Having read the selections of Denning's study of the American "dime novel," I've been trying to think of contemporary cultural forms that might correlate to them somewhat. I think maybe that going to the movies during the 1930s might be similar to dime novels, especially in light of the ability of both to remain sustainable and increasingly popular during hard economic times. But going to the movies today does not seem like a very affordable option with ticket prices at 9 to ten bucks, and in some cases even more! Would romance novels be a correlate to dime store novels? Maybe, but romance novels only appeal to a certain minority of readers. What kind of stories would others read? Maybe popular mass market paperback novels like those written by the Cusslers, Pattersons, and Balduccis. But glancing over their books on Amazon, I found out that they were like $15 each! Is there such a thing as the dime novel, or something close to it in either purpose or relative price, in 2011? Or is the dime novel a particular cultural and economic phenomenon of 19th century America? Are our dime novels pirated music and dvds where it cost about a dime for the disc to burn them on?
Something else struck me during and after reading Denning for this week. Did dime novels participate in the sort of nation constructing that Benedict Anderson sees advances in print-language causing? Denning does observe that dime novels could be moralistic and in some cases didactic. Were they used to some extent to inculcate immigrant workers with practices and values considered American at the time? And in doing so, did they ever have contradictory effects: like making a laborer, immigrant or not, see stated American democratic values not actually put into social practice?
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