The novel was a dominant art form last century

THE NOVEL is dead; the novel is dying; prestige television has killed it. These familiar complaints are oddly comforting, both because hand-wringing over the state of the novel is a time-honoured pursuit, and readers who pick up the remote instead of a book after dinner—as your correspondent does more often than he should—can feel they are engaging with culture’s dominant narrative form rather than just relaxing on the couch.