Who’s killing popular literature faster?
The MFAs, the insular New Yorkers, or neither? I'd tend to vote for the first of the three, as the traditional New York publishing world at least has the market discipline of the bottom line, however poorly the houses seem to understand it. Still, the insularity of both of these groups has got to have something to do with the fact that it's harder and harder to find bookstores. Obviously the massive revolution in book retailing, the huge uptick in internet reading, etc., have a lot to do with it, but readership of novels and the like has taken a dive.
Is this because, say, New York houses publish fewer and fewer novels (or more novels by fewer authors) that mainstream America wants to read, or because the MFAization of the novel is slowly turning it into poetry or short stories—i.e., Something No One Reads?
Or none of the above? The novel is a 19th century art form that’s dying? Y’all seem like pretty literate types. Whaddya think?
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Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
Struck by this:
I need to set up an MFA program. The publishing industry may not have grasped what it takes to make money in this market, but clearly the vendors of MFAs have grasped it just fine.
Oct '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
I used to read much more fiction, and have certainly almost completely stopped reading modern fiction. I would say both of the above, but perhaps the former in particular. My main complaint about modern fiction is that it is unfocussed and almost always depressing. The lack of moral fortitude in the characters and the endless internal worrying is simply not interesting, and certainly not inspiring. And in a victorian novel, a lack of moral fortitude would lead to disaster, but that in itself offers an uplifting message. The modern "hero" is devoid of character, often an embodiment of the modern belief in opinion over reality. I look to art to inspire and cheer - reality is depressing enough. To read about the muddled moral quagmire of a 40-something college prof is nowhere near the top of my to-do list.
Sep '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
I joined Robert McKee's Storylogue for the whopping sum of just under USD $500.00 for 14 months. I joined in Feb 2010. I've learned a ton. A lot more than I could have from some overrated MFA, and they just finished an interview with a well known author who said that a BFA or MFA program or writer's workshops would have destroyed his confidence.
McKee is not, as far as I can tell, a political conservative, but he can get pretty stemwound about prestigious California film schools that graduate students who never go on to become big name directors.
The Ricochet/Storylogue model is the way to go. The MFA will eventually implode or become part of the Obama Stimulus package.
Edited on Nov 27, 2010 at 12:38pmOct '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
Revealing my ignorance (a daily occurrence), but what is Robert McKee's Storylogue? What did you get for your 500$?
Jul '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
I think Xty hits precisely on the problem. Here we go:
Middle-aged college professor/author stand-in has affair with younger woman well out of his league, feels angst. At some point there is a rant against American culture.
There, I just saved you $24.99.
Jun '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
My list of reasons why the novel is dying:
1. Each day we become more and more a visual culture (TV and now the Internet).
2. Shortened attention span (see #1).
3. Modern literary fiction sucks (see Xty's comment above). An occasional flower breaks through ( e.g., Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, the early John Le Carre, and, best of all, Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate).
4. The inability of most writers to create a linear narrative about people the reader cares about.
5. The unfortunate and untimely deaths of Dostoevsky, Cather, Dickens, Trollope, Cervantes, Hawthorne, Eliot, and many others (luckily their work lives on--there are enough great novels so that none of us is likely to ever get through them all).
Edited on Nov 27, 2010 at 1:50pmOct '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
I'm not sure who is at fault, whether it be MFA programs or NYC publishers, I'm not that familiar with the system.
I do know that you are just as likely to find good literature in genre fiction, where the writers have not been polluted by the concepts and fads that destroyed literary fiction. There, its still acceptable to have a hero/heroine and to develop an actual plot.
May '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
Its because we're too busy playing Black Ops (5.4 million sold in 24 hours). I'm not knocking video games, merely pointing out where the demographics are flocking to, and it ain't books, because they have nothing to offer to the men who should be buying them.
Look at it this way, if you're a hip young urban type, would you rather be seen reading the latest Vince Flynn book or the latest tract on monstrous men & badass females? If you're a literary agent, which one is likely to make you more money and which one is likely to get you noticed?
Oct '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
Wylee Coyote
Here we go:
Middle-aged college professor/author stand-in has affair with younger woman well out of his league, feels angst. At some point there is a rant against American culture.
There, I just saved you $24.99. · Nov 27 at 1:19pm
Yup - a story that resonates with the author alone. My husband and I have been listening the Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series, and I must say it is fantastic.
May '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
This article is about movies but I thought it was relevant.
Most video games are bought by men in their late 20s. Games like Call of Duty offer a non-PC world to exhibit behavior that would get us fired in real life.
May '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
This article is about movies but I thought it was relevant.
Most video games are bought by men in their late 20s. Games like Call of Duty offer a non-PC world to exhibit behavior that would get us fired in real life.
Jul '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
The purpose of the NYC publishers is to sell me books. With very few exceptions, the Toms Wolfe and Stoppard come to mind, the alleged "modern literary" genre has drawn none of my interest for a long time. The purpose of MFA is to sell me a credential. I notice that the author's with the MFA credential don't sell me, except occasionally when they got it well after being established. In my book, if you want to do the professorial mid-life crisis thing one will have to out write Nabokov to hold my interest, and the topic mitigates strongly against.
