There is an interesting article in the October Harper’s by Ben Marcus on experimental fiction, publishing, Jonathan Franzen, and life as we know it. The argument is essentially that the novel is certainly dead if the leading novelists (such as Franzen) intentionally avoid trying anything new, (and attack those who do). “The notion that reality” he says, “can be represented only through a certain kind of narrative attention is a desperate argument by realists themselves, who seem to have decided that any movement away from their well-tested approach toward representing the lives and minds of people would be a compromise. Because of the deep engineering of realism (a brilliant feat, I agree) has already been accomplished, we must either sign up to practice it or work in exile under slighting names and increased marginalization. Never mind that it already has been accomplished, and that ambition, or even sheer curiosity, would ask us to forge something new.”

But, alas, “calling a writer experimental is now the equivalent of saying his work does not matter, is not readable, and is aggressively masturbatory. But why is it an experiment to attempt something artistic? A painter striving for originality is not called experimental. Whether or not originality is a large or small myth, an outsized form of folly or a quaint indulgence, a visual artist is expected at least to gun for it. Without risk you have paintings hanging in the Holiday Inn. But a writer with ambition is now called ‘postmodern’ or ‘experimental’, and not without condensation.”

This debate, I imagine, has a lot of commercial implications for professional writers such as Marcus (and Franzen). But, from a purely literary point of view, agreeing with Marcus only gets you so far.

As noted my Is the Novel Dead? piece, “I think that Strong Motion is a great book. I think Baudalino is a great book. I think Seven Types of Ambiguity is a great book. But I’m not sure if they are great in some novel way that books have never been great before.”

Yet, on the other hand, I’m not sure that the “lyrical” effort of attempting to “look deeply into the possibility of syntax as a way to structure sense a feeling, pack experience into language, or leverage grammar as a medium for the making of art” (as Marcus puts it) is necessarily, in and of itself, novel, much less good.

I don’t know about William Gaddis, but I, too, would probably in many cases rather watch The Simpsons... (particularly one of the better episodes from one of the early seasons, such as the Daredevil episode or the David episode, which were both pure genius; the David episode possibly one of the best half-hours in television history).

I love As I Lay Dying and Moby Dick and A Child’s Christmas in Whales, but that doesn’t make every “postmodern” or “experimental” or “lyrical” book good, much less enjoyable.

While I’m not sure I can say whose work ultimately “matters”, I don’t think I would hesitate too long before pronouncing an “experimental” book “not readable” or perhaps even “aggressively masturbatory”.

And, while I’m not sure I can always put my finger on it, I feel, instinctively, when I read (Franzen’s) Strong Motion, for example, or Baudalino, that I am reading “literature” that is qualitatively “better” than virtually everything packed onto the shelves of W.H. Smith and other airport bookstores.

On the other hand, the likelihood that they will be remembered in the same vein as “experimental” masterpieces like The Sound and the Fury or Ulysses which are truly novel and revolutionary is virtually nil.

The challenge, for all of us, is getting beyond mere “experimentation” to something that is truly novel, in terms of the narrative, while at the same time grounded in the fairly eternal essentials of character and mythology with such an integrity that the reader will feel, instinctively, that he or she is reading literature that is an order of magnitude better than the experimental books that are simply not readable or aggressively masturbatory.

Whether that possibility, at this point, is a large or small myth, a quaint indulgence or an outsized form of folly, remains to be seen.



[The Marcus article is “Why Experimental Fiction Threatens to Destroy Publishing, Jonathan Franzen, and Life as We Know It” Harper’s Magazine, October 2005, p.39.]

I was beginning to wonder why I find so much popular contemporary fiction trivial, banal, pointless, and downright dull. Although I find purposefully difficult writing to be a drag, I also agree with St. Augustine’s maxim that “what is sought with difficulty is discovered with more pleasure.”

In an age when most newspaper articles are written at a fourth-grade reading level, some of us crave depth and complexity, and popular fiction is letting us down. I find myself turning to non-fiction writers like Richard Dawkins and Mark Noll for the level of difficulty that I want and deserve. I may not understand everything I’m reading the first or second time around, but then what would be the fun of that? Too much of what passes for public discourse in this community is oversimplified as it is.

– Karyl King

As someone who has worked for twenty-five years as president of an advertising agency specializing in publishing, I imagine that Ben Marcus’s account of Jonathan Franzen’s godlike power over English-language literature must make Marcus’s target proud. As the oldest rule of public relations states, “Just make sure they spell my name right!”

In fact, for the non-blockbuster best-sellers that make up 95 percent of fiction, a favorable review in Library Journal or Kirkus is of more value than anything Franzen might say. From there, word of mouth is often the beginning of a faithful following.

Unlike the art world, in which a small network of dealers may convince rich collectors to buy geometric shapes and unrecognizable blobs of paint, literature depends mainly on the thousands of library buyers and millions of individual readers who decide all by themselves what they’ll do with their $28.95.

I wish nothing but good fortune for writers of experimental fiction. But if they cannot convince even the hundreds of thousands of English majors who graduate each year to read their books, I fear Ben Marcus will have to live with the destruction of publishing and pray for a resurrection that is more to his liking.

– Fred E. Hahn

I don’t find much to argue with in Marcus’ article, but I should confess that I’m not a big reader of contemporary fiction. I follow Ultimate Fighting on Spike TV much more closely. That is not to say that the great fiction, ancient or contemporary, I’ve been able to find is less significant than Ultimate Fighting. To the contrary, great fiction has been much more important to me. When I read a text again and again, (I’ve read Toni Morrison’s Jazz at least ten times, Oedipus more than that, and Celan’s Wirk Nicht Voraus sometimes daily for months on end), it’s because it allows me to feel connected to what most concerns me. And although what concerns me is elusive, it seems in some sense constant. Any number of things might make me feel connected, but when language is made into such an event, it – for me – becomes the most compelling thing in the world.

When I say I feel connected, I do not mean to imply that I come into a full understanding, or that I am able to resolve what it is that concerns me or even to know why it concerns me. A work of art – for me – evokes what most concerns me, and then disallows its resolution.

When what concerns you is resolved, you yourself are quietly and pleasantly obliterated.

Most reading nowadays – Tom Clancy, Sandra Brown – seeks that sort of obliteration, or worse.

Of course, there’s going to be pressure on literary fiction to move in this direction and an objection to this pressure from those who understand the value of what stands to be lost. What is disturbing – and here I completely agree with Marcus – is to encounter that pressure within the literary fiction world.

- Joe Wenderoth

Weighing in on the Marcus - Franzen debate is Cynthia Ozick, who argues that what is really missing from contemporary literature is an insightful, creative and vibrant body of legitimate Literary Criticism.

One thing she notes is that: "At Marcus's end of the alley, though, something smells stale, like old heavy breading. 'Expressive rather than figurative,' 'enigmatic rather than earthly,' 'free of coherence,' and all the rest: it has already been accomplished. The avant-garde's overused envelope was pushed long ago, and nothing is more exhaustedly old hat than the so-called experimental."



See Cynthia Ozick, "Literary Entrails" Harper's Magazine (April 2007), p.67.