The end of the novel?

Now that is a load of pretentious drivel. I hate my fellow academics when they come up with this tripe.

Critics have been claiming the novel is dead for well over a century, and every time a Virginia Woolf or James Joyce pops up to revolutionise ideas on the novel.

The article is pure pretentiousness. If the writer really knew their literary theory they would realise that ALL language is a reconstruction of reality. The essay, just as the novel attempts to represent reality, but will always fall short. The difference is, the novel is aware of its own artiface.

Sounds more like the whining of 'dried up' writers than the 'dried up' novel.

Further thoughts:

The author of the article seems to be claiming that the essay is more objective, which is ridiculous. Anyone who writes essays frequently know they are approaching the thesis from a certain subjective perspective.

Also I take issue with the attack on the novel as 'sentimental'. Sentimental means 'experiencing the world through the senses.' To me, that is the most truthful way of experiencing the world instead of trying to force somekind of scientific objectivity on to art.

The novel has yet to get the grips with the internet age [at the moment it only seems to be used as a 'crime scene'], there is a lot of life in the novel yet.

Lol. I never realized that essays would be considered a successor to novels. I mean, if somebody argued that about video games or movies, well, at least that's understandable. But essays??

Well, there's always a subset of people that will eschew entertainment. If it isn't Kafka, and confirms the wicked wiles of the world, it is not literature. I think it's a fairly quaint part of culture, tbh.

Zadie Smith is a novellist so I don't know why she wants to attack novels. Isn't that a bit silly?

Sounds like Zadie's blocked....

(It's been four years since her last novel, but she just had a collection of essays come out last week).


Actually, she's comparing two different genres.

The four genres are:

Fiction
Poetry
Drama
Essay

Essays are going to take the place of novels? I mean, nothing against essays, but from a commercial POV:




Wishful thinking much? This reminds me of Jane Austen's commentaries on the novel in Northhanger Abbey, such as this defense of the form:

“And what are you reading, Miss – ?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.

That has to be my favourite quote in literature!

Austen at her best!

Oh dear. I tried. I really tried. Twice. But I couldn't get through that essay at all.

I think the primary confusion in Zadie's mind is that a few tired novelists do not in any way mean that the form is tired. The novel is the most complex and most interesting art form that exists, and just because a handful of novelists are experiencing burnout, doesn't mean it's on the way out. A few enthusiastic undergrads don't mean a thing. Undergrads always want to believe that the world is ready to be turned upside down and that they will be the ones to do it. Then they find out how much the world really weighs.

Bleh. I've never been able to finish anything she's written, even this article.

The glaring lack of research in her first novel put me right off her work.

Judg said:

I think the primary confusion in Zadie's mind is that a few tired novelists do not in any way mean that the form is tired. The novel is the most complex and most interesting art form that exists, and just because a handful of novelists are experiencing burnout, doesn't mean it's on the way out. A few enthusiastic undergrads don't mean a thing. Undergrads always want to believe that the world is ready to be turned upside down and that they will be the ones to do it. Then they find out how much the world really weighs.

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I not only agree, but don't think that turning the world over is that great of an aspiration at all...take a look at the authors who did it. I think Joyce was a genius, but if I wrote Finnegans Wake I might have killed myself right after.

I can't finish Zadie's texts either. There's too many unneeded words. It clouds her message. She seems to be confuse intellect with verbiage.

I can't read anything written in the 21st century that uses the word bourgeois seriously. I should have stopped at "delicate readers."

I do love essays, though.

backslashbaby said:

I can't read anything written in the 21st century that uses the word bourgeois seriously. I should have stopped at "delicate readers."

I do love essays, though.

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So do I.

I even like that someone uses the word "bourgeois". If I meet them we can have a big argument about it.

But intelligence still doesn't mean verbiage. On the contrary.

Well, that was two minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Guess we should all pack it up and retire, eh? Some undergrads said so, and everyone knows they're not unusually prone to believing any ridiculous crap they're told. (Look Zadie, I've taught undergrads. Some of them will believe anything if you use big enough words.)

EDIT: I think she needs a critique to help her writing ability. Some of those sentences need alteration.

Editorial Suggestions:

Delete everything but the first paragraph.
Change the first paragraph to "I'm a poor writer and don't understand basic novel structure, so I'm going to pretend the fault lies with everyone else instead of me. Why do those worthless peasants keep buying that abominable Stephen King and J.K. Rowling stuff, when it is clear that I'm the true genius? WAAAAAAHHH! "

She can't write very well, so instead of accepting it and improving, she decides instead that all other writers and readers should change their standards to fit her needs.

