Destination Frankfurt. Rereading tomorrow.
Change the language, change the character
Language - both the language of books and the language of talking about books - adapts to the rhythms of contemporary life that seem to have overshadowed the power of criticism. Today, we get more emotional, and we rationalise and internalise, perhaps, a little less.
The “deep reader” is giving way to the cross-media player, who jumps effortlessly from text to text and from device to device in “fast scroll” mode. And the metalanguage often switches into a fan-club polemic mode, borrowed from social media.
The character sometimes adapts and tries to move the story along, but also to move the reader, while the author has to accompany the character on every occasion and by every means possible. Called on to become a character themselves, to become a good presenter of themselves, these are hard times for a shy person.
This is paradigmatic even in the case of Elena Ferrante, an author-character who owes part of her success to absence, as in that “deafening silence”, that is one of the tritest yet most effective of oxymorons.
BookTokers, audiobooks and podcasts
Other phenomena are taking centre stage. A thirteen-year-old BookToker can multiply the sales of a book a few years after publication, as in the case of Madeleine Miller's Song of Achilles, and other “tearjerkers’” are reaping success. Romance and fantasy, horror and thrillers are taking over the young adult social scene, and it’s important to ask what will happen when the publishing industry rides the phenomenon by dropping into horizontal territory from above: will Gen Z remain on TikTok or will it migrate elsewhere? And if so, where to?
An audiobook can accompany us in our everyday travels. The habit of using earphones has certainly helped the ability to listen to not only music but also to stories in a hi-tech re-edition of the famous sound fairy tales, a sweet Boomer legacy. So audiobooks can also act as a catalyst for traditional books, both in the rediscovery of classics and that of new authors, who, now read by more or less famous professional actors, can in turn benefit from a reputation in a very virtuous circle.
Furthermore, podcasts are becoming a new means of information, whether in competition with or in collaboration with physical newspapers, offering investigations and in-depth insights easily within “earshot”, for good listening to good journalism.
What about traditional media?
While once an appearance on the beloved Maurizio Costanzo Show could move a large number of copies, today, in generalist broadcasts, the talk seems to be more about the author – how he/she eats, prays, loves – than about the book. As a result, the spaces dedicated to the work itself seem relegated to specialist broadcasts, still followed by serious readers, deo gratias.
Radio too seems to be following the same logic. Programmes dedicated to books can still contribute to sales, in the difficult balancing act between niche and market. But anything that makes a spectacle in transforming imagined literature into a chronicle of lived life, on the other hand, can introduce the author to the general public but not necessarily influence the ranking: the vessel risks engulfing the content.
If, up until a few years ago, an authoritative review could launch a book and send it to the top, now, even in print media, the analysis of the work is often superseded by interviews with the author, representing the same dynamics as above, but in a paper version.
New blogs and literary magazines are born to talk about books, and online presentations are proliferating. Many communities of readers find themselves in physical and virtual groups, sharing interests, reading and talking together about that romantic yet futuristic object that, it should not be forgotten, is always and in any case called a book.
The grasshopper mind and the amphibious reader.
So it becomes crucial to ask not only what the books of tomorrow will look like, but also what the readers will look like. If it is true, as neuroscience argues, that dematerialised enjoyment leads to changes in neural activity, what happens to the “grasshopper mind”, capable of continuous zapping from thing to thing, when it meets the “amphibious book” usable on paper, in video and in audio?
Yet another question, among the many that emerged during the event held in Rome on the occasion of Più libri più liberi, to which the meetings of the Guest of Honour 2024: Italy Frankfurt Book Fair will try to answer.
