Writing in 1994, Birkerts worried that distractedness and surficiality would win out. The “duration state” we enter through a turned page would be lost in a world of increasing speed and relentless connectivity, and with it our ability to make meaning out of narratives, both fictional and lived. The diminishment of literature—of sustained reading, of writing as the product of a single focused mind—would diminish the self in turn, rendering us less and less able to grasp both the breadth of our world and the depth of our own consciousness. For Birkerts, as for many a reader, the thought of such a loss devastates. So while he could imagine this bleak near-future, he (mostly) resisted the masochistic urge to envision it too concretely, focusing instead on the present, in which—for a little while longer, at least—he reads, and he writes. His collection, despite its title, resembles less an elegy for literature than an attempt to stave off its death: by writing eloquently about his own reading life and electronic resistance, Birkerts reminds us that such a life is worthwhile, desirable, and, most importantly, still possible. In the face of what we stand to lose, he privileges what we might yet gain.
A quarter of a century later, did he—did we—manage to salvage the wreck? Or have Birkerts’s worst fears come to pass? It’s hard to tell from the numbers. More independent bookstores are opening than closing, and sales of print books are up—but authors’ earnings are down. Fewer Americans read for pleasure than they once did. A major house’s editor-driven imprint was shuttered recently, while the serialized storytelling app Wattpad announced its intention to publish books chosen by algorithms, foregoing the need for editors altogether. Some of the changes Birkerts saw on the horizon—the invention of e-books, for one, and the possibilities of hypertext—have turned out to be less consequential than anticipated, but others have proven dire; the easy, addictive distractions of the screen swallow our hours whole.
Yet many world languages contain a separate set of words that defies this principle. Known as ideophones, they are considered to be especially vivid and evocative of sensual experiences. Crucially, you do not need to know the language to grasp a hint of their meaning. Studies show that participants lacking any prior knowledge of Japanese, for example, often guess the meanings of the above words better than chance alone would allow. For many people, nurunuru really does feel ‘slimy’; wakuwaku evokes excitement, and kurukuru conjures visions of circular rather than vertical motion. That should simply not be possible, if the sound-meaning relationship was indeed arbitrary. (The experiment is best performed using real audio clips of native speakers.)
How and why do ideophones do this? Despite their prevalence in many languages, ideophones were once considered linguistic oddities of marginal interest. As a consequence, linguists, psychologists and neuroscientists have only recently started to unlock their secrets.
The idea that the experience of being read to should be limited to toddlers is, she says, a terrible waste. “Yes, those times with very young children are heavenly, but telling stories is a source of pleasure that has been available to human beings of all ages since before the printed word. The fact it has dwindled into something for children does not mean it needs to stay there.”
Moving, especially moving across the country, is an enormous, yet hardly uncommon, life shift. Leaving one’s hometown to forge a better future in a new city is one of the most traditional adult rites of passage that we as Americans have. Eleanor and I had a few friends who left the Bay around 2012 and 2013 for career opportunities, to be with a spouse, or to take a rare internship. We wished them well. It was hard, but normal. We were in our early 20s.
There’s something not normal, however, about the number of people who have taken flight out of California in the past year or so.
Throughout this disquieting, delicate, affecting book the reader wonders, shamefully, “How true is this?” It’s shameful because the power of the story stands alone. When interviewed recently, Li said, “I always used to say strongly that I was not an autobiographical writer, so strongly it was clearly suspicious.” Late in the book, Nikolai tells her, “I am in fiction. I am fiction now.” So no, the book must not take its force from factors outside the text, but there is no denying either that the reader is shaken up, broken, by these terrible words of dedication, before the story even begins: In memory of Vincent Kean Li (2001-2017).
Malcolm has been called a vampire, “the most dangerous interviewer in journalism,” famously “not-nice” — and all this by her fans. Lucian Freud said that a good painting always contains “a little bit of poison.” Malcolm lets it pour. “I have never found anything any artist has said about his work interesting,” she remarked in a piece on the artist David Salle.
Her new collection of reviews, profiles and essays, “Nobody’s Looking at You,” is a reminder, however, that she is also a great champion. Her lodestar is Chekhov and “the values by which Chekhov’s good characters are ruled: patient, habitual work and sensible, calm behavior.”