A Reader's Manifesto

[liehtzu]

This is somewhat related to the earlier "Hysterical Realism" thread:

A Reader's Manifesto - The Atlantic (July/August 2001)

What do youse all reckon? Is this guy just angry and wrong? Or is he actually onto something? You may be able to guess my thoughts on the subject.

[Mirabell]

If I may quote someone

Yet another tiresome article complaining about how they don't write books like they used to, by B.R. Myers in The Atlantic: A Reader's Manifesto - The Atlantic (July/August 2001).

Be warned, Myers goes on at tedious length (curious, I copied and pasted it into Word: 13, 000 words, 51 pages!!).

And as with all sweeping statements it just doesn't hold up. Myers does cite examples, but only from five or six writers, which doesn't go far to accounting for the hundreds of counter-examples anyone could come up with. S/he has a particular beef with Cormac McCarthy, Don Delillo and Paul Auster.

It's also full of sentences like "This is what the cultural elite wants us to believe: if our writers don't make sense, or bore us to tears, that can only mean that we aren't worthy of them." Sorry, but if you're wrting a 13,000 word essay about literature in The Atlantic, then YOU are one of the 'cultural elite' yourself.

Articles like this make me tear my hair out, yet I find myself compelled to read them nevertheless.

The Fictional Woods -> A Reader's Manifesto


I completely agree. And I'm already tired. And now I remembered that ludicrous Franzen article and I'm even more tired. Idiots.

[nnyhav]

Shortly afterwards, B.R.Myers told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the epitome of what's best in Nabokov's writing was to be found in Laughter in the Dark. He wasn't joking, merely self-blinded.

Strangely, though, the manifesto helped launch Melville House Publishing, which has gone on to publish much more worthy work.

[Funhouse]

If I may quote someone



The Fictional Woods -> A Reader's Manifesto


I completely agree. And I'm already tired. And now I remembered that ludicrous Franzen article and I'm even more tired. Idiots.

Oh, hey, that was me. I completely agree with myself too.

[beelzebubbles]

What do youse all reckon?

I hope you don't mind but I am going to correct your American. The plural of you is either youse if you, like me, are from the Northeast or y'all if you are from the South.

Waddaya reckon? is the line your looking fer.

Is this guy just angry and wrong? Or is he actually onto something? You may be able to guess my thoughts on the subject.

He certainly makes a better case than you did previously. At least, he addresses specific cases and doesn't just pull the pin on his narcissism grenade, throw and run. Maybe narcissism like the other N word should be banned from polite discourse.

The only book that he mentions that I am familiar with is White Noise by DeLillo and I agree that it seems silly and pretentious. Though I did laugh at some of the jokes (I found the hacking jacket line funny) and I thought that the academic, who waxes lyrical about the supermarket and its reflection on American culture was supposed to be barking mad and not to be taken entirely seriously.

As to lists and their literary value, if you wish to discourage writers from making lists, academics must stop assigning Rosetti's Goblin Market to undergrads. Problem solved. Just an aside, Michael Chabon is an excellent list maker. His lists have a real poetic lilt to them. I picked up that Yiddish Policeman's Other Ball or whatever it's called and though I never finished it I was impressed with his list-making abilities.

If the writer, wanted to make his argument more cogently and succinctly he should have used Nabokov's line in the beginning of his piece and compared the pomo writers themselves to midges "continuously darning the air in one spot." That Nabokov is a stitch. <-----unintended pun

[beelzebubbles]

D'oh, double post. Sorry.

[Galatea92]

What do youse all reckon? Is this guy just angry and wrong? Or is he actually onto something? You may be able to guess my thoughts on the subject.

I thought my reaction was going to be negative, but I have to admit, from the evidence he supplies, he makes a pretty good case. If he had just written some general rant about modern literature, the article wouldn't have been worth reading, but he's gone to some trouble to explain precisely what it is he dislikes about the writing of Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Paul Auster and David Guterson, and he expresses his scorn for their writing with considerable humour, I think.

