Is Gothic literature dead?

[Penfeather]

I think it goes back to the school system, which has failed to teach younger generations to read, and the change in information dissemination from written to pictorial format.

The schools can only do so much. There isn't much incentive to be a schoolteacher these days. The pay is lousy and the teachers have their hands tied as far as the curriculum goes; there is no room for the "teacher as artist" or the truly dedicated teacher who sees to the individual needs of students and invests personally in their growth and learning. That no longer exists because it isn't allowed to exist in our country, except perhaps at exclusive private schools beyond the means of the average family.

I'm more inclined to blame parenting. As I see it, today's kids are weaned on a glutting of video games, TV and computer-related junk. Parents, partly because of the demands of making ends meet nowadays and the consequent lack of free time and draining of energy, are happy to plant the kids in front of the TV or Playstation, and that is that. The Playstation is the nanny, the babysitter of today. As a result today's children must be continually entertained in a staccato way, and as you say their attention spans are totally atrophied. I shouldn't restrict this comment to children -- there are plenty of adult "children" around now who are the result of this societal failure.

Reading starts at home. I know parents who do not own a TV set or, if they do, restrict its use. Their children are given books to read and reading is made part of the family culture; it's "in the air" at home. Books are discussed at the dinner table, and not just Harry Potter. It can be done but it requires a certain type of parent. Teachers are all but helpless to instill a love of reading without support in the home.

They are mainly edgy mysteries, thrillers, adventures. The few romances offered are usally filled with swear words, cell phones, traffic, stress, gays, lesbians, absurd situations, and/or weddings.

Ugh, how I detest that word "edgy"! It just seems to be a code-word for cynical and obnoxious.

Gays and lesbians? Do we really want to go there? This is a personal topic, and throwing it into the list the way you did might be taken as inflammatory by some readers. How do you know there aren't gay or lesbian Gothic readers on this forum?

Look at all the reality shows based on weddings, as if that is the only time in a woman's life that she will be allowed to be truly romantic. After that, it's back to the reality of everyday life, with its extreme stress, worries about fidelity, and fears about the future and bringing kids into this going-crazy world. Thus the extreme pressure to make that wedding day perfect.

There is nothing romantic about these ostentatious, vulgar, grotesque TV weddings where it all comes down to the dollar figure. Money = love. Such spectacles are the very opposite of romance; they are exhibitionistic displays of material fetishism. Where is the intimacy in such nonsense?

A final word on the weasel word "escapism". Anything you read is escapism, whether it's Remembrance of Things Past or the latest Nora Roberts novel. Even non-fiction is a kind of escapism. I don't believe there is anything wrong with wanting to escape, at least for a little while, from the stress of reality. We're human beings, we're complicated animals. It might do for a three-toed sloth to hang from a tree all day, but most of us homo sapiens, especially the reading type, require rather more.