HOT TAKES

HOW CAPITALISM HAS RUNIED READING

By prisha nanda,(economic honours)

Designed and edited by

Mehak koundal, (b.com program)

When we think of consumerism, we hardly relate it to books or reading, because how could consuming too many books be a real problem? And isn’t it odd to criticise people for reading and buying books? For keeping the book industry and bookstores alive? While all of this may be true, and reading is incredibly important, there’s more to the situation than meets the eye.

In today’s world, where nothing is more important than business, profit, and how could I forget, “maximising shareholder value,” books have suffered. While we’re used to new fashion trends emerging every few months and new products available at fast fashion stores, we overlook the same happening to books. This relentless pressure to produce more, then consume even more, and to be on the go all the time instead of letting people just live has slowly bled into reading. The publishing industry cares only about creating more profit. Authors churn out two to three books a year (which should be impossible if the entire process from writing to publishing is done properly). And we, as readers, eat it up. We are witnessing the commodification and fast fashion treatment of books wherein we’re reduced to consumers, books are just bundled up tropes and writing is dumbed down, so we read quickly, without nuance or critical thinking, and buy more.

In the midst of this never-ending urgency, we are experiencing an epidemic where authors just hand their readers every twist, feeling, and theme in the book up on a silver platter. Every book where we are simply informed that a character is attractive, rather than the author taking the time to show the readers who the character actually is as a person, and how that ties into their appeal as a love interest. The ‘Mr Darcy hand flex’ is an excellent example of this. It isn’t explicitly stated that Mr Darcy cares for or fancies Elizabeth Bennet; nevertheless, Jane Austen shows us how he reacts to her presence and how he looks at her, offering us a lot more insight into his character and his feelings.

This is what lacks in the books released under capitalism. If we let a system take over too many of our habits, including reading habits, it manifests itself as the consumerism that we see taking over today, where the same ten trending books are being read by everyone. Because when everything revolves around producing more to gain profit, quality naturally deteriorates, we lose the essence of reading, and books are just products and status symbols rather than treasures meant to be relished slowly and cherished forever.