It's good to see someone so intelligent take a pop at currently fashionable writers. It's too easy sometimes to be like the subjects in The Emperor's New Clothes, too afraid of appearing stupid to accept that we don't actually enjoy or understand the latest book from the latest fashionable author. There's always a place for the child shouting, 'This is pretentious shite!'

[anchomal]

What I find interesting is that of those named and targetted in this article, the reputations of both Annie Proulx and David Guterson seem to have dropped a notch or two since the time the article appeared (2001). Also, DeLillo seems to be treading water (nothing terribly bold or impressive since Underworld back in the 90s). Only McCarthy could reasonably be considered to have taken a big forward step. With The Road and No Country For Old Men (thanks in large part to the film version) he is now top dog. Maybe he read the article and took some of the criticism on board. More likely, though, we are probably just catching another glimpse at the fleeting nature of 21st century celebrity.
Also, I wonder which writers would find themselves in the cross-hairs if the article was updated for 2009...

[Chapman]

No place better than here to start making up that list for 2009.

[nnyhav]

Lev Grossman stirs the plot in today's WSJ: pomo redemption of modernist (academical) excess. What Lev calls work I call play. (posted here rather than under Wood based on relative merits.)

btw, so far as Myers' assessments go, I'm cold on Delillo, lukewarm on Auster, Proulx gets much warmer reception; McCarthy I haven't read, Guterson I have no intention of reading. So far as method goes, G92, I can pull quotes from just about any author and make them seem silly and pretentious (a game often also played against translators by reviewer/critics, where missing some aspect of meaning is synecdoched into missing it all).

[Funhouse]

So far as method goes, G92, I can pull quotes from just about any author and make them seem silly and pretentious (a game often also played against translators by reviewer/critics, where missing some aspect of meaning is synecdoched into missing it all).

I'm totally with you here, nnyhav. The "evidence" Myers produces actually shows very little, and even if it did show something, it's only about those particular books, or the sections of the books that are quoted. The trouble is that Myers wants to generalise, first about the total output of the writers based on the excerpts quoted, which is a stretch in itself, but then further about a certain "type" of writer, or "generation" of writers, and at that point it just gets ridiculous. It's not just a comment on a couple of books by Auster or Delillo, it's about "the decline of American prose since the 1950s".

If I had the time and the inclination I could do the reverse of what nnyhav refers to and go through and pull quotes from all of these authors that Myers despises so much and explain what's so great about them, what justifies the acclaim that they've received. And indeed plenty of reviewers, critics and academics have done exactly that.

[nnyhav]

Andrew Seal has the Grossman thang covered:
Conversational Reading: An Advertisement for Himself

[Funhouse]

Andrew Seal has the Grossman thang covered:
Conversational Reading: An Advertisement for Himself

That's a really terrific piece by Seal. He hangs Grossman out to dry.

[Mirabell]

Andrew Seal has the Grossman thang covered:
Conversational Reading: An Advertisement for Himself

I hurt my back when I fell from the chair laughing. I blame you. Or the chair.
thank you

[Galatea92]

That's a really terrific piece by Seal. He hangs Grossman out to dry.

Oh, come on! Grossman's article was rubbish, but Seal's is even worse. All that, 'The literary world is so diverse, nobody is justified in making any generalised comments about it' argument just annoys me.

Modernist writers were explicitly reacting against the plot-driven elements of traditional writing. And post-modernist writers, questioning the realist assumptions of modernism, are explicitly re-introducing plot and story.

So, for all its faults, this part of Grossman's argument, and the main point of his article, seems perfectly valid to me. Seal, in his rather pathetic, scoffing way, spends most of his time arguing against a straw man.

[Galatea92]

So far as method goes, G92, I can pull quotes from just about any author and make them seem silly and pretentious (a game often also played against translators by reviewer/critics, where missing some aspect of meaning is synecdoched into missing it all).

