Globalized literature…
As I watched PBS’s presentation of the Vienna Summer Concert recently, I started thinking about globalized literature. Yes, the music was great, and I hummed the great, rousing trombone countermelody from Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes” along with the orchestra because I’d once come to the front of the stage with my fellow trombonists to blast that out as part of a rousing finale for a high school band concert decades ago. Of course, the Vienna Philharmonic isn’t a band, but they were playing both band and orchestral music—“American music,” written by Americans or inspired by America. An earlier piece was Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” but the pianist was Wang Yuja, and that was the trigger for my thoughts. The first movement of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony sealed my fate.
Nationalist music is old music. So is nationalist literature. Today, across Europe with all those different countries with different languages, people speak and read English. I’ve heard better English from foreign diplomats whose native tongue isn’t English than I heard in any classroom I’ve taught in. If books are written in another language, they’re often translated. Agents and lawyers make money representing authors so their books can be translated. Not long ago I read Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem; it won a Hugo award. (A poorly written, chaotic plot, but maybe it lost something in the translation.)
Does any reader check where an author comes from anymore? Maybe at local book events (people want to know where I’m from in NJ), but most readers don’t care until they’ve finished the book, if then. In fiction, I only care that the author spins a good yarn. In non-fiction, I only care that s/he’s knows something about what s/he’s writing about.
Yes, it’s true. Stories that take me globetrotting through the pages might be a lot of fun, but again that makes the point: literature is global now. We read stories no matter what their settings are and where their authors come from or where the stories go.
That Viennese orchestra was playing American music—old music. In our high schools and colleges we teach American literature—old literature. Classical, jazz, rock, and other musical styles are universal now. Mystery, thriller, and sci-fi genres are also universal. Now both music and literature are global because modern society is global.
Books are global, the stories are global, and the readership is global. In fact, publishing conglomerates, often composed of hundreds of subsidiaries, are global, and, like it or not, have the most readership. Of course, it’s not the publishing industry driving this globalization; it’s the readership. Readers aren’t interested in nationalist literature; they’re interested in good stories. Stieg Larsson is widely read. So is Garcia Marquez. Books are international treasures now that everyone and anyone can read, unless an autocratic government bans them (plenty of those are still around).
And maybe that old literature will rise from the ashes and become international too. Salinger is making ebooks. New media possibilities add to the globalization of literature.
The world is getting smaller. So is the world of literature. This isn’t a bad thing. We’re all humans on spaceship Earth together, and storytelling is a quintessential human characteristic. It doesn’t belong to one country or one region.
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Comments are always welcome.
Son of Thunder. Scotland Yard Inspector, Esther Brookstone, now retired, becomes obsessed with finding St. John’s tomb, using directions from Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli, in this mystery/thriller. Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden tries to keep Esther focused and protected while he multitasks fighting illegal gun merchants. The reader can also follow how their romance is going. All in this new book in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series–coming soon from Penmore Press.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
