Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for Literary History

Moretti uses diagrams as a way of investigating literary history. He is pretty succesful considering the difficulty of the task.The important part of the book is the diagrams. Moretti wisely admits that his commentary is secondary; supersedable with better later interpretations.The best diagrams are in the "graph" section. His graph of the number of books published per year at the begining of the book trade in countries like Britian, Japan, and Nigeria does seem to show a similarly shaped ramp up at different historical periods; and his discussion of the effect of the number of books published on readers is good. His diagram showing the numbers of books published in England in the epistolary, gothic, historical genres does show these genres as effectively replacements for one another in the market; the next genre rising as the last genre fades. The diagram showing the percentage of male and female authors is interesting. Unfortunately, that graph doesn't use a five year running average like some of his other graphs so his discussion of a pattern of "oscillation" is unpersuasive. It is probably just random "noise".The diagrams in the "map" section would be improved if Moretti returned to his previous practice of showing the underlying geographic features.The best diagram in the "tree" section is the diagram that shows the development of concept of the "clue" in detective stories. The diagrams in this section are inspired by diagrams of relatedness shown by genetic drift among human populations, as shown in the important book "The History and Geography of Human Genes". (One of the authors of that book also discusses and critiques Moretti's approach in the afterward) The diagrams themselves are more related to cladistics- a method of estimating relationships between species from the different species's properties- than to the "genetic drift" diagrams Moretti was inspired by. These "tree" diagrams show promise but a potential problem is the more complex structure of literary influence as compared to biological influence. Each author reads many books and can be influenced by elements of any book they read. On the other hand, I wouldn't be suprised if, in 50 years, anaylsis of digital libraries with AI is used to do such complex literary cladistics.

I came to this book with zero background in literature studies, just as a "lay" reader who enjoys fiction from around the world. I've always been interested in the idea of geographically mapping works of fiction, and so this caught my eye. I gather that Moretti is a bigwig in comp lit academia, and this book struck me as an initial attempt to lay out three potential approaches for further development and expansion.The word "abstract" in this slim book's subtitle is the key one -- as for someone not immersed in the professional study of literature, this is pretty dense and technical writing. In broad strokes though, he's proposing the use of large data sets to explore the development of various forms and content in fiction, as well as exploring how geography can be a lens to analyze texts, and how evolutionary theory could be used as a tool. The ideas expressed in this book seemed so preliminary as to be not entirely worth it if this isn't your field of study, and I believe in the intervening years, he's gone on to develop all three in greater detail and depth.I'm assuming that some of this is all hugely controversial and heretical in some circles, but as an outsider, it just struck me as some interesting new approaches that would be additive to the field, not a replacement for existing methods of literary analysis. Ultimately, this is for specialist audiences.

With a brilliantly alternative approach to world literature, Moretti's book offers a truly inspiring solution to the ever-growing problem with close-reading; lack a time to read enough to gain a truly representative understanding of any genre or period. Distant reading, while highly discussed and contested in literary circles, could potentially prove essential to understanding world literature (in the sense of; all literature in the world) as a whole. The book is only about 120 pages, a quick read, and a very comprehensive introduction to Moretti's ideas.

While this book is too short to launch a revolution in itself, it gives a provoking insight into Franco Moretti's challenges to traditional literary history. I have also found the book to be an important input into the sociology of literature, and I'd recommend reading "Graphs, Maps, Trees" to anyone interested in this field of study.

Moretti has added a completely novel dimension to literary history, which traditionally has addressed only individual works, but never broader trends. If literary scholars don't recognize this terrain and why it is important, sociologists of knowledge certainly will. Graphs on the growth of production of novels, for example, reveal the characteristic curves of innovation diffusion. Aggregate quantitative results open the way for solider explanations of the relationship between literature and its ambient socities.

I love the idea and the data. However, the graphics are very small and hard to read. Since the whole point of the book is to show that we can study literature using big data, it seems like there would be a few flashier graphs.meh.

A better title might be _Time Series, Graphs, Cartography, and Trees as Metaphors_, but this is a classic and important text on distant reading.

This book was required for a graduate course and while it is a quick and easy read, I found it boring and was not challenged. This would make a great book for an intro to maps course.

Franco Moretti's proposals for a more abstract, quantitative literary history will not please everyone. But no serious scholar will be able to ignore them. A truly ground-breaking book, in other words - and immensely enjoyable, too.

Moretti presents three different approaches to literature using graphs, maps, and trees. The book is lucid in style and the examples illustrate the possibilities well.