Following up an earlier forecast by Philip Roth, Zia Haider Rahman suggests in a Radio4 broadcast Dec. 17 that "modern fiction has moved in the direction of television," in that book authors now hope to earn from the TV industry rather than the press as formerly.
However true, this is banal and obscured by the difference in modes of production. However helpful a good editor can be, a book is largely a solo effort, and so is the initial creation of a stage play. By contrast, TV production (like the cinema) is possible only by the joint efforts of many people, usually co-ordinated or directed by the essential capital. The individual author may have both energy and a story to tell: this might be enough for a script or a book: but he cannot make a TV programme without the help and the money of an organization.
A confirmatory illustration is Rahman's own life, as summarized on his own web site: "Born in rural Bangladesh, he grew up in London, first in a squat, then on a council estate (social housing), and was educated at Oxford (Balliol College), Cambridge, Munich and Yale universities." This unusual trajectory might be turned by any single author into any of several likely books, but could be made into a film only by a commercial production requiring millions of money. The author knows this, although he did not quite say so Dec. 17.
This is a bit odd, considering his years in economic markets. The aspirant author's first consideration is how to earn his living. While it is (or used to be) possible, as Robertson Davies noted, to earn a living in a profession or a business and write part-time outside that working day, most aspirant authors prefer to earn their living directly from their writing. This seemed easy a century ago, when magazines and later radio monopolized readers' attention and demanded vast quantities of new material; and those markets supported independent authors. The living today's markets offer writers is not autonomous, but conditional on (junior) membership of an organized production team, and this inhibits all aspects of independence.
However true, this is banal and obscured by the difference in modes of production. However helpful a good editor can be, a book is largely a solo effort, and so is the initial creation of a stage play. By contrast, TV production (like the cinema) is possible only by the joint efforts of many people, usually co-ordinated or directed by the essential capital. The individual author may have both energy and a story to tell: this might be enough for a script or a book: but he cannot make a TV programme without the help and the money of an organization.
A confirmatory illustration is Rahman's own life, as summarized on his own web site: "Born in rural Bangladesh, he grew up in London, first in a squat, then on a council estate (social housing), and was educated at Oxford (Balliol College), Cambridge, Munich and Yale universities." This unusual trajectory might be turned by any single author into any of several likely books, but could be made into a film only by a commercial production requiring millions of money. The author knows this, although he did not quite say so Dec. 17.
This is a bit odd, considering his years in economic markets. The aspirant author's first consideration is how to earn his living. While it is (or used to be) possible, as Robertson Davies noted, to earn a living in a profession or a business and write part-time outside that working day, most aspirant authors prefer to earn their living directly from their writing. This seemed easy a century ago, when magazines and later radio monopolized readers' attention and demanded vast quantities of new material; and those markets supported independent authors. The living today's markets offer writers is not autonomous, but conditional on (junior) membership of an organized production team, and this inhibits all aspects of independence.