Don't Believe it's Hype

A couple years ago while enjoying one of the Harry Potter novels at Bertonlino's Espresso Bar, a lady condescended to submit her opinion to me that I was only reading the book because of all the hype. And then again this week a coworker incredulously expressed, "Not you too" when she saw me going to break with the first volume of the Twilight series, and when I asked her to clarify her objection to my reading selection it boiled down to all the accompanying hype. In neither case had either lady read the books they were denigrating.

So here's my point and it will only take a moment as I'm not feeling particularly diatribal or haranguish. Hype may cause everyone to listen to the same music or to watch the same TV show, but when it comes to everyone reading the same books... hype can't do that so easily and I'll tell you why. It takes five minutes to listen to a song. It takes less than an hour to watch a TV episode. But when it comes to reading a book it takes about twenty hours. If you break that up into 45 minutes sessions with three sessions every two days... well it would take roughly three weeks to read a book unless you were engrossed in a "page-turner" in which case you could finish it off much sooner. But still the far greater investment of time should be obvious. Add to that the disinclination of many people to read anything at all. Maybe they're too busy or maybe too distracted or maybe too lazy, but whatever the reason, you don't have to look far before you find someone who will admit unequivocally they do not read.

In order for a book to be widely circulated and widely read, the author has to produce something irresistible. It may not be on par with Faulkner or Joyce for literary genius (thank God), but they can tell a story in such a way that the overwhelming majority of readers will be undeniably riveted. Otherwise all the marketing and hoopla and gushing critical reviews in the world will provoke about as much attention as you pay to your neighborhood philharmonic that you didn't even know exists. When it comes to successful fiction, hype is not enough.