Are we witnessing the decline of difficult fiction?

Tim Parks is concerned that we are losing our ability to read "difficult" fiction. In a recent piece for The New York Review of Books, the U.K. writer argued that our shortened attention spans are hurting serious literature, and making it less likely that authors will take on long, ambitious works of fiction. 

Now he and Jared Bland, the arts and books editor at The Globe and Mail, join Jian to work though the nuances of that perspective and discuss whether we are indeed witnessing the decline end of ambitious, difficult books. 

• The New York Review of Books: Reading: The Struggle by Tim Parks
• CBC Books: 100 Novels that make you proud to be Canadian

"I don't want to be apocalyptic about it, but simply to kind of say, hey, when the world changes, the way people write changes and the way people read changes," Park tells Jian. 

"It's not that the opportunity isn't here today. We all know that we could put our phone outside the door and disconnect the internet. But the interesting thing is how inclined we are to all that interconnection with people."

• Canada Reads 2014: Wab Kinew and Joseph Boyden on The Orenda 

For his part, Bland adds that both difficult and more pleasurable reads have their merits and, frankly, he's glad to hear that adults are reading at all -- even if they do opt for young adult fiction. 

"I think that we're at a moment of such perilous state for literacy itself among adults that if everybody wants to read Harry Potter or Twilight, I'm quite delighted to have them reading books, period."