Why can’t the explanation for the novel’s decline be both/and? Because they were socialized by a common training in writing workshops to adopt a common set of tastes and attitudes, and because these included a taste for liberal attitudinizing, American novelists lost all interest in morality and manners. Or because they inherited a metaphysical view of the universe as bereft of morality and manners, they were quick to adopt the substitute offered in graduate writing programs.
I think the worst thing for any artist is to belong to a fashionable coterie. It's the sure way to create period pieces.
I love it when a literary critic uses "liberal" as a pejorative, overlooking the entire history and value of what used to be called a "liberal education." LOL Perhaps the decline of the public novel is reflective of the decline of literary criticism into its own ghetto of coteries. Just a thought. After all, most writers just write. What happens afterwards to what they write isn't entirely up to them.
ReplyDeleteNot all writers have lost interest in morality.
ReplyDeleteThat word need not be seen as synonymous with smug.
American novelists have lost all interest in morality and manners? D.G. Myers doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Who knew that you had to be an out-of-touch reactionary jerkoff to have an interest in morality?
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ReplyDeleteD.G. Myers doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
ReplyDeleteHe rarely does. But how does Edward Champion know?
Well, for a start, just about every literary person in New York who has brought you up in conversation (a handful, I assure you; most consider you a joke because of your constant and undignified trolling) tells me this.
ReplyDeleteIt can't really work, I suppose like this.
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