Literature a la carte

Today's random thought explores one way that books are different from other forms of human expression.

Books are alone among creative works in that they demand such a great quantity of time to absorb them. A typical book -- say, the 'Brothers Karamazov' -- might take several weeks to read, and that's with few distractions. But most other works of art come packaged in forms designed to be taken in at one sitting. Most works of music clock well under an hour, and all but the longest operas are done in an evening. Films don't often go beyond a couple of hours.

A painting, however large, is designed to be seen at once, unless it's one of those extra long "cyclotron" paintings they used to do in the 19th century, like the Civil War one I remember they had on display at Gettysburg, Penn. when I was a kid.

Even in the world of words alone, full-length books are the odd man out. Short stories are, well, short. Magazine articles are, too. Poems are usually downright pithy. But books, real books that take days to digest, aren't.

So what to make of this distinction? Is the very length of a book, and the amount of detail that it contains, the reason for the form's persistence? Is that alone what makes a book a singular thing? Or is that one reason why the importance of books is declining, and that few people read them. We just don't have time.

So wouldn't the pressures of our age, then, lead us to a literature where brevity is indeed the soul of wit, and everything else, for that matter? If we're going to have a literature, isn't it worth trying to tell stories and rearrange life in print in a form that limits the reader's commitment to two hours, just like a good movie?

And to expand on that further, maybe the way to go is to create a set of stories, all of which clock in at the two-hour limit. They'd all have to stand alone, on their own. But they would also be interconnected, with common characters and locations and themes, though it wouldn't matter which one you read first. That way you can allow for people's reading habits and tolerances in the contemporary age, but also still create an extended feast that could take advantages of all the power and sweep of a typical book's length. Read as much as you want. Literature, buffet style.

Just to drive home the point, set some action in one of those multi-ethnic all-you-can-eat buffets that have popped up in towns around New England, and presumably elsewhere, with Chinese, Italian, Thai, and other cuisines gracing the steamer trays. Ice cream, too!