Morretti's "Graphs, Maps and Trees"

       Franco Moretti's "Graphs, Maps and Trees", approaches a different kind of way to study literature. He uses scientific methods to study literature and history as a whole. Moretti thinks that we should study literature as a big picture in order to grasp the full effect of literature, because we will only be able to read a small percentage of novels in our lifetime. He incorporates graphs into his graphs to show the reader the trends of literary history from different countries and periods of time. These trends can mark the rise and fall of certain topics and genres and he tries to analyze the reasons behind the shifts in the graphs.
       There are multiple advantages to this writing style. I think that a graph is an awesome visual aid to the reader because they can look at a whole picture instead of the writer trying to explain an experiment or trend etc. Also by having a graph is can be a tool to look at the information in different view points such as time periods v.s. genres v.s. different countries. The more data that a writer has to show, the more credible he/she is as an author. I think a disadvantage for this writing style is that the writer didn't give analysis of the graphs and instead just left them for the reader to interpret, possibly incorrectly. Also, each novel written has a specific message behind it and by grouping them together in large chunks I feel takes away from each novel their contributions to society.
       Social, biological and physical sciences have benefited from this method of scientific writing, it is unbiased and shows only obtained information and then allows for interpretation and analysis. It would make life difficult for scientists if they didn't have tools such as charts and graphs to explain their research. Finding general trends is key and then answers/reasons will follow.
         When approaching SSTLS in different light, we wonder why Gary Shytengart choose to write the book. He wanted to alarm society of the path we on with superficial priorities, technology taking over our society, and our future lack of human relationships. Another way to look at SSTLS is to see if any new literature is showing the same picture of society and sending the same message to readers.