All anybody can do is provide evidence for their views, which Myers does. He doesn't like those writers and he provides evidence for his dislike.

Your argument boils down to questioning his integrity. That isn't good enough for me. To counter his arguments, you need to provide some evidence that these writers can write.

Actually, though, I probably need to read them myself, so that I can make up my own mind . (I hope I can do so without Myer's mockery influencing my judgement.)

[nnyhav]

All anybody can do is provide evidence for their views, which Myers does. He doesn't like those writers and he provides evidence for his dislike.

Your argument boils down to questioning his integrity. That isn't good enough for me. To counter his arguments, you need to provide some evidence that these writers can write. <snip>

Nonsense. Upthread I question Myers' judgment first, his methods (the manufacture of evidence) second. I have no obligation to defend the writers, as critics have done amply elsewhere (and it's not like any are favorites of mine). But I begin to question your judgment and methods. (Yep, a bit snippy. But your argument boils down to questioning my integrity.)

[Funhouse]

Oh, come on! Grossman's article was rubbish, but Seal's is even worse. All that, 'The literary world is so diverse, nobody is justified in making any generalised comments about it' argument just annoys me.

Modernist writers were explicitly reacting against the plot-driven elements of traditional writing. And post-modernist writers, questioning the realist assumptions of modernism, are explicitly re-introducing plot and story.

So, for all its faults, this part of Grossman's argument, and the main point of his article, seems perfectly valid to me. Seal, in his rather pathetic, scoffing way, spends most of his time arguing against a straw man.

Wait, what? I can't believe you think Seal's article is worse than Grossman's. Seal is entirely correct that it's Grossman who is constructing a straw man in claiming an opposition between people who read for plot and those who read for all the difficult words. Seal is entirely correct that Grossman's list of Modernist novels is chock full of highly plot driven works, completely undermining his basic premise before he even starts. Seal is entirely correct that Grossman's simplistic assertion that playing around with chronological sequence and point of view is a defining feature of Modernism is moronic given that those elements of fiction were being experimented with long before the Modernists. Seal is entirely correct that to propose Dickens and Thackeray as 19th century equivalents of the modern literary novel is ridiculous. Seal is entirely correct that to contrast sales of The Boat (which I think was actually the most overrated book of the year, incidentally) with sales of Twilight is an idiotic attempt to comment on the reader's desire for plot or the state of literary fiction.

Your comment that "Modernist writers were explicitly reacting against the plot-driven elements of traditional writing. And post-modernist writers, questioning the realist assumptions of modernism, are explicitly re-introducing plot and story" is totally in tune with the sort of unwarranted generalisation that both Myers and Grossman make. What you have is a bunch of individual writers with a bunch of vastly different aesthetic ideas and projects. Sometimes they are lumped together for convenience due to particular similarities in their works, but I guarantee you that 90% of those writers do not see themselves as part of any particular movement or as part of a project to "reintroduce plot and story" (mostly because, as Seal points out, plot and story never went away). You might be able to find three or four writers who say yes, that is what they're doing (Michael Chabon, maybe). Does that justify sweeping statements about the state of literary fiction in the 21st century? Hell no.

Okay, so you're annoyed by "All that, 'The literary world is so diverse, nobody is justified in making any generalised comments about it' argument", and I'm annoyed by the exact opposite 'I'm just gonna pull some vastly generalised points about all of literary fiction out of my ass based on a couple of examples' argument. I'm not in fact saying, and neither was Seal, that generalisations cannot be made about the literary world, just that if you're going to make them it helps if you're not a half wit (Grossman), or that you're not an absurdly grandiose snark (Myers).

[Funhouse]

All anybody can do is provide evidence for their views, which Myers does. He doesn't like those writers and he provides evidence for his dislike.

Your argument boils down to questioning his integrity. That isn't good enough for me. To counter his arguments, you need to provide some evidence that these writers can write.