As has always been the case with books, and is now the case with TV and movies, the modern creator is in constant competition with the back catalog. At a book signing recently I dismayed a very fine author with the admission that I had not made my way yet through his entire catalog. I explained that he was competing not just with the Internet, but with Chaucer and Milton and many of the authors that had inspired him to write in the first place.
The numbers on book sales are daunting, and are only getting worse.
May '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
In answer to Bill's question, you don't have to be an MFA to write PC stories about victorian wizards or cat-faced aliens and make more money than the queen. Its not the MFA crowd by themselves, its the general attitude of Jon Stewart douche-bagginess about how relevant we are by being irreverent to mass culture.
Aug '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
The Patrick O'Brian (real name Richard Patrick Russ) Aubrey/Maturin novels are a joy from start- Master and Commander- to finish, without ever boring the reader,which is a much-underrated quality. Also engaging but more high-brow is " The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" by David Mitchell. And my best of all in the maritime historical fiction genre is "Sacred Hunger" by Barry Unsworth. "Hannibal, Pride of Carthage" by David Anthony Durham teaches while entertaining, as do the Cicero novels, " Imperium" and "Lustrum" by Robert Harris. I'm presently reading " Lion of Macedon" by David Gemmell, with " The Moviegoer"on deck, as recommended by Cas Balicki. So many books, not enough time!
Sep '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
I have read at least a book a week for the last 33 years, almost exclusively fiction. I'll read any genre, as long as the story is good. Modern literary writers are interested only in impressing those they consider to be their peers. Providing value to the buyers of their books is unimportant. If they're products of the American university, they truly believe that they should not have to muck about about with such picayune concerns as making a living. A civilized society would support its artists, like they probably do in Europe! They have nothing but contempt for the concept of storytelling, and it shows in their books.
Faced with an assemblage of plodding, writery sentences that serve no purpose, it's far too easy to shut the book, return it to the library, and check out a children's book. I don't see that I"m morally obliged to waste my attention on the product of a mind that has contempt for me. Kids require good characters and interesting plots. I'm enjoying the Hunger Games right now.
Oct '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
Whoa, Charles! That is quite the list. It will inform my Christmas shopping. My only complaint about O'Brian is that he strays from the correct time-line, but his characters are a joy, and one wants to meet many of them. This cannot be said for the sorry people who populate most modern fiction.
Nov '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
I spotted the problem when I was a teenager, many years ago. At that time, I showed signs of having writing ability, so my mother encouraged me to read fiction in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, in order to learn from the pros. I followed her advice, but I was not "satisfied" by anything I read. All the stories seemed to be missing something crucial. And I was hungry for it without knowing what it was.
One day, I was browsing the paperback rack at a local department store, when I spotted a book with a lurid cover painting — Conan, by Robert E. Howard. On a whim, I bought the thing, took it home and read the first story, "People of the Black Circle." It was a blood-curdling tale of magic and adventure, told with incredible verve and emotional energy, told with — Passion.
I was ecstatic. I had found what I hungered for.
The fatal flaw of modern literature is that it lacks Passion. In fact, modern writers seem to make a fetish of purging all Passion from their work. And without Passion, there is no emotional hook to draw the reader into the story.
Oct '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
Sophisticated ennui vs passion, indeed. There has also been a terrible trend toward magic - it is crucial in most literature that one could be the protagonist, that the story is an everyman story. I don't mean magic has no place - the difference is between a Harry Potter, who has a magical birth story and special powers, compared to Lucy, Edmond, Susan and Peter of the Narnia books, who are ordinary children called upon to rise to special heights.
Aug '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
My favourite novel?Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry or "Ragtime" EL Doctorow.Fiction should not be hard work!
Nov '10
Re: Who’s killing popular literature faster?
Here are just a few of my many literary heroes (in alphabetical order):
Roald Dahl — was arguably the finest short story writer of the late 20th Century. Studying his work is the equivalent of five MFAs.
Tom Disch — had a beautiful writing style. Reading one of his stories is like watching an expert craftsman coax a delicate sculpture out of molten glass.
John D. MacDonald — could write about anything, no matter how arcane, abstract, or abstruse, and make it interesting. One of the most brilliant wordsmiths of all time.
Ian Fleming — is criminally under-rated. He never wrote a weak sentence, and his ability to describe the beauty of life under the sea is unparalleled in English literature.
Robert E. Howard — was, technically speaking, a mediocre writer, but he injected more raw emotional energy in his work than any writer I know.
If you twisted my arm and forced me to choose my all-time favorite short story, it would probably be:
"Fruit of Knowledge" (Unknown, Oct 1940) — by Catherine L. Moore.
Set in Eden, this sensuous, heartbreaking tale of Lilith's frustrated passion for Adam is beautiful beyond words — the kind of beauty that brings tears to the eyes.
Edited on Nov 27, 2010 at 6:05pm