byzantine plot twists, not to mention its artistic geniusâwhy should we settle for The Apprentice ?
It is true that Dickensâs brilliance lay at least partially in his ability to expand the formal range of the novel while simultaneously building a mass audience eager to follow along. Indeed, Dickens helped to invent some of the essential conventions of mass entertainmentâlarge groups of strangers united by a shared interest in a serialized narrativeâthat we now take for granted. That he managed to create enduring works of art along the way is one of the miracles of literary history, though of course it took the Cultural Authorities nearly a century to make him an uncontested member of the literary canon, partially because his novels had been tainted by their commercial success, and partially because Dickensâs comic style made his novels appear less serious than those of his contemporaries.
So if Dickens could juggle Great Art and Mass Audience, why should we tolerate some of the lesser creatures that populate the high end of the Nielsen ratings today? The answer, I believe, is that the definition of a âmass successâ has changed since Dickensâs time. On average, Dickens sold around 50,000 copies of the serialized versions of his novels, during a time in which the British population was roughly 20 million. Had Dickensâs potential audience been the size of the United States todayâ280 million peopleâhe would have sold something like 800,000 copies of his first-run novels. The most innovative shows on television today âThe West Wing, 24, The Simpsons, The Sopranosâ often attract between 10 and 15 million viewers. So by this measure, West Wing is roughly twenty times more âmassâ than Dickens was, even though Dickens had no mass media rivals for his audienceâs attentionâno television or radio or cinema to compete with. Itâs no wonder Dickens was able to persuade his readers to keep up with his rhetorical innovations. In his day, Dickens had the per capita audience that would today tune in for a Masterpiece Theatre airing of Bleak House. His audience was mass by Victorian standards; no genuinely literary author had attracted that many readers before. But by modern standards, he was writing for the elite.
Dickens may not have been a mass author by modern standards, but you neednât look far to find an example of truly mass cultural successes that are simultaneously the most complex and nuanced in their field. Violent video games like Quake or Doom tend to dominate the mainstream media discussion of gaming, but the fact is the shooter games are rarities on the gaming best-seller lists. The two genres that historically have dominated the charts are both forms of complex simulation: either sport sims, or GOD games like SimCity or Age of Empires. The most popular game of all time is the domestic saga The Sims. (The closest thing youâll see to a violent exchange in The Sims is when one of your virtual characters canât pay the monthly bills.) The sports simulations have reached a level of intricacy that makes the dice-baseball games I explored as a child look like tic-tac-toeânot just in their near-photorealistic graphics, but in the playerâs ability to control and model the most microscopic aspect of the game. Segaâs 2K3 baseball simulator gives you an entire organization to general manage: trading players, nurturing minor leaguers, negotiating salaries and free agents. (This is not, incidentally, a universe of pure numbers. Emotions factor as well. Bench a highly paid prima donna for a few days, and his productivity will diminish, just as it will on the real-world diamond.) As for the social and historical simulations, just think back to my nephew learning about the effects of industrial taxes while playing SimCity. The violent games may generate the most outrage, but the games that people reliably line up to buy are the
It is true that Dickensâs brilliance lay at least partially in his ability to expand the formal range of the novel while simultaneously building a mass audience eager to follow along. Indeed, Dickens helped to invent some of the essential conventions of mass entertainmentâlarge groups of strangers united by a shared interest in a serialized narrativeâthat we now take for granted. That he managed to create enduring works of art along the way is one of the miracles of literary history, though of course it took the Cultural Authorities nearly a century to make him an uncontested member of the literary canon, partially because his novels had been tainted by their commercial success, and partially because Dickensâs comic style made his novels appear less serious than those of his contemporaries.
So if Dickens could juggle Great Art and Mass Audience, why should we tolerate some of the lesser creatures that populate the high end of the Nielsen ratings today? The answer, I believe, is that the definition of a âmass successâ has changed since Dickensâs time. On average, Dickens sold around 50,000 copies of the serialized versions of his novels, during a time in which the British population was roughly 20 million. Had Dickensâs potential audience been the size of the United States todayâ280 million peopleâhe would have sold something like 800,000 copies of his first-run novels. The most innovative shows on television today âThe West Wing, 24, The Simpsons, The Sopranosâ often attract between 10 and 15 million viewers. So by this measure, West Wing is roughly twenty times more âmassâ than Dickens was, even though Dickens had no mass media rivals for his audienceâs attentionâno television or radio or cinema to compete with. Itâs no wonder Dickens was able to persuade his readers to keep up with his rhetorical innovations. In his day, Dickens had the per capita audience that would today tune in for a Masterpiece Theatre airing of Bleak House. His audience was mass by Victorian standards; no genuinely literary author had attracted that many readers before. But by modern standards, he was writing for the elite.
Dickens may not have been a mass author by modern standards, but you neednât look far to find an example of truly mass cultural successes that are simultaneously the most complex and nuanced in their field. Violent video games like Quake or Doom tend to dominate the mainstream media discussion of gaming, but the fact is the shooter games are rarities on the gaming best-seller lists. The two genres that historically have dominated the charts are both forms of complex simulation: either sport sims, or GOD games like SimCity or Age of Empires. The most popular game of all time is the domestic saga The Sims. (The closest thing youâll see to a violent exchange in The Sims is when one of your virtual characters canât pay the monthly bills.) The sports simulations have reached a level of intricacy that makes the dice-baseball games I explored as a child look like tic-tac-toeânot just in their near-photorealistic graphics, but in the playerâs ability to control and model the most microscopic aspect of the game. Segaâs 2K3 baseball simulator gives you an entire organization to general manage: trading players, nurturing minor leaguers, negotiating salaries and free agents. (This is not, incidentally, a universe of pure numbers. Emotions factor as well. Bench a highly paid prima donna for a few days, and his productivity will diminish, just as it will on the real-world diamond.) As for the social and historical simulations, just think back to my nephew learning about the effects of industrial taxes while playing SimCity. The violent games may generate the most outrage, but the games that people reliably line up to buy are the
Similar Books
