(no subject)

[ivyfic]

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.

Comments

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

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.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

This comment is probably so late you forgot posting it... but I think the move to try to make things "timeless" is probably also in reaction to the trend for commercial and bestselling fic to drop brand names liek woah. I didn't have a real sense of this until proofreading books that had lists of brand names that went on for pages and pages and pages. Some authors seem to think it makes things "hip" to tell you that the girl is wearing Manola Blahniks (sp?) for women's fiction, or the exact caliber and make of the gun for men's fiction. So I can see someone trying to not do that as deliberate attempt to not tie themselves to a particular moment in time. But I think to push it too far in the other direction means that you've removed the influences that shape characters. And as I said, removing distinguishing features and assuming what's left is universal is essentially saying that the author believes their (usually white, male, American) experience is universal. Literature gets to universal truths, but not as a result of a lack of specific setting. "Of Mice and Men" has universal truths, but it's very much about itinerant farm workers during the Depression.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

This comment is probably so late you forgot posting it...
I did but thanks to the wayback machine (the internet!) I can re-read what I wrote and comment back!

I think the move to try to make things "timeless" is probably also in reaction to the trend for commercial and bestselling fic to drop brand names liek woah.

It's a shame that people wouldn't include those details just the same. You can tell a lot about a person based on the brands they wear, and you don't necessarily have to know of a brand to understand, in context, what that brand says about the person using it. Dropping shoe names means you probably spent $100s on those shoes. Saying you know the minutest detail about a gun/bullet means you're probably an expert. As always, the little things are better at communicating than the elaborate and explicit things.

There's also a lot of cultural value in seeing how those branding efforts change with time. My favorite example (I think you might have told me this?) is American Psycho, where the book reads (today) like a rich narcissist rattling off fashionable clothes where a person who actually knew anything about the clothes of the time would recognize how ridiculous the ensembles were put together as they are in the book. From making fun of the narrator, the text as it is perceived by an audience generally removed from the period turns into something else. (I'd even say that our media-drenched attitude these days gives the 1980s a run for its money. In which case Patrick Bateman might be a role model, emphasis on model. Which is really, really creepy.)

But you're right, it's not all about time capsules of a period. The general purpose of a novel is to tell lies about the truth. The best way to do that is to not disguise the time and place of the novel but to embrace it.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

You can tell a lot about a person based on the brands they wear
This is true, but I think you're giving these authors too much credit. A) If you're writing a Sex in the City knock off book about rich bitches anyway, we can just assume they're wearing designer. And B) I don't think you comprehend the sheer volume of time spent describing the brand and color of every item of clothing worn every day for these characters.

Brand-dropping can be used for brilliant effect (American Psycho always leaps to mind for this, but I am not the one that pointed out the above), but in most commercial fiction I've read against my will recently, it is used in the place of any character development. It's there purely for wish-fulfilment for the reader. And I think in a lot of cases because the author didn't have enough story to fill the book and filled it with a Tiffany catalog instead. It's very easy to tell books that are trying to hit that beach reading blockbuster status because they have more capitalized words on a page than lower case.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

A) Good point.
B) Also true.

As for the other point, you're right--details are no substitute for substance. But nothing is substantial without detail. Like most things, it's a case of balance.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

And talent.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

And that :)

[negativeq.livejournal.com]

I recall in The Great Gatsby, pages were dedicated to listing the names of the party guests. My English teacher said it was to depict shallowness, and pointed out how the names were derived from animals.

The branding might be similar.