But the novel is not the only form of writing.
No, but it is the pinnacle. Most of the books mentioned so far on this thread are novels.
The novel is the highest form.
But the novel is not the only form of writing.
As I said the other day the counter cultural energy, the avant garde energy seems to flow into theory. The French.
I don't think of it as the pinnacle.
Post war french theory is all to do with war guilt
After all if guilt was all it took to create great works of literature and philosophy we'd all be at it.
I still think novels have a lot of value, ofc, just that they're now competing with TV, movies, music, the Internet.
It's not just that they are competing with them but the preconditions for reading a big book are eroded by those other forms of entertainment. The internal stillness and silence, the attention span, the active imagination, all the things you need to make the book come to life. Those other entertainment media aren't just competing for your time they are changing your consciousness/environment to the point where the big book becomes almost impossible.
I still think novelists have to bring something new formally and thematically and be part of the zeitgeist. From that point of view the novel is dead and its last twitch was the Brat Pack.