State of the Art

You will often find the absurd blurb “well written” printed on the back of contemporary novels: an extraordinary expression of acclaim considering it is made in connection to a published work on sale to the public! Alas, that is how far the level of writing has sunk, and consequently how low standards have fallen today, when so much fiction - especially that described by modern critics as “quality” - makes for dreary and uninspiring reading: all those short and simple sentences, one after the other, on and on, hammered into the paragraphs like thin brown slats in a makeshift garden fence. And you might think these writers would wish to decorate their fences occasionally with a colorful metaphor or a splash of simile. But no, they just roll on another coat of creosote.
This is why recent “quality” novels do not sell. They are bloody boring.It’s got nothing to do with the publishing industry. Understand this, contemporary novelist: nobody wants to read a fictionalised account of your last ten years of psychotherapy rendered in emaciated language and stutter speak.
Now, can someone please point me in the general direction of the Cultural Zeitgeist, I need to use the bathroom.

Comments

[KHH]

I remember my first short story was very psychological. God it sucked. It sucked like a sucky thing that sucks suckily.

I don't read really any current fiction other than Tolkien and comic books. To me, I am still trying to finish 19th century authors and to complete Paradise Lost, the Aeneid, the Bible, and start the Divine Comedy. No real reason to read any of the fiction of today till all that is done. I do read a fair amount of non fiction though, since it's good to know what is happening intellectually in the world. Leave today's fiction for my mom, aunt, and the Oprah club.

[The Misspent Life]

I don't really read much modern fiction either. What I do glean from digging through the books at my local bookseller's is that they are rather shocking. How do all the middle aged women read this stuff without constantly having to refer to their smelling salts? Heck, if I read these books aloud I would be thrown in prison. Well, at least that's what would happen if society got its act together.

[Framboise Dorleac]

Apart from Michel Houellebcq and William Boyd, most contemporary, “literary” novelists are rather tiresome. And then there are other writers who used to be entertaining, Dennis Lehane and Martin Amis, for example, become pompous and boring. When I see the words “luminous” and “truths” on a new hardcover, I put a book down and check the Simenon and A. Trollope sections for a novel I haven’t read yet. Most of the new fiction nowadays are for women who only smoke socially, like green martinis and Norah Jones, eat brunch, and say the word “lovely” all the time. A big demographic, it seems, when I hear editors talk about it.

[stephenesque]

That is all very true, but I can't decide whether it is a good thing or not.
I mean, if there were good contemporary books I would probably be reading
those and ignoring the classics (at my peril) - as it is, I read the classics and I am (hopefully) better off for it.
BTW - William Boyd's latest novel has an illustration of Anthony Powell reading a newspaper on the cover (AP being one of my favorite authors).