Why Did They Write?

I got a letter in the mail the other day from my sister.  I thought: "Why can't she just call me?" I usually think this when I get letters. I sometimes think this when I get text messages, but that depends on the nature of the text. I also sometimes think this when I get messages on facebook. Sometimes I get a call from somebody who lives a few blocks from me, and they want to talk or visit, and I think; "Why not just come over?" But all of this is jabber because my real question is: "Why read a book when you got film?" And why write a novel? Ever. One reason may because books are better since they leave room for the imagination of the reader, and in film you're stuck with the vision of the director. But, before film, did novelists write to stir the imagination, or did they write because they had something to say? To a large degree, it's both. And the novels I am thinking of are the classics, and not just novels perhaps but all classic literature from Homer to Fight Club.  My roommate started me thinking on this train, and I must say that it's quite the train to be aboard.  I assume that film's emergence as a story telling art form is partly due to the technological age, and that film will continue to expand, both artistically, and commercially as long as technological expansion continues. But something that I think goes along with all that is that film is uniquely suitable for the modern person's visual sensibilities. In other words, what novels used to artistically accomplish, film now does. We were talking about imagination before, and we view broad imaginings as being a good thing, but when reading a "classic" it seems that the author was either not trying to get you to imagine anything concretely, or that he wanted to describe it so thoroughly that little was left to the imagination. An author is trying to say something.  Whether that something is specific or open to interpretation. Whether it is abstract or concrete. No matter what the medium is, how creative he or she may be in the medium, whether it is poetry, theatre, novel, short story, philosophy, or some kind of non-fiction the author wants you to hear him, see him, and understand something, even if he wants you to be a part of the interpretation, the author wants the reader to interpret. He writes to communicate. It seems obvious because it is. But I am just wondering, with the emergence of film, and the endless amount of options one has with film artistically, could not one communicate a story, more effectively in a film than with a novel? Is it possible that storytelling as writing is obsolete? Will film do to the novel tradition what writing did to the oral tradition? In other words, why write me a story, when you can show me one?