Saturday, February 9, 2013

Hungarian Folktales and a Changing Publishing Market


In Folktales of Hungary, Linda Degh demonstrates the importance of Folktales to the Hungarian poor.  Great importance was placed on the overall form of each story.  Individual storytellers were allowed to embroider, but audiences demanded they retain the key elements of any story.  Thus, while researchers might discover hundreds of variations, they could identify which particular story a person was telling.

Folktales preserved a community’s identity.  Legends explained unique aspects of a village or group.  Stories intermixed the religious and secular, as to a certain extent, both were seen as controlling and oppressive.  Parents instilled the culture’s most important stories in their children, so that as they grew older, they would be able to relate the basics of each story.  An essential part of family gatherings involved storytelling.  People gathered in each other’s homes to perform tasks such as spinning wool or making clothing, and sang songs or told stories to keep everyone’s mind off the tedious tasks.

If life took you away from your community, the folk tales you had learned took on even more importance.  After working all day in a new place, what better way to relax in the evening than to listen to a story?  Of course, at some point, you would be expected to contribute.  Tales became a form of currency for the wandering poor, the itinerant student, and discharged soldiers.  If you became a servant in someone’s house, your employer might expect you to lull him or her to sleep with a tale.  And if you joined the military, you had better be ready to tell an interesting story after lights out.  Anyone who could not was forced to shout into a stove, “Oh mother!  Haven’t you brought me up to be a big brute of an ass, who hasn’t even been taught to tell a tale!”

In his blog, author Kevin J. Anderson relates how he and Brian Herbert have been forced to shorten their book tours.

The very nature of bookselling and promotion is changing dramatically with the closing of the Borders chain, Barnes & Noble announcing the closing of another 100 stores, the rise of eBooks and online bookselling. Another factor: newspapers and local TV news have dropped most of their coverage of book events so it’s nearly impossible to get any sort of media attention for a book signing (especially for the middle book in an original trilogy). Many publishers are dropping their author tours entirely.”

So even bestselling authors have been affected by this societal trend.  Locus Magazine’s February issue is always devoted to the year in review, and this year it highlighted how the number of publishers is increasing.  Traditionally, the major publishers produced certain types, or forms, of fiction.  For example, a Science Fiction or Fantasy reader knew what type of book Baen or Tor published.  With the proliferation of publishers, and the rising ease (and acceptance) of self-publishing, authors will be empowered to write any type of story without adhering to traditional rules.  This may more it difficult for the reader to know what to expect from any particular book, and hence derive satisfaction from the reading experience.

To a certain extent, I think the popularity of ABC TV’s “Once Upon A Time” reflects this evolution in storytelling.  The series follows a soap opera format, with no episode expected to stand on its own.  Hence, a viewer cannot watch a single episode and instantly understand the characters.  Nor does it restrict itself to European fairy tale types.  This season, they’ve introduced Mulan and Doctor Frankenstein as characters.  But does overall story logic matter, provided each episode entertains us, and causes us to tune in next week? 

Folktales in Hungary were always considered passing entertainment rather than art.  With reduced barriers to entry, will overall quality deteriorate?  And with the loss of the gatekeepers, such as the traditional publishers and bookstores, will Fiction still build communities?  Will it uphold genres?  Can Fiction survive the translation to a mostly eBook format?  Or will books become a passing diversion, easily downloaded like any other type of computer file, and no more memorable than this—or any other—blog post?

Dragon Dave

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