Literature as a profession
I never see Literature as a profession,
but as liking: I do not want, nor I wanted
to turn to me a manufacturer
of texts literary– Augusto Monterroso
Many people, in the field of Literature, talk about the professional writer, or in other words, a person whose occupation is to write.
About this topic, I understand the desire of respect for those people who produce good literature. It is a common practice to despise the writer contributions, and to see it like unnecessary or wordiness without sense, which is very sad. But on the other hand, I don’t like to see the literary creation as a profession.
A person who make of literature his work, will be an independent producer that, to sell its product, will have to govern by the law of the supply and the demand(He or she must produce a supply for the existing demands, or in other words, to write what the people want to read).
There is nothing bad with this, would say some, because the writers, like all artists, work for his public (In this moment comes to the mind the image of a singer in the platform asking the people which song they want to hear). But when the production of something begins to govern by the supply and the demand, the intention of that production is the gains, while the quality could be seen affected (the cases of the good writers that sell very well could be used to refute this affirmation. I will write other article to demonstrate that my thesis is still valid although these cases).
There are many examples of this. We can observe this effect in the information and the journalism, field in which, according to French journalist Ignacio Ramonet, when we treat it as merchandise “… the characteristics of the information must be brief simple and entertaining”.
Another example of that is the industry of the food, in which the fundamental thing to be able to sell it, is that it must be fast and flavorful. The essential, that is the feeding, has left a side.
The same happens with the cinema, which the critics divide in Hollywood cinema (the one that sells, indifferently of where is) and the art cinema (which in my course of Introduction to mass media we defined as “that that does not look to be a` blockbuster’”).
Examples of the effects to treat to the things as merchandise exceed. With the Literature, we would have to ask us what kind of works we want that the writers produce. A brief, simple and entertaining one? A “fast food” kind literature? A Literature with many effects and little essence?
Ramonet wrote that information will be in high demand if it’s “simple, brief and entertaining. Logically, a writer who depends of his literature to eat and to pay its bill will want and will need a high demand for his works. We already know how he will obtain it: creating supply for the demand, writing simple, brief and entertaining, undernourished and fast Literature like “fast food”, repetitive and predictable like the Holywood’s cinema.
In the following article, I will discuss about the professional writer whose sales have not affected their quality, and why I believe that their cases do not refute the expressed points in this article.
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