Good Morning Hank, it’s Tuesday So almost all books get worse over time.
The classic example of this is the work of Jon Dos Passos who, seventy years ago
was considered one of the great American novelists
and now we hardly read his work.
And that’s not because his books weren’t good then,
it’s because they aren’t as good now.
Times and people change in unexpected and unpredictable ways
and books that are useful to us in some moments are less useful in others.
But occasionally, very occasionally. A book starts out good and then gets better.
Alright so let’s look at two examples of this phenomenon.
First we have The Great Gatsby
which was mostly forgotten within a couple years of its publication in 1925.
Many critics felt that Gatsby was inferior to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s previous work,
especially the beloved This Side of Paradise.
Probably the most famous critic in America at the time H. L. Mencken called
Gatsby obviously unimportant.
The New York Herald called it a book for the season only,
and Fitzgerald was devastated that it only sold about 20 thousand copies.
By the time he died about fifteen years later The Great Gatsby wasn’t even for sale
at most bookstores.
And yet, it turned out not to be a book for the season only because Gatsby
has a lot to say about class and inequality and the American Dream.
All subjects that would become more poignant and interesting
in the context of the Great Depression
and then World War II, and then the Post-War Era.
Another example, if you look at
the best selling science fiction and fantasy novels of the 1990’s
you will not find Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.
It did not make the New York Times bestseller list until 27 years
after its initial publication and 14 years after its author’s death.
Parable of the Sower is a novel narrated
by a young Black woman living in a future America
where systems are collapsing, the president is a demagogue,
climate change is wreaking havoc, there’s a substance abuse epidemic
and other things that feel just a little contemporary.
Now, Parable of the Sower was critically acclaimed when it came out,
but I think it has gotten better over the last 30 years because
it helps us to understand that much of our now wasn’t just foreseeable,
it was foreseen.
It’s explorations about how to unify polarized communities
and collaborate across difference are profoundly instructive for us.
Also, like Gatsby, it’s just a great story.
Anyway Hank, I bring all this up because I have recently come to
understand that your two book series
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
are examples of books that are getting better over time.
Now I want to be very clear that I am not comparing you to F. Scott Fitzgerald
or Octavia Butler, Hank, but when I first read your books,
like I did love them.
I thought they were incredibly fun adventure stories with a lot to say
about contemporary internet culture and especially about fame.
You articulated things about celebrity and the fracturing of attention that
I’d never seen in a book before. But in the years since you books were
first published I’ve realized that they are
also about a lot of other things that I just didn’t know about yet.
They explore, for instance, how certain wealthy individuals can form
complicated symbiotic relationships with groups of people who feel angry and
disenfranchised to create divisive affinity networks.
You explored how sudden dramatic technological shifts can be overwhelming,
and disorienting and destructive even as they are also thrilling and promising.
In short, at least so far, as your books have gotten older they feel
more and more contemporary which is pretty astonishing.
God, it’s just so weird that my brother wrote those books.
Anyway Hank, I hope that 2023 will be a year when you somehow find
some spare minutes to write, because I really love your writing.
So I’ll be taking next week off, meaning that this is my last Vlogbrothers
video for 2022 and I want to end the year with some weird news for ya.
On January 1st, 2023 Vlogbrothers will be old enough to drive a car
in the United States. How strange.
And how lovely.
Hank, I’ll see you on Friday.