Pop culture versus the great American novel
In an essay in the Weekly Standard, Roger Kimball writes about why there will never be another "great American novel." Kimball argues that the fall of the novel as an art form is, in part, the result of the rise of a culture that values pure entertainment above all--the rise, in other words, of what we today call the pop culture. During the heyday of the novel in this country--when Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner were writing deeply meaningful stories---the culture still viewed art as a source of spiritual meaning. As Kimball points out:
Wallace Stevens . . . suggested that in the modern age, “an age of disbelief,” art takes the place of religion as “life’s redemption.” In such an age, Stevens wrote, “it is for the poet to supply the satisfactions of belief.”
Today, the best art (defined broadly) does not speak to these transcendent facets of the human conditions. Rather, it tends to beat us into submission by shocking us with its perversions. This is true of both high art and low art. I wrote about this syndrome as it plays out in the high culture earlier this week. In the low culture, there are also plenty of examples. The one that immediately comes to mind for me is Rihanna's hit song S&M.
So, is our culture doomed?
Kimball writes:
Perhaps Hegel was right when he said that “art in its highest expression is and remains for us a thing of the past.” Hegel’s thought was that if, traditionally, art had been tied to the truth, our culture’s commitment to scientific rationality had in an important sense led to the replacement of art by reason. Art would not disappear, Hegel thought; it would simply degenerate to a form of entertainment, a vacation from rather than a revelation of reality.
Of course, Hegel was wrong about a great many things. And perhaps he is wrong about this, too. If our tendency to tie truth to reason—to look, when we are really in earnest, to the scientist rather than the artist for truth—describes an important aspect of our culture, there is another aspect summed up (for example) by Wallace Stevens when he suggested that in the modern age, “an age of disbelief,” art takes the place of religion as “life’s redemption.” In such an age, Stevens wrote, “it is for the poet to supply the satisfactions of belief.”
I bring up the Wallace Stevens quote again because it makes me think that there is hope yet for our culture. Redemption is a religious concept, and as we all know, there is little room for religion in today's pop or high culture. But that concept did manage to sneak its way into the secular culture not too long ago. I'm thinking here of the massively popular show 24, which is about the heroic and spiritually adrift national security agent Jack Bauer, who gives up everything in order to serve his country. In between seasons 6 and 7 of 24, when Bauer hits a moral trough, the producers released a special two-hour show about Bauer's condition and they called it. . . . Redemption.
In fact, if you watch 24, it's amazing to see how much of its lessons--we can even call them moral lessons--fly in the face of the standard pop culture narrative that celebrates deviancy. 24 is about heroism, ideals, doing the right thing, and talking responsibility for your actions. There is clearly a market for its messages because when it was running, 24 was one of the most popular shows on television.The novel's days may be over, and that may, in general, be a negative indictment of our culture--but there are some gems of goodness there, too. We just have to look harder to uncover them.
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Jun '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
I agree with your conclusion that 24 ran counter to the current pieties of pop culture.
Having said that, I pray that 24 is not a present-day substitute for Don Quixote, and the best of Dickens, Cather, Trollope, and the like. If that's the best we can do, then we have little hope for our culture. 24 appeals to a more genuine view of good and evil than most of the crap on TV and movies: but to suggest that its writers are some kind of new Cervantes is depressing beyond words.
Dec '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
I disagree. I think you need only look at the amazing television shows that have been produced in the last 10-15 years to see that art and greatness in art is not dead.
Being at the top of the billboard charts doesn't mean its a great song. Its doesn't even mean it is a lot of people's favorite song. It means that a larger number of people feel positively about the song than negatively about it.
The segmentation of the market created by the increase in media outlets means that niche markets are more and more the norm. The type of art that tends to achieve "pop" status is such a market are the pieces that are everyone's 4th or 5th favorite choice. I find it strange that when talking about television, shows like the Wire, Firefly, or Mad Men are allowed to be presented as evidence of the format being in a Golden Age even though their ratings are relatively low, but when we talk about music or books we tend to only look at the billboards or best seller list and see the art work on display there as evidence for decline.
Aug '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
I will refrain from asserting that David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" is a wonderful work of art, as it too lies in the past. Today would have been DFW's 50th birthday and his suicide ended the opportunity for him to produce even more challenging and entertaining works.
I will posit that "Reamde" by Neal Stephenson is art as is Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day."
These only scratch the surface of the wonderful writing that surrounds us. If one is willing to look beyond the semi-autobiographical sketches of wandering farmers or homophobic hipsters and look into genre and the inspired, one can see that we are in a wonderful age for writing.
The "Scottish School" of science fiction has a number of wonderful authors -- though their politics are a nightmare their writing is evocative, deep, and challenging.
