Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Robert Nagle on The Networked Novel

Robert Nagle has been blogging since 2002 -- a long time in the blogosphere -- and he currently offers a lengthy and very interesting essay on The Networked Novel. Part 1 is up and Part 2 will follow.

Robert begins by quoting the GOB, but he soon widens the discussion (you will be pleased to hear), and offers us ideas from a variety of thinkers about the novel, including, of course, himself.

He suggests, among other things, that novel-reading is beginning to look like an increasingly eccentric way to spend your time, and that 'we may be returning to shorter forms or (more likely) serialized forms' of fiction.

Modern fiction writers, Robert suggests, need to recognise what is still unique about novels (and text-based artistic works) in the digital age: he offers six such factors to think about. And in Part 2 of his essay he will be asking 'how can the "networked novel" exploit the advantages of the web's opennness without diluting the magnificence of an individual's artistic vision?'

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah,
Robert Nagle.
As someone who has three novels up, I really like this.