An article in this month’s issue of The Reader’s Digest Magazine discusses a fad among young Japanese females; writing novels through their cellular phones. Yes, you read it right! It seems that nowadays, the cellular phone is better than a pen and a pad of paper. Admittedly, a cellular phone is more convenient to bring along for a writer or a blogger than pads of paper or notebooks. According to the article, five of the ten best selling books in Japan has started out as cell phone novels. About twenty million readers followed one novel of this sort, entitled “Love Sky” on their mobile phones and computers and it became the highest selling book in Japan after a publisher republished it in book form. A film producer in Japan is now turning it into a movie.Writers in this particular genre write mostly in the first person and intend for readers who like reading diaries. They construct sentences in text-like short messages. Critics however, believe that this new kind of literary ingenuity that is short on plot and character development will speed up the decline of Japanese literature.
I respectfully disagree with the critics. They should welcome this development as an enrichment of Japanese literature. Novels like these may not follow the strictest form of traditional writing but they should not look at these as relegation. They should rather welcome this new form of writing, which has developed from the use of electronic gadgets, as an opportunity for the promotion of creative art among the youth.
I must admit that I have done this many times while writing my blogs since paper and pen are not always available especially when ideas flow at night when I have already turned off the lights. The cellular phone becomes a good and handy companion. How I wish that I could install Microsoft Word software on my cell phone.
[On picture is a Japanese cellular phone novelist courtesy of http://moeys.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/japanese_cell_phone_novelist.jpg]
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