Yes, I’ll admit it, I’m a book snob. I turn my nose up at the latest Colleen Hoover. And whilst I may have enjoyed the tv show, if you tell me you’re reading the Heated Rivalry series, I most likely won’t take a book recommendation from you.
That’s not to say I’m sat reading classics like Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I merely enjoy something my mum may have read in book club, or a novel I got in my stocking last year.
I have always had a book in my hands, ever since I was young. Reading has always felt personal and constant.
But there has been a noticeable trend recently that is changing our relationship with literature. Through social media, books have become mainstream - they are aestheticized and marketed based on their online identity - and the literary scene is now unrecognisable. There is suddenly a gap in the market for fast-produced, easy-read novels that you would usually find in the back of The Works, but now sit by the front door of Waterstones or on the top list on goodreads.
Why this sudden change in reading culture? I believe part of it comes from the current turmoil of our political climate that has saturated our feeds, constantly being pumped into our brains. We are no longer passive observers of global events but are immersed in them, and people are looking for a way out – books have become a means of escapism. But this is a complete shift from what literature has always been – an intellectual vehicle to pursue knowledge, challenge narratives and enrich the mind.
We have distracted ourselves from the real reason for literature and instead, created and endless cycle for ourselves, stripping books down to digestible tropes which circulate social media and allow publishers to monetise trends rather than stories.
I fear we are losing something essential
This dumbed-down literature is only discouraging other authors to write with nuance and subtlety, leaving little room for readers to be curious. People want that quick dopamine hit and then swiftly move onto the next novel, barely questioning or reflecting what they have read and instead, indulge in a frenzy as to who can read the most books in a month. Political discourse is thriving off of this simplification.
Literature is a breeding ground for politics. By opening the page, you sign a contract to play in its own political playground. Every narrative is shaped by its power structures – whose perspective is centred? Whose suffering is justified? It is a space to test and question morals, not represent them, and your role as the reader is not to categorize a book into ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but to interrogate it. Literature is a rarity, allowing us to step into another’s mind, the intimacy lets us test the waters as to who we typically deem the hero or the villain.
These lines blur more than we like to think. This is a skill that we rarely get to exercise elsewhere, and it is crucial at this point in our ideological landscape. Polarisation is only deepening with an intense vilification of the ‘other’.
We need literature to help us slow down and empathise with those from different cultures, histories and socio-economic backgrounds. It reminds us that people are not 2D individuals, but a series of contradicting complications that make up a human experience. And when divisions feel so entrenched, maybe now is a good time to pick up a book and really think about what is sitting between those pages.
I don’t turn my nose up at certain books because I believe reading should be exclusive, but I fear we are losing something essential. By reducing books to trends and tropes, we forget the quiet, uncomfortable artistry of thinking. Why are we then surprised when our understanding becomes just as shallow?