supply and demand created by individual choices. It is an artificial demand imposed by a combination of convenience with business and political interests.
Are you suggesting some sort of conspiracy to eliminate the book.
No. I have no belief in conspiracies beyond the back yard or the office. They make fun dark fantasies because they feed into irrational fear, but they make no sense beyond a limited purpose. Besides that, the very people responsible for this tragic turn in history are you and I and everyone who loves books–and I know I’m not a participant in any conspiracy. I’m simply stupid enough to act in my own short-term interest at the expense of my children. I make excuses for what I do, but any close rational examination will reveal a combination of profound ignorance coupled with expediency. It is the way we all live.
In what way are you and I responsible for this phenomena you imagine?
Well, firstly, the phenomenon is not imagined. That is one reason for this book and those that come after it in the series. I wanted to detail the facts beyond refutation or easy dismissal. I did not want to create any bogeymen. These are all real people–or at least as real as I can make them–drawn from characters I have known. Because I have known an awful lot of people in the book business, it was simple to combine various individuals. The real difficulty I encountered was in making the parts fit. So many book people–authors, agents, publishers, booksellers–are idiosyncratic. I think that comes from spending so much time alone with their own thoughts and a book.
OK. So. Lets say it is real. Why am I responsible?
Because you accept the paradigm. You buy what you are told you should buy. It’s that simple.
But I read quite widely.
Not as widely as you think. As a book reviewer, for instance, you must keep up with the latest thing. But why? There are a hundred excellent books published last year that you never got to. Why read the latest tripe just because its new?
I’m paid to do that.
So you hold THEM responsible. You are just following orders. You have to earn a living. I know about that. But, couldn’t you review other books as well? Think of all the wonderful work that goes unnoticed every year.
I’m here talking with you. Isn’t that enough?
No. It’s good. But not good enough. I take it from your questions that you think my premise is fatuous. In fact, I have refrained from attempting any sort of overly dramatic or polemical creation here. I write essays for that kind of stuff to get it out of my system and put them on my web site. What I am attempting to write in this novel is a recreation of what is actually happening to my beloved world of books, framed within a specific setting using characters you might find interesting. The mystery aspect–the murder aspect–offers an opportunity for dramatic effect conventional enough, because of the popularity of the genre, to be acceptable. Very few of us have been around an actual murder. In fact, until this first time, my protagonist Henry Sullivan has not encountered anything like this. But he has seen life and death and he approaches this incident as I imagine I would in his place. The key there is that I have imagined this. I’ve seen death, but my only contact with murder is from books and movies and television. I have in fact seen crime committed and investigated, so I have attempted to approach this as a concerned human being. The back-drop of the death of the book is the context. I hope to make that phenomena very clear over the time span of a few short novels.
But I still feel a little hurt by your accusation that I am somehow involved in the murder of the book.
I hope so. But I hope that you are not so offended that you turn away. I guess I’ll have failed if you do that. But you are responsible just as I am.
What have you done to kill the book?
I sold crap so that I could pay my rent. Any prostitute will tell you they did it just to survive. They never do it for pleasure. But in fact, though selling crap did not give me any pleasure, it afforded me the opportunity to sell the books I love. That was a great pleasure. And this justified the prostitution in my mind for many years. I am guilty of that.
But you probably would not have survived as a bookseller otherwise.
I don’t know. I don’t believe I tried hard enough to find other means. A small store in a less expensive location. More creative ways of advertising. Etc. Very soon after I opened my own bookshop in 1975, I was selling the very stuff I had vehemently attacked only a short time before. For several years I had been selling books from a pushcart in the street and loving it. I didn’t realize just how much until later. I was free then of the demands of high rent and the tax man.
OK. What if the book does die, what is the consequence?
The end of civilization as we know it. A few thousand years into the whole thing, and we will have blown it up as surely as if we had engaged in a nuclear war. Did you ever read On The Beach? As I am often heard to say, Nevil Shute is a great author. He is under appreciated primarily because he was not a literary stylist. He was an engineer and a pilot. And he imagined what would happen in a nuclear war. And what is so creepy about it is how real he made it. No big explosions. No monsters. No blood. Just the passing of human civilization. I have never been able to get it out of my mind.
So. What can we do about this–I mean, assuming you are correct and the book is dying?
Turn off the TV.
