By Frankie Plummer
(Originally published on 22 March 2016 on The Internet and Fiction.)
The writings of George Orwell are often used to warn about the dangers of surveillance and totalitarian rule when it comes to the fate of the Internet. In most cases it follows the template of placing a particular government strategy and/or company policy alongside either: “1984”, “Orwellian”, or “Big Brother”, as memetic shorthand for thinking about the issue or composing an actual argument.
My concern in this instance is not surveillance or the limiting of free expression on the Internet, but the relationship between the Internet and the novel today. In his essay “In Front of Your Nose” (1946), Orwell speaks of an “avoidance of reality” that occurs when different ideas are held at the same time. He notes:
“Medically, I believe, this manner thinking [sic] is called schizophrenia: at any rate, it is the power of holding simultaneously two beliefs which cancel out. Closely allied to it is the power of igniting facts which are obvious and unalterable, and which will have to be faced sooner or later.”
Placing this in the context of the Internet as it relates to the novel, there are the following simultaneous beliefs:
1. The Internet is now an essential, integral and irrevocable fact of everyday life.
2. The Internet has a limited effect on our daily lives, is transient, and ultimately a phase that will pass.
Any serious person knows that point 1 is the reality. Yet, if you look at the contemporary novel, you would not get a sense of the importance of the Internet to society. If we went by the contemporary novel alone as a means to understand and construct society as it exists today, the Internet and its related technologies would not be a part of it––at a stretch they would be as computing prior to ubiquity, something specialist, treated with mystery and caution. Think about the extent to which you interact with the Internet or digital consumer technologies on a daily basis, and reconcile this with their underrepresentation in contemporary fiction.
Both writers and the industry hold both points in simultaneous contention. Publishers, in knowing point 1, radically alter their company structures, marketing and advertising approaches, and overall tact in order to adapt to a new demand for e-books and digital projects. In believing point 2, publishers and the industry more widely are reluctant to commit to new means of distribution and price modelling. In terms of marketing, they treat the Internet and its cultures as though they are distinct from “the real world”. They go to the extreme with Internet slang, hashtags and Nyan Cat imagery in an attempt to seem “cool” to some imaginary and moronic subgroup––forgetting entirely that the Internet is something we all use daily.
Writers on the other hand, in knowing point 1, take to online promotion to market themselves and their books. They eschew traditional routes and turn to e-book self-publishing, building an online following prior to seeking publication to portray themselves to agents and publishers as a safe bet. In believing point 2, they almost without exception remain ignorant of the impact of the Internet as it exists today, and rarely include it in their work. They prefer instead to write about the past, where the Internet was not as integral and could be legitimately ignored. Another strategy is to avoid specifying a date to keep things vaguely and ambiguously “now”, without having to mention particulars, such as browsing, e-mails, or Facebook.
These lists are not definitive. Acknowledging the difficulty of maintaining what is known in reality to be the truth against the other perpetuated false belief, Orwell states: “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle”. This is the challenge for writers today––who draw on the Internet for so much research and information––to pause and consider the everyday thing itself. The Internet is not a niche. It is for them to acknowledge its importance and to embed it as content, truthfully and sincerely, without hyperbole or histrionics, within their works. It is for them to confront the Internet as reality. It is a fact they will have to face sooner or later.
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