The literary masterpieces of the 20th century were for the most part the work of novelists who had no large public in mind. The novels of Proust and Joyce were written in a cultural twilight and were not intended to be read under the blaze and dazzle of popularity.
　　20世纪的文学杰作大多出自没有大众意识的小说家之手。普鲁斯特和乔伊斯的小说，创作于暗淡的文化暮色之中，本来就无意让人在大众化的耀眼光焰下阅读。

　　Mr. Teachout’s article in The Journal follows the path generally taken by observers whose aim is to discover a trend. “According to one recent study 55 percent of Americans spend less than 30 minutes reading anything at all…. It may even be that movies have superseded novels not because Americans have grown dumber but because the novel is an obsolete artistic technology.”
　　蒂奇奥特先生在《华尔街日报》上的文章，沿用了观察家们旨在发现某种倾向的套路，指出"根据最近一项调査，55%的美国人阅读时间不超过30分钟……甚至可以说，电影取代了小说，不是因为美国人变傻了，而是因为小说这种技艺已经过时。

　　“We are not accustomed to thinking of art forms as technologies,” he says, “but that is what they are, which means they have been rendered moribund by new technical developments.”
　　我们还不习惯把艺术形式看成技术，"他说，"但事实上艺术形式就是技术，也就是说，艺术形式已经因为新技术的发展而濒临死亡。"

　　Together with this emphasis on technics that attracts the scientific-minded young, there are other preferences discernible: It is better to do as a majority of your contemporaries are doing, better to be one of millions viewing a film than one of mere thousands reading a book. Moreover, the reader reads in solitude, whereas the viewer belongs to a great majority; he has powers of numerosity as well as the powers of mechanization. Add to this the importance of avoiding technological obsolescence and the attraction of feeling that technics will decide questions for us more dependably than the thinking of an individual, no matter how distinctive he may be.
　　文章除了强调崇尚科学的年轻人有吸引力的技术之外，还看得见其他一些取向。如大多数同时代人做什么，你最好就做什么，与其和区区数千人一样读一本书，不如 和几百万人一样看一场电影。另外，读者只是独自阅读，而观众却是与许多人共赏，既借机械技术之力，又得人数众多之势。不妨还可以补充说，避免技术上落伍也 很重要，而人们总觉得就解决问题而言，不管个人有多么出众，技术要比个人的思想更可靠。这种感觉也很有吸引力。