America's professor fantasist John Crowley, himself and angry and narrow minded Leftist, is a skillful author. He argues, in an essay in his book "In Other Words," that reading novels requires a tolerance for and enjoyment of the boring. Reading challenging work is long stretches of dull followed by inspirational jolts of the sublime.
Aug '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Anybody besides me willing to admit to having a hard time finding Hemingway deeply meaningful?
Or maybe I just find his brand of machismo so annoying that it distracts me from the deep meaning...
Nov '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Chesterton on parallel Roman decay:
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Although, if we're to have a fair discussion about whether the American novel is dead, we have to allow some period of lag time. Throughout the history of literature, so many of the true gems weren't recognized as such until long after the author was dead.
May '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Modern cultures do have a different perception of the proper role of art than did ancient, medieval or even 19th-century cultures.
Modern people tend to think of art primarily as a form of self-expression. Artists of the past were more equivalent to artisans who served society. Didacticism is frowned upon by modern artists, but it was once a mainstay of novelists, poets and playwrights. Now, popular art usually pivots on rebellion and rejection of mainstream values.
That's not to say that artists are all that different. Artists have always tended to be rebels and libertines. But societies were less tolerant of scandalous and self-indulgent displays. Also, markets (and the middle class) hadn't grown large enough to allow for so much product diversity as today.
Then again, most of the art we remember after centuries or even decades is the cream of the crop. Perhaps mainstream art has always been awash with crude and vulgar products, but only the art of quality and meaning endures.
Anyway, just as today's political Right is yesteryear's Left, so does the whole range of aesthetic values shift along with the West's centuries-old cultural drift from classicism.
Aug '11
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
The Novel was always entertainment. Today, with so many claims on our leisure time, the effort it takes to read a challenging piece of fiction, will too often lead one to wait for the movie. Still, as Harry Potter has proven, the Novel is certainly alive and well. The problem lies not with the Novel, but with the Agency-Publishing gatekeepers. They have their formulas and tastes, which does not include writing outside of their leftish worldview. It's a lot like the movie business in that respect.
If Roger wants to bring back the literary Novel, he'd open up his line and publish them, and encourage other publishers to do the same. There are great novels out there. Updike would probably be rejected as misogynist today. Tom Wolfe published his fiction because he had such a large prose readership. Patrick O'Brian was finally discovered in his 60's. The new Updike, Wolfe, O'Brian have to be discovered. That will never happen in today's parochially left-wing industry.
Jun '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Anybody besides me willing to admit to having a hard time finding Hemingway deeply meaningful?
Or maybe I just find his brand of machismo so annoying that it distracts me from the deep meaning... · 22 minutes ago
Hemingway doesn't float my boat either. His clear, uncluttered writing style has merit, but he certainly never wrote the great American novel. Faulkner (despite having written Absalom Absalom, the worst, most self-indulgent novel ever written by a great writer) wrote some great stuff: Light In August is wonderful.
May '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Universities don't help. The Robert Frost quote that free verse is "like playing tennis with the net down" is lost on modern poetry professors. Didactism is discouraged. And don't dare to suggest that authors should control the range of reasonable interpretations of their own models.
It's strange when artists are worshipped while simultaneously denied any relevance to their own works. All audience interpretations are valid (except when overruled by professional critics)!
Edited on February 23, 2012 at 12:34amAug '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
@Aaron Miller
"Modern cultures do have a different perception of the proper role of art than did ancient, medieval or even 19th-century cultures."
I would recommend that you read Mark Salzman's work "Lying Awake" -- as well as some of his other novels like "Iron and Silk" and "Lost in Place." Salzman is an atheist but his novel "Lying Awake" is a story of a Carmelite nun. In the writing of the book he discovered that his faith in the power of art was very similar to the faith of those who believe in God.
"I take it on faith that art is worthwhile and that it’s good for the world. But it’s not rational. My own struggle to maintain faith in my writing is the same process so it gave me a sense of kinship with these people. It’s so much more familiar to me now. "
Sep '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Emily Esfahani Smith: So, is our culture doomed?
No, but Rihanna probably is.
Jun '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Diane Ellis
Although, if we're to have a fair discussion about whether the American novel is dead, we have to allow some period of lag time. Throughout the history of literature, so many of the true gems weren't recognized as such until long after the author was dead.
I agree, although there are some books that I'm willing to say are great. Marilynne Robinson's Gilead is a great novel (three years after it was published, she published Home, which tells the same story from a different perspective). Gilead is in first person--Home is written in third person. Standing alone, they're excellent. Together they're a work of art.
