the iconoclast

I have been really, possibly excessively, crotchety about fiction lately. I can't seem to find any new authors or books that really grab me by my gut and my cerebral cortex. this isn't supposed to be the case, if I'm a true follower of the New Yorker - I should be pursuing all the innovative new literature being produced by the 20 under 40 authors. this list is an extremely loaded thing for fiction writers, with a lot of surrounding psychological turmoil that doesn't exactly go far to dispel the myth that writers are self-centered and emotionally immature. I vacillate between feeling irritated that anyone would even publish such a list, to remembering that the first list (in 1999) included DFW, Franzen, and George Saunders, to reflecting idly on the irrelevance of the whole thing.

that was all before I read the fiction, though; now I'm sure it's irrelevant. most of the pieces I've read are short, and yet they felt like a slog. I started with Foer's, which lasts about three pages. I am an ex-Foer fan, although that's mostly because I haven't read anything of his for years and I strongly suspect that he's one of those authors who won't hold up when I revisit him, if I ever do. reading the new piece, I had the strong impression that he's now spinning his wheels. I understand, it's difficult to write a grand, sweeping story within three pages, but why would I give one of the supposedly best writers in the country that excuse? Foer's piece is a litany, the mode in which he writes most frequently, focusing on the details of domestic life. I think that sentence right there sums up exactly what has made me so crotchety lately: I am emphatically not interested in domestic fiction. maybe it's because I don't have a family of my own yet, but I don't think so; the whole point is to make your reader care no matter who they are. but that requires recognizing that there are radically different readers out there, which is a point I want to get to later.

I think I also hated it, honestly, because I know about Foer's family - I know he's married to Nicole Krauss, another 20 under 40 writer, and envisioning the two of them sitting in adjacent rooms, cranking out books that they've already received advances for, makes me slightly ill. there was one line in the Foer piece about "the aching longing that comes with having it all" that made me want to punch Foer in the face. the next piece I read, Rivka Galchen's, didn't help this any - its main character has published one well-received novel, much like Galchen herself. the last one I attempted to read, Krauss' newest story, was also about a published novelist.

which is all fine and well, but there are reasons I don't care to read these stories, beyond the insidious envy. this isn't what I consider fiction to be useful for: putting your domestic situation down on paper in a calm, self-assured voice, backing it with a thin personal philosophy that is based on nothing at all except a kind of vague lyricism. to be more specific, I wish fervently that these writers would engage with something besides writing, besides literature, besides themselves. that's basically the bottom line.

this is tricky, because one of the most fascinating things for me has always been fiction's ability to reduce the world to the individual view. books like 1984 and A Clockwork Orange, Catcher in the Rye, Gatsby, are built around their well-written iconoclasts. it seems to be what modern fiction, if you'll allow me one sweeping generality, is about: the triumph of a powerful personal vision over all other perspective. it's certainly what I thought it was all about, for years. I finally read Moby Dick recently, and if that isn't a perfect representation of what I'm talking about, I don't know what is.

but those works were all conscious of that battle. unfortunately, in works like the stories I mentioned above, that conflict of perspective isn't thematized at all. there is no consideration of perspective; there's only confirmation of self. I'm starting to believe that, in this world where knowledge and experience is so split up into specialized sections, it's no longer valid to write as simply "a person"; there is no "common man" voice to slip into. the fact that the New Yorker thinks there is, and that it's lyrical and domestic, is more indication that their fiction will soon become totally irrelevant.

so what to do? hell if I know. I am cautious of recommending "cultural sensitivity" for writers; this seems hazardous to creativity; but I know that writing as yourself, affirming yourself, is not good enough. I know that it is ridiculous to see a person of one culture trying to write as someone from another culture (the Wardine sections of Infinite Jest remain the only ones that I find truly cringe-worthy), and that's not what I'm recommending, either. but an acknowledgment that a world exists beyond your experience can take many forms, in fiction. in Hamlet, it was the ghost. I am more than open to this possibility, looking for it in everything I read, which means that I'm reading a lot of nonfiction lately.