The Future of Reading!

In the latest issue of The Weekly Standard, P.J. O'Rourke interrupts his column for this boldfaced "word from our sponsor":

Don't let words confuse you! Especially the big ones! Many words have more than one meaning! This can leave you all mixed up! And don't let people cheat you! Subscribe now to TALK LITERATURE! It's just like old-fashioned, regular literature but IT'S ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS! And there are NO BIG WORDS!
("What If Writing Were Like TV?" The Weekly Standard, July 13, 2009)

Like the talk shows and cable news programs O'Rourke satirizes, his column consists of nothing but interruptions: snappy self-promotions, technical snafus, and nifty interactive features ("Print TiVo").

Funny stuff.

Then I learned about Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books, Each Presented in Twenty Tweets or Fewer. That's the working title for a book recently commissioned by Penguin--a retelling of literary works in Twitter format, composed by a couple of freshmen at the University of Chicago. Twitterature is scheduled to be released this fall.

And that announcement reminded me of something Philip Roth said, almost 50 years ago, about the challenges facing modern writers.

"The American writer," he said, "has his hands full in trying to understand, describe, and then make credible much of American reality. . . . The actuality is continually outdoing our talents."

Visit the Weekly Standard website to read P.J. O'Rourke's article "What If Writing Were Like TV?"

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• Richard Wright's Hunger for Books
• Richard Rodriguez on Remedial Reading
• The Advantages of Reading Aloud