The Long View is always a captivating programme but I particularly like this weeks - comparing the media scares surrounding video games now and those combining that disreputable purveyor of sex and alternate worlds; the novel in the 18th century, specifically Samuel Richardson's Pamela. It also points out the evils of the sofa, of which I'd not previously been aware.
Of course, the best thing to come out of Pamela was Fielding's Shamela (who it seems was rather fond of the sofa).
Just as Pamela was (arguably) the first of its kind (ie a novel), it was quickly followed up with a parody which satirised the social and sexual paradigms which Richardson espoused. Does this make YouTube the Pamela of the current age?
The lesson of Pamela and all the novels which have followed in its wake shows that innovation and creativity will build upon the storytelling and engagement potential of the original -- and in a short period of time, the form/genre will have moved so far as to render the original obsolete. In fact, it strikes me that blogging is closer in epistolary form to Pamela than any other form of storytelling in 100 years. Perhaps we have not come so far after all ;)
Posted by: Gavin Heaton | January 10, 2007 at 01:10 PM
Oh, the stories some sofas could tell. When I scavenged one at an agency once I was advised to have it disinfected.
Posted by: Captain Flummox | January 10, 2007 at 08:56 PM