The sudden shift to on-line-only education across the U.S. and much of the world has got me to thinking about how physical and economic disasters might re-shape of literature & literary production in industrialized societies. As I’ve speculated before, in these digital pages, the COVID-19 disaster may serve as a time-lapse, sped-up preview and dress rehearsal for climate catastrophe, albeit in a very limited way. And among other effects, climate chaos is increasingly disrupting travel — meaning more time staying put.
Is literature’s function in our lives as a medium for — or substitute for — face-to-face human interaction? The growth in book clubs in recent years (some of which don’t discuss books) suggests that the answer may be yes. And the growth in the creative-writing industry, most of which involves face-to-face conversation, also seems like a sort of community built (ostensibly) around writing and evaluation. Then there are the festivals, conferences, book fairs, etc. — not to mention everyday one-on-one interactions between authors or between booksellers and readers. All of that is, for the moment, gone. Instead, we have “virtuality” — the world through a box. The virtual world is largely taken to be an impoverished, bloodless proxy for the real one. But I’ve done a lot of very valuable reading, listening, watching, talking about literature online. Indeed, I think my literary life would be impoverished without it. And isn’t writing a form of virtuality? Maybe you’re reading The Trial, but you definitely don’t have Kafka there to tell you what it means. Even if an author leaves behind journals, interviews or essays about their work, that’s really just more of their work — texts upon texts. Back in “The Day,” the only contact most authors had with one another was by “snail mail.” And many of their letters lament the absence of the actual correspondent. Thomas Higginson’s famous account of his one and only visit with his pen-pal Emily Dickinson is famous because of their correspondence — and her poems, of course. And the account is Higginson’s virtual presence representing Dickinson’s. Jesus ascended into the clouds but left his Book behind. Still, in a culture like that of the Midwestern U.S., where diffidence is considered a virtue, nonverbal communication is very important. The student who looks like they’re on the verge of speech, but needs an invitation to speak out; a look of real astonishment; a look of real sullenness; a hesitation here or there — these phenomena are important to a pedagogue. Is the person being fulsome and polite — or are they impressed, in spite of themself? Likewise, there’s nothing like an audience at a reading to give one a sense of whether a work is connecting — and if so, with what kind of audience. For my part, I’m just keeping the courses on life support, hoping for a better day. I asked my workshop students whether they wanted to meet at our regular time via the Zoom teleconferencing system or simply use the Discussion Board function on Blackboard. The only definite preferences expressed were in favor of the latter. So, we will exist for one another as pure text, for the nonce. That preference may be a matter of just not wanting to hassle with setting up a Zoom account; or not wanting to have to schedule anything, even virtually; or not wanting to take the tape off their cameras. But writers tend to be introverts, and I expect a lot of non-writer readers are, too; and for introverts, the present state of affairs is not so much of a hardship as for others. Indeed, this period may be just the kind of restful stock-taking that can engender writing — and leave more time for reading. And most folks still have a modicum of medical care, food, shelter, electricity, connectivity. In that respect, these are the good old days.
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |