Yet another bloke cries Wo! over the fate of the novel
Who is this guy, and why is he arguing from his own anomie vis-a-vis the novel (and maybe half-a-dozen mates he spoke to in some hipster hangout or other the other week) to make this A Big General Point?
I stopped reading novels last year. I think you did too.
Solipsism much: 'My primary evidence for the death of the reader is the death of my own reading. It’s been a year since I’ve read a novel.' And then he goes on: 'the truth is that, until quite recently, I was a professional reader', regularly churning through recent sff publications for review.
Hardly reading for funsies, eh? I must confess when I was on the judging panel for An Award some few years ago - readers from that period may remember my hashtag #ifitoldyouidhavetokillyou - I did become somewhat genre-jaded.
Then he whinges 'now in my early forties, I haven’t found equivalent new voices' to those he used to enjoy before he fell into the sere and withered leaf (the poor lamb).
Dear boy, why not delve back into some of the classics, or not even classics, works from past years that perhaps you overlooked? Or maybe reread old favourites?
Just because you are currently Off The Novel, doesn't mean that the novel itself Has A Problem and is a Sick or maybe Dying Art Form.
Yes, there's no doubt a lot of less than brilliant and remarkable writing in the form out there: and that has been the case since the novel was first a thing. And there are also gems that I suspect this guy will never come across because, sneering at self-publishing and 'Kindle self publishers', he is looking for 'the novels that grab my attention back as a reader [that] will be quite untraditional in how they are published' (I'm imagining as posters on the sides of buses, perhaps? Projected on the sides of buildings? WTF does he mean?)
I am a little tempted to send him this piece, which is about getting away from that grim shouldery about reading: the dreaded TBR pile, which makes some really good points about anxieties around reading and what one should be reading and that people forget the pleasure principle. See also this on rediscovering joy in reading.
Paging Ms Jane: 'Oh, it is only a novel'. This entry was originally posted at https://oursin.dreamwidth.org/3005093.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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