Writing my noir reviews made me curious to see what more informed (read: better) writers had to say about the state of genre fiction, so I did what any modern writer and blogger worth their salt would do: Google "genre fiction" and cull a few reputable articles from the results, then dump them onto my blog with a short introductory paragraph. Bingo. My noir reviews were inspired by Alexandra Alter's short piece in the very short Lifestyles section of the WSJ, which I have included. At first I was wary of linking to a Murdoch owned publication, but I've since been subpoenaed for my role in the NoW scandal, so I figured what the hell.
Lev Grossman, like most other fiction authors, should probably stick to writing novels, rather than little screeds about the future of same. His whole argument is built on false dichotomies -- mainly the one between literary and plot-driven fiction, and the one between difficulty and fun.
ReplyDeleteHe really thinks a revolution is underway, just because Pynchon and McCarthy have started to dabble in other styles? Look at Graham Greene, who spent somewhere around 70 years writing and publishing plot-driven novels with very lyrical style. Or Raymond Chandler, who wrote literary detective novels. In the 30's. Or Dashiell Hammett, who did the same as early as the 20's. And these are not exceptions to the rule; they are the rule. The rule being, of course, that you CAN'T easily separate literary fiction from plot-driven fiction, that you CAN'T easily separate difficulty from fun.
"This new breed of novel . . . require[s] a different set of tools, and a basic belief that plot and literary intelligence aren't mutually exclusive."
Give me a break, Grossman. They never have been.
I feel like you've given Mr. Grossman short shrift here. Within the context of Wall Street Journal editorials, this piece is a masterwork. Not only is it incredibly condescending and reductive, it ends with barely concealed self promotion when he implicitly groups himself with the writers he identifies as the "new wave" of smart genre fiction. The only thing missing was a promotional pop-up for The Magicians in the side feed.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your points, and I also took particular issue with his dismissive treatment of McCarthy as a Johnny Come Lately to this brave new world of "difficult" genre works, an ancient "Modernist" who has only recently emerged from his cave of anachronism and "inaugurated his late period with a serial-killer novel followed by a work of apocalyptic science fiction". What bullshit. If Grossman knew anything about McCarthy's body of work predating the "late" period, he would know that ALL of McCarthy's works are framed within established narrative paradigms like the Western, morality plays, and Southern Pastorals.
He also cleaves to the (now widely refuted) assertion that book sales are in decline while myopically ignoring online markets, which he basically admits via his parenthetical qualifier that Nielsen Bookscan "doesn't include all book retailers". Ugh.
I feel like anyone with moderate knowledge of modern literature or the mechanics of editorial discourse will immediately spit this back from whence it came, but that's not the WSJ Arts section's audience. I feel that most of those people have been conditioned to accept slick wording and an authoritative tone as Pavlovian triggers to swallow whatever is being sold to them. Grossman is trying to rev these people up and get them to attack the straw men he builds out of the "modernists" and "the literary establishment", who masochistically deny themselves the pleasures of plot and substance in favor of stylistic gobbledygook, and look down their nose at you when you bring your Harlequin romances to their register at Barnes and Noble. Oh well, at least it was entertaining to read, and topically revelent to the rest of my list.
Well said, speaking of slick wording. And yeah, it definitely was entertaining; I'm a sucker for any article about an alleged revolution.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of McCarthy, I just started reading Suttree, and man is it tough. I usually never have a problem with vocabulary, even in Wallace or Joyce or whatever, but McCarthy uses so many words I've never heard before, not to mention words I suspect he made up. It seems good so far, though. The first 20 pages contain both my favorite description of the Tennessee River (not that I know many others) and my favorite description of a hangover (and I DO know a lot of those.) Reproduced here:
'The last time I drank some of that shit I like to died. I stunk from the inside out. I laid in a tub of hot water all day and climbed out and dried and you could still smell it. I had to burn my clothes. I had the dry heaves, the drizzlin shits, the cold shakes and the jakeleg.'
here's one for you, if you're still around: track down a copy of stone junction, by jim dodge. you (probably) won't regret it.
ReplyDeleteThat does indeed look like something I would like. Just availed myself of a used copy on Amazon. I'm hoping to blog more in the future, but I'll be splitting my output between two Wordpress sites, one on Lit. and another on music. I'll have an announcement and the links up on here within the month if I'm able to keep my timetable.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think of Suttree? It was central to my capstone piece on the evolution of Pastoralism in McCarthy's works. It's more indulgent of his logophilia than any of his other works, which in my opinion made it great, and apparently in his opinion made it "too busy". A lot of critics conject that McCarthy's stylistic changes in later works came from his embarrassment over how personal Suttree was, and that he adopted elements of plain prose to distance himself from it.
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ReplyDeleteLogorrhea's the word I'd use, if it is a word. Loved it, though. My favorite McCarthy, actually, not that I've read tons. I did think there was a little bit of over-indulgence, e.g. "Dim scenes pooling in the summer night, wan inkwash of junks tilting against a paper sky, rorschach boatmen poling mutely over a mooncobbled sea." But there was plenty of stuff that was right on the money. That whole scene of Harrogate killing the pig - actually, pretty much anything involving Harrogate - is classic. And at this point, (relative) plotlessness doesn't bother me if the style itself is enjoyable enough.
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