The slow erosion of a reading public that began when the Lumiére brothers invented the movie camera has accelerated. Although educators and publishers bemoan the loss, (surely the younger generation would rather surf the Internet or listen to their IPods,) this trend does not herald the end of literature, but rather its inevitable transmutation. In the future, the novel will exist in multiple iterations. The written work will function both as stand-alone art and entertainment and as an engine that drives the creation of work in other media. This is not the linear book-to-film equation. Here, the author and the writing itself will dictate the form that other work will take: video, musical score, installation, performance.

Just as the 20th century novel was shaped by the advent of mass production, the growth of a middle class, and the Freudian idea of the subconscious, so the novels of the 21st century will be shaped by the rapidity and globalization of communication, user-generated archiving and processing of information, and the rise of the culture industry. Writers who understand this and who want their work to speak to the times will create collaborative projects with audio, visual and text-based elements. Although, some may see this as a ploy to attract readers (much like Madame Bovary was dismissed), in truth, it is nothing less than a new literary form.