Much of today’s literature can be likened to a murky, motor oil-colored soup. Yes, folks, a soup: A cauldron of misguided “critiques” of society; “Blockbuster” exercises in philosophy that rehash ideas about what is and what never should be; thousand-page manifestos that show an author’s ability to create sophisticated-sounding language rather than develop characters and a plot. How many more bone-dry, cliched “memoirs” do I have to read about where some author’s “quirky” childhood makes them deserving of Sultan-like praise in their adult years? Dave Eggers slaughtered them with “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” about five years back, and ladies and gentlemen, it’s all gone down hill from there.
Right now, as you read this, someone is signing a six-figure deal because they decided to put pen to paper and talk about how overcoming a dysfunctional family, drug addiction and a whole host of other problems has helped them to “see the light.” It’s been done.
The “quirky memoir” is about as ubiquitous as Danielle Steel and Harlequin, and to be perfectly honest, comparable in quality and depth. But the quirky memoir is just one example. What about these guys who spend hundreds of pages telling us “how it is” using thin metaphors, stolen ideas and characters whose development and sophistication would try to suggest that they are peers of Dickensian villains or Dostoevskian madmen, but are actually no more compelling than those silly youngsters in “The Babysitter’s Club.” And what about resolution?
Remember that literary diagram Teacher put up in sixth grade, which showed how in fiction there existed introduction, rising action or, look out — conflict — a climax, falling action and then a resolution? When was the last time you read something that truly fit back together again in its final chapters, even though all of its action and progression went every which way? When was the last time a book you read decided in its final, satisfying resolution whether it was going to be a critique of society, an outlet for the author’s personal philosophy, or maybe just a damn good murder mystery?
Too many works of literature, especially today’s novels, keep adding more and more ingredients until there is nothing left to do but end the story with a mess of jumbled ideas and confusing, philosophical-sounding discourse. “Oh, but the ending is open-ended! It’s for you to interpret,” says John C. Author about his latest “masterpiece.” Please. So many of these works that are left open-ended are not profound or, to use one of the most hackneyed of all descriptors, “challenging,” they’re simply pretentious. Pretentious and downright irritating because their authors decide that profundity is found only in the murkiest depths of contradictions, ideas that end up butting heads amongst droning, pointless commentary.
History is filled with authors who were able to use their writing as a canvas for their ideas and difficult philosophical discourses, yet still create a work that is, on the most basic of levels, an enjoyable and thought-provoking read. What happened to these people? Why do most of today’s most popular authors board that pretentious gravy train and ride it all the way into the ground?
The novel in the year 2002 is struggling to find itself. It is awash in style-over-substance writing that is considered sophisticated, intellectual and “poignant” or something simply because it needs legs — any legs — to stand on.
I look to the great Wayne C. Booth, a University of Chicago professor whose 1983 masterwork “The Rhetoric of Fiction” is still a compelling examination of the structure of a work of fiction and trends in late 20th century literature, among other things. The first paragraph of his work includes the notion that “whatever our ideas might be about the natural way to tell a story, artifice is unmistakably present whenever the author tells us what no one in so called real life could possibly know.”
Literature is one of the slipperiest of all slopes, and there are basic concessions that must be made and certain flaws inherent in even the greatest of books. This is yet another thing that today’s writers, especially novelists, fail to take into consideration. Great novels, friends, are things that soar above this “artifice” that Booth speaks of, because they take time to acknowledge that and then put further thought into tailoring something profound and enjoyable around that.
It seems today that many authors just take a shotgun approach to their writing: spilling their ideas out onto paper and hoping that somehow after 1000 pages something profound, engaging or groundbreaking will emerge. Not quite.
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