ivyfic | (no subject)

Two interesting stories in publishing news this morning:

New Guinea Tribe Sues The New Yorker for $10 Million
There's been a long (long) tradition of shaping stories about native peoples to fit colonial preconceptions. Perhaps that's why, in this case, the author of a story about a blood feud among New Guinea tribesmen did not bother to fact check his story thoroughly. I can't help but feel that if he'd heard the same story from an American it never would have gone to print before everyone was absolutely sure they could back up their accusations—or it would have been written in much more equivocal terms. That's why I find it so interesting that he's being sued for libel. Cause yes, he did accuse this person of theft, rape, and murder. And at least in this case, just because the accused is part of the third world isn't letting him off the hook.

Should Literary Novels Be More Like The Wire?
A professor of American literature asks literary authors to write about issues of class and social order in modern society.

In his essay, Mr. Michaels implicated three groups of writers: those who traffic narcissistically in memoir and self-examination; those who write fiction about past horrors like the Holocaust and slavery; and those who focus in their work on the tribulations of individual characters while ignoring the societal pressures that determine those characters’ lives.

By focusing on this, Michaels (I think rightfully) points out that the actual problems of modern society are being made invisible in literature. One literary agent explains that a lot of authors try to remove mentions of the contemporary world to make their work "timeless." It's an interesting sort of color-blindness—to remove all the elements that make a character what he is and therefore assume that the character's struggles are universal.

At a time when a lot of people feel that "legitimate" literature is being threatened and needs to be protected because of its inherent value to society, I think it's a valid criticism to say that literature as a whole focuses too much on the personal problems of the ruling class.

Threaded | Flat

You know, I think that deliberately making your novel "timeless" in an attempt for greatness is self-indulgent. Many of the great works of literature are not particularly timeless. Or rather, they're timeless in the sense that people have the same nature, regardless of external situations. But much of great literature actually does engage directly with the social mores and problems of its time.

Actually, I think "self-indulgent" describes a lot of how I feel about many modern literary novels. And why I'm not sure it's terrible if they're endangered. Books? Yes, I'm worried. I don't want books to go away. But what the current community dubs "literature"? Whatever.

Great article about The New Yorker -- they have rigorous fact-checkers there, but probably not the budget to send them to New Guinea. I like this quote:

He has never killed anyone or raped a woman. He certainly has never stolen a pig.

Certainly not pig-stealing!!!

I'm watching S4 of The Wire and yes, literature should be more like it. TV should be more like it. I am sort of tired of the memoir version of things, too, as the only way I can learn about a culture or religion. As for timeless, hell that's what footnotes are for!!!

I saved this entry until I had time to sit and write something meaningful.

The first part is a "hell yes, that person deserves to be sued." Not very meaningful, but the conclusion seemed pretty obvious.

The second part is interesting because there seems to be some assumption that you can write things without details that make them more likely to become "timeless" than if you write them with. I can't imagine how it's possible to write anything interesting that leaves out the details of how people live the daily grind in their time. If I don't know what about characters' lives make them go the way they do, how can I relate to them at all? If you tell me a character feels apathetic about his future despite his type-A parents' pushing on him, it's a set-up. A gimmick. But if they're Baby Boomers and the kid is Generation X, it makes sense for the time. It's much more work to sell that without the timely social cues.

Also? The parts of works that are considered "timeless" that are most enduring are those that speak to the universal human condition. You don't have to know the intimate details of the time period about which you are reading to be able to fall into the world so long as the characters are recognizably human. (Even when they may not be human at all, as you see in sci-fi.) They can be good or bad, but there are some interactions which are just inevitable in human life--dealing with loss, romance, bureaucracy, to name a few--that remain as pertinent across the centuries as they were when first written down. But without the details prompting those examinations, you wouldn't be able to relate to this character facing nameless, insubstantial obstacles.