Janus' Thoughts Develop (Ch.12a) : Books

CHAPTER XII: JANUS’ THOUGHTS DEVELOP 

Ch.12a : Books

Janus folded his manuscript and placed it neatly in the desk drawer, his intended writing for today only a quarter finished.  Completion of his own daily targets was unusual and was of no concern to him.  However today was a continuation in a downward trend in his ability to write.  This particular manuscript was a fiction based on the Communalist period of Martan history some three hundred years before.  The true story of that time was one of eventual disappointment after early successes in the cause of improvement in the physical and spiritual quality of life of citizens.  Janus had always admired the ancient movement and had taken the time to read widely on the subject despite the disfavour in which it had since been held by most governments, politicians, business intellectuals and educational institutions.  His writing continued the true story into a fictional future in which Communalism had been spread by conscientious men and women, loyal to its original ideals but aware of the pitfalls of inflexible approaches.  The harmonious and successful policies of Communalism outnumbered the selfish and illogical policies of opposing politicians and military men, sometimes in short wars of liberation and revolution, sometimes by completely peaceful revolutions in politics and society.  Janus had traced the intertwining careers of a handful of these men and women, powerful and humble, and observed the potential progress of the time through the lives of ordinary people.

Janus had written large parts of this book.  They remained, as always to be edited, organised and cut, but more needed to be written and exciting rounded conclusions needed to be completed.  In recent days his concentration on this particular of his projects had waned.  That was always to be expected and he would move on to another project in the literary field.  He always interspersed his writing with his artwork, and with music.  Now he found in himself little desire to turn to other projects.  His artwork was similarly failing to hold his attention.  The few months of freedom from work and virtual isolation from other human beings had been a great success in terms of allowing him to develop his arts and writings, but he began to realise this phase was drawing to a close.  It could not go on.  He would have to combine it with something more active and communicative if it was to survive.  Janus began to have feelings of confusion.  He had been certain this path was necessary for him when it began, because it represented expression of himself.  He found he was no longer expressing himself with vigour.  He was becoming indolent and bored.  The work was merely a pleasant game, a pastime to waste his life away. It was achieving nothing.  He was unable to complete anything and knew not what he would do with any of his writings, even when he did complete them. 

He had actually completed one actual history of the early division of Gallanol in the reign of Deneldinhew and the rise of Marta, reporting the later defeat of Gallanol by Marta and the revolution by Lew Duneid, who instituted a progressive and valuable reformation in Gallanol and influenced movements in Marta.  Janus had couched his writings in social-economic terms, highlighting Lew Duneid’s “New Society” and comparing it with what had gone before.  He had only hinted at the reasons for its late failure and collapse although obviously the power of Marta was a large part of it.  He had wondered for some weeks whether to finish with Lew Duneid’s success or to continue with the later failure.  Due to what must have been laziness he had determined to leave it there, probably to return with the sequel at a later date.  While he had finished something he had determined to try to have it published.  He knew not how it would reach its intended audience  - the people - nor had he truly expected it to be published.

Typing the work onto his console had been arduous but exciting.  He had worked quickly to finish and edit his work, then had located ten publishing firms, well known with powerful advertising and marketing methods.  Having finished his work he promptly sent the scripts out not expecting too much.

In today’s times Janus believed there was not too much of quality in print – print today usually meant stored in Vidscreen data banks, for which a charge was made whenever called to screen.  The publishers actively advertised on various programmes, which it was felt literate viewer readers might be watching.  There was the alternative and less used traditional method of picking a printed book off the shelf alongside newspapers and fast food pills and various mainly unnecessary articles which might be purchased for people’s short term amusement.

  Most published work in the modern world was derivative, repetitive, fanciful and mundane in the opinion of Janus, who admittedly never read much of it.  Ideas which made people think were sorely lacking, although of course there were plenty of well written and hard to follow books which were “challenging” because they were difficult, but they contained few ideas about society, its ills and how to change it. 

