I once heard a quote that said that if no novel had never been written, our world would not be appreciably different—or something to that effect.
Can anybody identify the quote or the author or guide me to it?
Much appreciated.
Oh
I thought Charles Dickens and Shakespeare were two?
Don’t know if this is in any way related to what you’re asking about, but I heard on Writer’s Almanac this morning (transcript here ) regarding Kurt Vonnegut:
Well, as I recall, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not without its effects…
What about Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and its effects on the meat-packing industry as far as sanitary working conditions and worker’s rights?
There’s a subtle distinction at work here.
The question of whether novels have had an effect in the world is not exactly the same as asking whether the world would be different without novels.
It’s pretty easy to argue that the Civil War would have happened exactly as it did even if Harriet Beecher Stowe were illiterate and that plenty of muckraking journalists would have had just as much or more effect on corporate practices even if Upton Sinclair were a meatpacker and not a writer.
We can never know for sure, of course. One of the problems of arguing counterfactuals is that any one is exactly as likely as any other; plausibility is just an illusion of our actual experience.
For want of a book to prop up the wobbly table, the table was lost;
For want of a table, the general was unable to formulate a coherent strategy;
For want of a coherent strategy, the battle was lost;
For want of the battle, the war was lost;
For want of the war, the horse was lost;
For want of the horseshoe… [sub]Oh, wait, nemmine[/sub]
It wasn’t literature exactly(and therefore is probably not the quote you are looking for) but I read an article about the importance of archives recently* in which the author pondered the question of what would happen if there were two societies, one that saved all the records and one that saved none. The author suspected that the two societies would be more alike than different. If I recall correctly, I think the author was mostly advocating that archivists should be selective in what they save, but also that archivists should not obsess over their choices because in the long run it won’t matter whether the archivist preserves something mundane, repetitive and useless and fails to save something unique, historic and valuable to future researchers.
*Recently, meaning I read it in the last three months, not it was written in the last three months. If someone posts that they would like a more accurate quote (or at least a proper citation), I’ll try to remember to look it up tomorrow.
Thanks for the quotes. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t the Vonnegut one of related to archiving. Bummer.
Quote about impotence of literature to create social or political change?
:smack: Oh! You meant importance
This whole thread makes much more sense now that I realize you were asking about the importance of literature and not the impotence.
No, I meant impotence; i.e. the person who said the quote was saying that novels really aren’t effective at creating social or political change.
Actually I think impotence is a better fit for the disscussion. We’re talking about literature’s “Lack of power” to create social change, but the end results are similar enough that it’s of little importance
:smack:
Now, moving on to theimportance of using preview…
Aaaaaah! I see now. Woops. Sorry.
While tangential, here is CSLewis (from The Screwtape Letters) on how writing a book can be a cop-out for actually taking life- or world-changing actions: