miscellaneous potpourri and other interpipe blockages

A few more links:

I still haven’t read Freedom (it’s next up, I swear), but that doesn’t mean I can’t read about it! This article rehashes all the major themes from last years media explosion (sexism, ambition, and potty humor), and, while it fails to say anything that hasn’t already been said, who really reads these sorts of articles to hear something new anyways?

The only thing better than reading books or writing books or even talking about books is talking about talking about books.

Remember in the old days, before writing was a business and making art actually meant something? Nope, neither do I, but I’m pretty sure it existed. Otherwise, why would people keep writing articles about it? Boozy lunches, smoke filled parties, and nostalgia was so thick you could cut it with a black and white knife….

This one is about book sex.

Thank goodness Jonathan Lethem is surviving in California, and thank goodness for New York City.

Sometimes reading about famous writers talking about writing can seem more fun than writing.

look i wrote my own bloated essay about novels

Writers love big essays about novels by novelists. Or at least I do, and the more theoretically bloated and complex and ego driven they are, the better. Lee Siegel published a piece in the New York Observer a few months ago, and though it was pretty straightforward — major themes: things aren’t like they used to be in the world of letters, and this is bad; we need more authors like we used to have; non-fiction is where all the talented kids are nowadays; the novel is dead (for now) — the brouhaha it caused was much more exciting.

In my mind Siegel’s “Mailer” article should take it’s place in the long string of essays written about the state of the novel (Some of my favorites include: Tom Wolfe, Lev Grossman, Johnathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith, B.R. Meyers, and James Wood.), even though I find it a little lacking in the substance department. Most essays of this type strive to become part of an ongoing conversation between creators about what they’re creating, about what the novel as an artistic form should be and do. And I know I’m not the only one to say it, but Siegal comes off a little like an old man complaining on his front porch. “Kids today,” he thinks. “Harrumph.”

Perhaps the problem for me about Siegel is that he’s too focussed on the past. He’s looking at American Letters as it has been and then insisting that’s how it should be, and he’s far from the only one. Authors, editors, agents, publishers — the majority of the American literati seems to be in denial about the fact that currently our culture is undergoing a great and rapid change at a very deep structural level — and it’s all technology’s fault. The depth and breadth of this denial reminds me very much of the music and film industries from the late 90s and early 2000s, and when it’s all said and done, it’s going to be just as catastrophic.

The reason? With the advent of internet technologies we no longer need big publishing houses to take on the risk of finding and developing new talent and covering the cost of printing books. I hate to admit, but for the majority of people on this planet electronic books will become the means by which they consume literature. It’s inevitable when the cost of reproduction becomes zero, ad infinitum. I don’t think it’s going to happen overnight, and I don’t think physical books will ever go away, but the book as a technology is now outdated. In a few generations it will seem just as antiquated and nostalgic as vinyl records or classic cars.

So what does this mean for the author? I think the time of Super Writers and Great American Novels is over. Our culture is simply too fractured and heterogeneous for one product or voice to appeal to us enmasse, and we have our parents and technology to thank for it. Individuality is the name of the game, and for the consumer in our society, individuality is defined through choice. Down with monobeer and hooray for craft breweries! “Boo!” on formulaic, big budget summer blockbusters and “yay!” for independent films with story and character! Kill radio and long live Indie music! Sure people still drink Coors and watch MTV, but not like they used to. This is a big country we live in, and to get something to appeal to all those people and disparate interests  it usually ends up watered down or generic or formulaic. Art becomes an industry, a business, and innovation and risk or anything new stops making sense because it’s bad business.

This is ultimately what I think is wrong with American Literature. Books aren’t losing popularity, it’s that the wrong kinds of books are no longer popular — but “wrong” only according to the various tastemakers. The audience for literary fiction has continued to shrink, and in an attempt to appeal to more a larger audience authors have become generic and formulaic, the flavor equivalent of taking out all the hops.

I hear and read so many authors and critics bemoaning an end to the Golden Age of letters, and that’s wrong. If anything I think we’re on the cusp of a Golden Age, only it’s going to be different than anything people could have imagined. Again, look at the music industry. Thanks to the internet artists can write, record and distribute all their music on their own — they don’t need the giant publishing houses. New business models are being invented, and musicians are making a living doing what they want to do: play music. On the flip side, people can now find and listen to music that specifically caters to their own personal taste. Bands don’t need hundreds of thousands of fans to support them (and  in turn the giant publishing machine that controlled the bottleneck of distribution) and people aren’t limited to listening to music that caters to the least common denominator.

So what does this mean for the novelist? Writers should take a page about of the musicians playbook: get online, connect with people, give some stuff away for free and sell the rest. You may not have as many readers as you would have had, but you don’t need them — there’s a lot more room at the table, now. Self-publishing is no longer anathematic, and in time I see it becoming prerequisite to any sort of publishing deal. It’s important to remember that publishers aren’t going to go away, they’re just going to get smaller and there will be a lot more of them catering to all different kinds of tastes and interests.

In the end authors will still be writing, publishers will still be distributing, and people will still be reading, and that’s what’s important.