I couldn't get through teh essay, either. I can guarantee that if the essay is the successor to the novel, it won't be that essay.

But what I did manage to read was just plain dumb.

Jamesaritchie said:

I couldn't get through teh essay, either. I can guarantee that if the essay is the successor to the novel, it won't be that essay.

But what I did manage to read was just plain dumb.

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An essay isn't that hard either. Zadie didn't write an essay, really. She just wrote a lot of words.

An essay still needs a point, a clear narrative substantiating the point, and it needs good language. I feel Zadie meanders all over the place, using a lot of words that cloud her point, her premise. And thus, she fails as an essayist like she's already failed as a novelist.

Hey, I'm an Undergrad!

Okay I'm 28, and read a few more books than the average student (I've seen the glazed look in the eyes . . .) Oh yeah, I'm also a published writer; maybe that is where I'm going wrong . . .

Well, I got through most of it but couldn't finish the thing. One phrase stood out - "in the confined space of an essay you have the possibility of being wise, of making your case, of appearing to see deeply into things".
All too often it is only the possibility of sounding wise. I suspect that a certain segment of the writing world tires of attempting to make their case within the confines of the novel not the essay. The characters have a voice. The author's voice must be filtered through theirs and the characters can't sound a single note so both sides have to be presented or else there is no conflict. An essay is a safe place to air your views without debate.

LuckyH said:

However, now that others have expressed criticisms that agree with mine, even this coward can step up to the line and say that that piece of writing from Zadie is pretentious crap.

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*looks at a previous megathread*

Why can't we say someone has written a bad book, essay, and so on when they have clearly done so?

gothicangel said:

Hey, I'm an Undergrad!

Okay I'm 28, and read a few more books than the average student (I've seen the glazed look in the eyes . . .) Oh yeah, I'm also a published writer; maybe that is where I'm going wrong . . .

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Personally, I love undergrads. My husband is a college professor and he thinks highly of his students (as a group). I do too. If I had the health to teach, that's the age group I would most like to work with. I love the enthusiasm and even, especially, the belief that the world needs changing and that they will do it. The world does need changing. And if they can succeed in changing it for the better in any small way, that is only good.

But I was a literature student myself, and I know how disconnected from reality they can be. The lack of solid life experience leaves them more vulnerable to specious arguments and just plain silly ideas. Real life will pound most of it out in later years. And sometimes, the inability to recognize that something is impossible makes them go out and prove that it isn't. So when they're delusional about achieving something good, I'd be more inclined to encourage them, while cautioning them just enough to cushion them against blows.

But you can find a group of undergraduates that's enthusiastic about virtually any idea you want to float, so that in itself proves absolutely nothing. In the part of Smith's essay that I managed to get through, she had only a few novelists and undergraduates to prove her point. Not a very representative focus group. As long as there are Stephenie Meyerses and Dan Browns selling obscene numbers of novels, the form is safe. If only because hordes of indignant writers will be trying to prove that they can do better than the bestsellers... And because will be enough readers who want to find something similar/better/totally different to keep them going. People will always crave stories, which essays just don't provide. The two forms do not compete with each other at all.

LuckyH said:

Sometimes I hesitate when criticising famous writers, thinking that if they have written something universally praised, who am I to decide otherwise?

However, now that others have expressed criticisms that agree with mine, even this coward can step up to the line and say that that piece of writing from Zadie is pretentious crap. She can hardly be a jaded writer either, she has only just started on her writing career.

I know that she can write, and can only assume that she was on something far too strong for her while writing that piece.

Wasn’t she trying to say that modern writing is getting shorter? That may be rue, but I doubt if novels will ever be reduced to essay length.

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Maybe I'm misinterpreting what she said; I lost interest after the first couple of paragraphs but it seems to me that she was alleging she couldn't say what she wanted to say in a novel. Essays are possibly, for her, more open and honest.

Me? I've never had a problem telling the truth in a novel. "Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures," as Jessamyn West says.

If there's a disconnect between what you want to say and what you actually do say, or if the reader fails to understand, the author of the piece would do well to look to their own use of language, rather than blaming the form in which she chose to write.

One thing to catch my attention in particular was this: "He (American novelist-essayist David Shields) finds the crafted novel, with its neat design and completist attitude, to be a dull and generic thing, too artificial to deal effectively with what is already an "unbearably artificial world".

Reminds me of this quote by the much beloved American artist AWers have recently embraced: "Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed. I am not a fan of books ... I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life."