There were many people, Janus believed, who deemed themselves to be well educated and intelligent if they read the “difficult” novels which were produced by that small elite of writers who had managed against all the odds to find enough time to write novels which the publishers would publish.  Undoubtedly these people were talented.  They had survived the rigours of competition and sacrificed what little they had to succeed.  There were many writers and the market was not large enough to find a place for them all.  Those who wrote challenging novels were chosen for their expert word management and their descriptive abilities as much as for their ability to produce thought provoking ideas.  The general tendency for such novels was, in Janus’ own estimation, was for the author to pick out some simple idea for a story and magnify it into a long book.  These books had rarely managed to keep Janus’ attention in the past. Indeed it was many years since he had managed to finish one before getting bored with it and leaving it.  Finding the time to read had always been difficult because of the heavy burden of learning and mundane tasks which were placed on each member of society from an early age.  Even so reading had always been verbally encouraged by teachers, lecturers, employers and parents.  Janus still wondered why there remained as large a market as there was for the conventional “challenging” novel.  These were novels for the “educated” but then few in modern society were not well educated, so even if most people made a slight effort to occasionally read one of these novels it amounted to a lot of sales.

“Challenging” authors picked on themes ranging from divorce – its effect on the two partners – disloyalty by a partner, suicide, or the effect of bereavement on the family – to a fictional character’s journey from one end of the continent of Gallanol to the other in an ancient auto car, or on the public transport systems (this was more interesting because the central character met many people of different nations and backgrounds along the way); a fictional bodybuilder’s quest for personal perfection giving an insight into his mental state and eventual determination of a constructive attitude; the fictional scaling of a high mountain in the Great Divide; a woman’s battle against her appetite.  These authors frequently wrote from their own experience.  Thus they were able to write at length and in great depth, but they rarely wrote to criticise the existing social organisation on more than a small single issue scale.  It was rare to find a book of great imagination which criticised the modern system in any depth or suggested any alternatives.

Janus had long since concluded that these authors had no larger imagination.  They were perfectionists in their own field, which was writing, but the personal interest areas which they used as subject matter left Janus generally disinterested.  They were small and petty, concerned with issues of mainly personal interest.  Collectively they displayed a great range of insights, but individually Janus felt they were meagre and intellectually starved.  Into this gap of visionary and critical serious literature Janus had wished to pour his own knowledge and vision in the vain hope that it would influence and improve the world.

The great majority of literature was not quite so skilled but at least it was pacey.  Janus was a pacey writer himself in the sense that he told his stories relatively quickly with little descriptive or repetitive waste.  He had felt himself to be a man in a hurry.  There was so much to be said in print and many things he did not feel had been adequately said.  History had not been accurately reported.  In the light of the results of modern society he had so much to say about the meaning and importance of past events.  In the modern worlds there were too few good historians and commentators.  The populace were given little breathing space to think about their present situation or their past.  This had made him productive.  He wrote hurriedly with little time for any sense of poetry or empty verbiage.  Description bored him.  When he read books the import of descriptive passages could usually be taken in instantly and he would skip the remainder of the paragraph. 

The general mass of popular fiction had retained similar themes for some few centuries now although styles and fashionable details had continued to change with the times.  People read to relax or to forget.  Perhaps they needed to forget in order to relax.  They read books which took them on an entertaining journey.  They generally liked the journey to be quite fast and easily understood, although many of them liked to think that they were thinking while they travelled so some authors constructed lots of twists in the plots which supposedly required “intelligence”, and often liked to avoid spelling out the meaning of events, in order that readers might be encouraged to believe that they were working it out for themselves.  Women liked romances which were frequently placed in historical settings, but were not usually critical or inventive in their interpretation.  Romances set in a modern setting were usually more predictable and less imaginative than the others, perhaps because modern life was so dull that it was difficult to concoct an imaginative story.  Thrillers were popular.