Issue date: 2/27/09 Section: Features

Media Credit: Tiffany Tran [Click to enlarge]

'T was only a decade ago scholars began to ponder the future of the novel. Its disappearance, in whole, wasn't what had the educated elite on edge, for they figured, by calculations unknown to us commoners, the written word would survive this technological outbreak of sorts. The question was just how.

"In what form would novels soon take place," they would often wonder. The Internet seemed an obvious answer. The younger generation was quite taken with the worldwide phenomenon, and perhaps books would find a suitable home on sites addressed with the new WWW slang. Or

perhaps, more creatively, books would find a new medium via a hardware device specifically made for just that - the reading of literature.

Either way, the daunting truth was the younger generation was just not interested in novels the way the ones of the past had been. It's possible the drug days of this generation's parents had an effect on its ability to focus.

Attention Deficit Disorder had, after all, reached new percentile highs. Then again, all televisions were now in color and the programs being microwaved into minds could have sent Playboy out of business.

Of course, this is all ancient history to you. These worries are those of the past, though you are the generation they feared. But, alas poor Yorick, for their fears were stiffened by somewhat of a literary savior - J.K. Rowling.

The name itself seems magical and fittingly so, for it was by the power of magic books made comeback. The generation before had seemed too preoccupied by Playstation to notice that Barnes and Noble's creepy overtaking of America suburbia had seemingly taken adderal.

And then came the sequels. "Harry Potter" after "Harry Potter" and more recently, "Twilight" after "Twilight." Just as days come only to come again tomorrow, these books push solemnly forward in time. And their fans followed closely behind.

Age became merely a numbers game with a reader base ranging from tweens to 30s. Never before had a novel, a genre if you will, spanned across such a vast generational ocean. News outlets began picking up on the reading frenzy and pushed headlines bolding "Harry Potter."

Continued...

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