I was going to write something else, but I have been thinking about this for a while. I've just recently started Ben Lerner's 10:04 and also recently finished Tom McCarthy's Satin Island. Both of these are critical darlings, basically written for an elite crowd that follows the New York Times notable book lists. And both are written out of a kind of boredom with the traditional novel. Lerner actually goes so far to say that conventional novels are little more than awkward sitcoms without the strengths that TV has to offer. I understand that many literary figures do get bored with conventional novels, but most of the moves to replace this with something else fall pretty flat -- either into kind of pointless artistic exercises, or postmodern approaches that draw the reader's attention to the artifice of the novel (as if that hadn't already been done to death*), or novels that sort of fuse fiction and non-fiction in somewhat novel ways (I think David Foster Wallace did this to some degree and certainly Satin Island is marked by this last approach). But character and plot are usually sidelined in these efforts. I was actually going to write about how much of a cipher the main character of Satin Island was, but I see I've been beaten to the punch in this Guardian review. I may still post on cipher-like characters in literature, though it doesn't feel quite so pressing.
I will say, however, that personally I find this move towards the highest, most refined art that leaves behind all this mundane preoccupation with character and plot to be totally misguided and ultimately an artistic dead end. Personally, I found Satin Island to be sterile and boring, and 10:04 (so far) only slightly better.** At least, the narrator of 10:04 has a richer internal monologue! If authors have so much thinly-veiled contempt for readers, why do they even bother to publish anything? Why not just conceive of a brilliant story and lock it away in one's head (or in a time capsule) and not worry about its reception by the unwashed. That would be a far nobler stand than putting something out there and then expecting money in return from readers that are clearly beneath you.
Clearly I have no truck with this stance. I actually find it far more annoying among avant garde musicians, particularly those involved in free jazz. Though it is often the music fans that are far more unpleasant and strident about how only free jazz musicians are the rightful heirs of postbop. I basically have completely tuned them out (free jazz musicians and their supporters) and want music that isn't unpleasant to listen to.
Well, I've gone on this tangent before (the second half of this post for instance), but I think these two novels together are the clearest expression of this tendency in modern literature. I'm having some trouble remembering the most recent contemporary novel that I have enjoyed. There are a few written by post-colonial authors, though they very rarely indulge in postmodernism or declare the death of the novel the way that white male authors do. It's not like there aren't many authors out there who write fairly mainstream novels, but I am kind of blanking on them at the moment. I haven't read Jane Urquhart's latest (The Night Stages), but that strikes me as the kind of novel I am looking for -- an interesting plot, well-rounded characters, and some narrative closure. I don't really have time for artsy novelists who want to deny their readers these things, which I guess means I do side with the philistines.† Though maybe it just means that instead of truly being high-brow in all my artistic tastes (for instance, I don't like opera at all), I am upper middle-brow.
In any case, that's really all I have to say on the topic at the moment. I need to crash now, since it will be a very busy day tomorrow.
* The deeper I get into 10:04, the more it reminds me of Gentleman Death by Graeme Gibson, though it's a comparison that doesn't do 10:04 any favours, as I didn't like Gentleman Death either. I guess my larger point is that this postmodernist shifting of frames and undermining faith in the narrator is old hat.
** Actually, in retrospect I found that, while I didn't like either novel, Satin Island had more insights about modern corporate life that had more staying power than 10:04, which is eminently forgettable.
† I guess I should add that I don't hate all experimental theatre, but I don't like plays that keep undermining plot or grounded characters simply to be clever and postmodern. If there is an actual point involved, then breaking some of the rules is acceptable. Probably the single most interesting play I saw in Chicago in 2009 was Strauss at Midnight by Theater Oobleck. It is almost impossible to explain this play, but it was fascinating. I guess I am ultimately more open to experimental theatre than avant garde literature, though both can be pretty dreary in the wrong hands.
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