I also agree with Doug Kimball about Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series (which, in reality, is one long novel whose theme is friendship, not seafaring). [Sorry, Doug, but Updike leaves me cold].
And we can add to that my nomination for best post WWII novel, Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate.
Mark Helprin has written novels that, I believe, will be declared great [Freddy and Fredericka was amazingly surprising--one of the most moving books I've read in a long time].
Jul '11
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
I am concerned that we may not ever have a great America again. If we have a great America, the novels will come.
Salinger declared once,"There is no more Holden Caulfield"
Of course not, but there are heroes and anti-heroes all around us and abounding talent to bring them alive in our minds.
May '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
The greatest science fiction authors realized that they were not writing about science and technology. They were writing about humanity via its relationship with science and technology. Likewise, the greatest fantasy and horror novelists have something to say about human nature, and do not get lost in their own worlds.
There is undoubtedly much money to be made from plots without great philosophical depth. Those stories are easier to produce, so Hollywood and New York publishers spit them out as fast as they can. Modern publishers are still aware, I think, that meaning and depth are compelling story elements. But habits of action form habits of thought. The assembly-line production of entertainment seems to have trained many artists to focus on plot, form, and other mechanics to the detriment of meaning.
My dad used to say: "Science answers how. Religion answers why." The arts, I think, like emotions and intuition, supports both by inspiring us to act and addressing the harder-to-define aspects of human existence. When deduction and calculation are insufficient, stories guide our understanding. Pictures illuminate what words cannot. And music helps us explore the ineffable.
Edited on February 23, 2012 at 1:04amMay '11
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
My real life as I know it began when I was 8 years old. I was in the third grade and would have been in the second grade if my mom had not refused to let the school hold me back for a year. Sometime during that year I read my first real book. It was Old Yeller, and if there has ever been a better novel written, I haven't read it and I think I have read over ten thousand novels. It is sad to think of the novel going down the path of poetry and other complex art forms but I suspect Kimball is right. I have never seen a TV show that I wanted to see again but I guess that is just me.
Aug '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
@Diane
My point about "Infinite Jest" wasn't that it isn't a wonderful book -- and I think a "great American novel" -- rather it was that since that book is in "the past" and not in the past year that I would leave it out of my critique of Kimball's assertion.
I believe Kimball is wrong. He is wrong on so many levels that I find myself having to refrain from a serious "someone on the internet is wrong" diatribe.
Kimball is a smart fellow, and someone I admire, but like most Baby Boomers he seems trapped in the "my generation was the end of Art" cultural meme that infects those of his era.
There is plenty of wonderful writing around us. It abounds. If the 20th century hadn't spent so much time telling us that literature was one thing -- semi-autobiographical and/or self-indulgent sketches written in a modernist style -- we would be better off. We should not merely look at "modernist" writings for the great American novel. We should look to all of literature.
There is much worth reading. As Emily has also pointed out, there is much worth watching too.
Mar '11
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
In a culture where so much of the intelligentsia has done away with God, from what are we to be redeemed? If God is dead, then so is sin. If sin is dead, then so is guilt. How can you redeem something that just is?
Most of the modern literature I've read has just been dead inside. There are characters depicted, but no characterization. Events occur, but there is no plot. Places are described, but there is no setting. Sooner or later, I find myself asking "did the author have a point?"
The best novel I've read lately was The Brothers Karamazov. Six months after finishing, I still find myself thinking about it. That is what it means to be great.
Jun '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Nathaniel Wright: @Diane
There is much worth reading. As Emily has also pointed out, there is much worth watching too. · 7 minutes ago
My problem is that more than a decade or so ago, I essentially quit watching TV--nothing seemed to float my boat. I think the last series I watched was 24, which I gave up on sometime in season five (my credulity finally stretched to the breaking point).
At the same time, I accept the idea that TV is getting better while the movies are getting worse (call in the Klaven postulate). But here's my problem: how will TV shows ever stand up to novels, which present a much broader and deeper form of alternative reality. Are we going to be reading TV scripts in the future instead of Bleak House? If so, I find that to be infinitely depressing.
Or am I just an old elephant who should start his trip to the elephant burial ground?
Edited on February 23, 2012 at 1:32amDec '10
Re: Pop culture versus the great American novel
Aaron Miller: Universities don't help. The Robert Frost quote that free verse is "like playing tennis with the net down" is lost on modern poetry professors. Didactism is discouraged. And don't dare to suggest that authors should control the range of reasonable interpretations of their own models.
It's strange when artists are worshipped while simultaneously denied any relevance to their own works. All audience interpretations are valid (except when overruled by professional critics)! · 1 hour ago
Edited 1 hour ago
Aaron,
Love the Frost quote.
Thanks,
Jim