Rachel Donadio at the NYTimes has an article about why literary fiction sucks. Okay, it’s not really about why literary fiction sucks; it’s really about why the market for literary fiction sucks.
It has the dumbest concluding paragraph I’ve read in a while (soon to be topped by the conclusion of my article on disposable components in bioprocessing), despite the promise of this opening:
The pride and joy of publishing, literary fiction has always been wonderfully ill suited to the very industry that sustains it. Like an elegant but impoverished aristocrat married to a nouveau riche spouse, it has long been subsidized by mass-market fiction and by nonfiction ripped from the headlines. One supplies the cachet, the others the cash.
Having run a mini-publishing house of allegedly literary fiction, I’ve taken a somewhat jaundiced view of the relationship between book and marketplace. I’m all for fantastic literary writing, but it’s pretty clear that a market relying on people with my taste is doomed to insignificance. I love great writing and wish it would sell better, but it won’t.
And, despite Jonathan Galassi’s bizarre non-sequitur, it’s not because we’re living in a “post-9/11 world.” Read all about it.
The thing I found irritating about that article is the shifting standards. On the one hand, she seems to be saying that nobody can succeed; on the other, she cites successes without telling us what makes them so. And while it’s funny to learn the Barnes and Noble buyer’s name, the fact that there’s one important buyer out there doesn’t automatically say “nothing will sell” as much as “the things this person likes will sell.”
I would imagine what’s really going on is akin to the decline of network television — the proliferation of options allows consumers to explore niches that appeal more directly to them as opposed to repeatedly confronting those options that are supported by the institutional apparatus. And then the institutional apparatus shifts, maybe just imperceptibly, to better maximize the available rewards. Additionally, because modern mainstream literary fiction largely sucks, you’re not getting a lot of high quality books capturing peoples’ attention and stopping the flow.
Like many literary novels, this article needed additional drafts.
I like how this article comes on the heels of the NYT’s “best literary novels of the last 25 years” survey, which focuses almost exclusively on guys who’ve been around a million years (Roth and Updike in particular).
I also like how the “true measure of success” is whether it’s discussed in literary circle(-jerk)s, which reinforces the snootiness against mainstream readership that helps generate the impression that these books aren’t meant to be read by “normal people.”
That true measure of success line was hilarious, because I can’t believe anyone thinks that to be true.
Just FYI, Drenka Willen is the editor who said American audiences are ready for something like “Adrift in a Vanishing City.”