The Novel's Lifecycle: Low Art to Mass Art to High Art to Irrelevance You know, The Novel was not always so respectable, it was native to an emerging urban middle class and their vulgar Mass Literacy. When cultural elites deigned to notice it, they saw a commercial, clickbaity medium; they didn't see the crown jewel of Occidental high culture, only prattle for frivolous women and pulpy adventure stories for boys:I will run the risk of asserting, that where the reading of novels prev...