295: Blog Post Four

I am interested today in the expiration of reference. 

Autumn by Ali Smith is currently lauded as a veritable post-Brexit novel. It’s peppered with references to 2016 events in the wake of the “leave” vote, but as it stands from today’s conversation, it’s still accessible to audiences like ourselves who knew a bit about Brexit but maybe are not wholly familiar. Though we can read the book without too much hindering us from understanding all of its callouts, as I sat in my stew of sore-throated self pity I thought about when this book would become disposable. (Insert: As with all things, this too will come to an end.)

I am reminded of a lecture I'm reading by Neil Gaiman – shocking choice of author, I know – about the relevance of libraries in this age of easy access to an overwhelming (some may even say alarming) amount of information:

“In the last few years, we’ve moved from an information-scarce economy to one driven by an information glut. According to Eric Schmidt of Google, every two days now the human race creates as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation until 2003. That’s about five exobytes of data a day, for those of you keeping score. The challenge becomes, not finding that scarce plant growing in the desert, but finding a specific plant growing in a jungle.”

Five exobytes of data every single day of people’s thoughts, ideas, and musings. Five exobytes of data every single day of dissertations, books, and tweets. Though the lecture is focused on the importance of the librarian to help people find which information amidst all that’s available is actually useful to them, I think instead of the horrifying effects of the Information Age on works like Autumn that are attached to a specific time, to a time that’s traceable as now.

In all of this information that we are suddenly presented with, how will a book like Autumn remain relevant? Who in 35 years is going to tell their child or their grandchild, “There’s this book I read in [2016 to, let’s say, 2020] that I think you should read. It’s a bit of a fantasy book, bit of a dream-state book, bit of realist fiction, and bit of a history about this pop artist called Pauline Boty. You’ll learn a lot about Brexit and what it was like to renew a passport in 2016.”

(Insert: Not you.)

And yet those of us educated enough are able to discuss artists from fifty years ago (which is relatively recent in the history of art) with such ease! Just last week I saw a play about Mark Rothko which was immediately accessible and downright enjoyable. I understood the historical bits about what it was like to be a child in Russia when he was, about the movements like cubism coming to their downfall in the wake of the contemporary artists, about most of the parts that mattered; I wasn’t at all hindered from enjoying the play by not being alive in Rothko’s time. That’s the way most of my experience with entertainment like this goes. I can watch movies about WWII or the 1800s or (Insert: literally any time before mine) with ease because I have the resources to learn about history. With Autumn, we are confronted with a history that’s happening now. And yet I can't see this book becoming a resource. Is there an irony in recent events expiring faster than older ones? Are recent events expiring at all, or will post-Brexit novels like this one be lauded in the future, too?

I went to a Waterstones the other morning and Autumn wasn’t on the cardboard mini-shelf titled “Brexit.” Maybe it’s already disposable. Maybe it’s already lost amidst all the other information we have, amidst all the other fantastic-realist-surrealist-dreamy-passport-related novels we have already, novels that aren’t going to be asked for at the library by someone researching Brexit in 35 years.

I’m immensely interested, now, in what sort of leftover things we pay attention to. We seem to love art and war. We love people like Marilyn or Boty (if we can even count her, as Elisabeth does). But what about fiction? What about fiction that specifically features things that are “new” to their very contemporary audiences? I remember reading books when I was a kid that featured characters excited about their new Sidekick phones and thinking that they were way behind the trend just a few years later.

Maybe I’m just being cynical. I liked the book enough – though I think I would’ve been happier reading it outside in late November, or maybe by a fireplace somewhere over the course of several months – but I worry that it isn’t going to last in the wave of immediate and subjectively preferable information about Brexit.

The expiration of reference cannot be ignored. The disposability of Autumn is immediately relevant to its direct literary future. Just two years past its time and I can’t name the MP who was assaulted.

Who’s going to look for Autumn in the jungle?