Chapter One - Monumentality and the Novel: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century

Summary

An ambiguous stance towards posterity informs the logic of the monumental in literature. A good illustration of what I mean with this is offered by the “Future Library Project,” which consists of 100 books that will be placed in a time capsule that remains unopened until 2114. Once a year, a writer will be invited to contribute a new text that none of her or his contemporaries are allowed to read. The organizers first planted 1,000 trees in a town outside of Oslo in order to supply the paper for the books over a century. A printing press has been installed to ensure that these texts can still be printed in paper form (in case the technology is phased out in the meantime). Margaret Atwood, one of the elected writers, has commented on the Future Library Project that

It's very optimistic to believe, … that there will be people in 100 years, that those people will still be reading, … and that we’ll be able to communicate across time, which is what any book is in any case — it's always a communication across space and time. This one is just a little bit longer. (in Novak 2014)

Atwood's comment quite clearly brings to the fore an ambivalent take on longevity, as well as a general logic of tautology that underlies monumentality. By suggesting that certain literary works are memorable enough to be consigned to posterity, the adjective “monumental,” when applied to contemporary works, becomes a vehicle for speculation about the future of literature. At the same time, it underwrites a sense of insecurity with regard to the novel's afterlife. The novel as monument, I will argue, is intended as a bulwark against its own death, a monument to the genre itself.

The current situation bears striking resemblance to that of the nineteenth century when, amid profound societal and technological changes and the emergence of modern cities, nations sought to define themselves through monuments that would ensure cultural permanence. The nineteenth-century monument defined the nation's relation to the past and its anticipated survival and continuity in the face of these changes and the unpredictable future.