Books have stalled

This is a curious exchange between “book mechanic” Michael Turner and interviewer Brian Joseph Davis. Turner says:

We are living at a time when, for the writer, the book is too little.

And then Davis replies, in part:

[The book] is stalled out, in terms of technology, at 1500 AD, and sociologically at around 1930.

The sociological stalling of the book around 1930…I have no idea what that means. Could someone more steeped in book culture explain what that might mean? (via ettagirl)

Update: Henrietta Walmark asked Davis what he meant by his “sociological stalling” remark. Here’s what he said:

Literature in book form, and discussion around it, was the mark of education, of the gentry and petit bourgeois. Literature in book form never really found a place in mass produced, post WW2 middle class culture.

That’s pretty much the consensus of my inbox as well…TV and radio took over as the cultural currency around then.

• books
• Brian Joseph Davis
• interviews
• Michael Turner