Actually, though, I probably need to read them myself, so that I can make up my own mind . (I hope I can do so without Myer's mockery influencing my judgement.)

But you miss my entire point above. Myers does not, in fact, provide evidence for his (her? I still don't actually know) views. You misunderstand what his view is. It's not that he doesn't like the five or six writers he uses as examples (because that wouldn't be controversial enough); his view is that there is something wrong with a certain type of literary fiction in general, and there simply is not enough in the article (despite its great length) to back that view up.

As both I and nnyhav said, there are plenty of reviewers/critics/academics who have provided evidence that those writers can write well.

[Galatea92]

Wait, what? I can't believe you think Seal's article is worse than Grossman's. Seal is entirely correct that it's Grossman who is constructing a straw man in claiming an opposition between people who read for plot and those who read for all the difficult words.

Grossman's article is light, unoriginal and, I would have thought, pretty uncontroversial. He's not saying anything that hasn't been said by a hundred other critics and authors. It isn't controversial that nineteenth century novels that we now consider 'literary' were, in their time, also considered 'popular', whereas, in this century, there has been been a divergence between 'literary' and 'popular' literature, with 'literary' writing being considered, for various reasons, more difficult. Is that controversial? I'm surprised if you think it is.

Seal is entirely correct that Grossman's list of Modernist novels is chock full of highly plot driven works, completely undermining his basic premise before he even starts.

Ah, but notice which of Grossman's novels he leaves out of his list, Ulysses, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Sound and the Fury, In Search of Lost Time. This selectiveness of Seal's is what makes his argument so weak; instead of dealing with the novels that are clearly 'modernist', he just scoffs at Grossman's choice of more borderline novels. Am I supposed to be impressed by that?

Seal is entirely correct that Grossman's simplistic assertion that playing around with chronological sequence and point of view is a defining feature of Modernism is moronic given that those elements of fiction were being experimented with long before the Modernists.

Look, Grossman isn't saying anything new. He's just parroting the standard grand narrative of twentieth century literature. There's no point in criticising Grossman for repeating the narrative.

Joyce, Woolf, Proust, Hemingway, Faulkner and Lawrence were all consciously and explicitly doing just what Grossman says they were doing, and they were aware that other writers were engaged in a similar 'modernist' project. And these changes weren't just happening in literature, they were happening in music, art and architecture as well. As I said before, none of this is controversial. It's pretty orthodox art history. It might be wrong, but it's the orthodoxy, not just Grossman's pet idea of the week.

Seal is entirely correct that to propose Dickens and Thackeray as 19th century equivalents of the modern literary novel is ridiculous.

Grossman does no such thing, which is why Seal is arguing against a straw man. In fact, by pointing out that there was no such thing as the literary novel in nineteenth century England, he's almost providing an argument in Grossman's favour.

Your comment that "Modernist writers were explicitly reacting against the plot-driven elements of traditional writing. And post-modernist writers, questioning the realist assumptions of modernism, are explicitly re-introducing plot and story" is totally in tune with the sort of unwarranted generalisation that both Myers and Grossman make. What you have is a bunch of individual writers with a bunch of vastly different aesthetic ideas and projects. Sometimes they are lumped together for convenience due to particular similarities in their works, but I guarantee you that 90% of those writers do not see themselves as part of any particular movement or as part of a project to "reintroduce plot and story" (mostly because, as Seal points out, plot and story never went away). You might be able to find three or four writers who say yes, that is what they're doing (Michael Chabon, maybe). Does that justify sweeping statements about the state of literary fiction in the 21st century? Hell no.

As I said above, none of this narrative about the growth of modernism and the reaction of post-modernism is particularly new, or particularly controversial. Of course, individual writers have individual perspectives, aims and projects, but anyone trying to make sense of the history of culture has to make generalisations. That's what history is, the making of generalisations. It's a different activity than the reading and assessment of individual writers. You might think it's a worthless activity, but, personally, I like the perspective that cultural history provides.