TRUTH.

[substitute]

The decline of fiction starring Jonathan Safran Froer

Last week the Atlantic announced that from here on in, it would be publishing fiction only once a year, in a special issue. Once upon a time, Playboy supported a whole generation of worthwhile authors, from Shel Silverstein to Isaac Bashevis Singer and a host of talented goys, too. Before that, Sports Illustrated published Faulkner. Now, there's The New Yorker and the Paris Review and little else, and the consolidation of publishing houses has nearly wiped out the mid-list author, leaving young authors with just one chance to write that great book before they get dropped, and just a handful of editors deciding who gets that one shot at the brass ring. With the decreasing number of outlets for quality fiction, each season's "young stars" find themselves praised regardless of the quality of their work—there's a common readership for Lahiri and Eggers, even though she's brilliant and he's anything but.

Comments

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

I agree in the lack of quality fiction in magazines, and in the lack of quality magazines. I think of lot of the lack of quality in magazine and newspaper writing stems from authors filled with sneering, whining, hypocricy and the illusion of self importnace, such as the article you linked to.

It's a book. Turn the page.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I disagree. I think it's proper to be enraged at what has happened to fiction.

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

Sure you can be enraged. Look at who is buying the books. Look at who is selling and publishing them. The public is getting what it pays for. Like politicians and television shows it's all become marketing and hype. Who shouts the loudest gets all the attention. Am I saying that's right. Not really. That's what's it's come to though. Targeting one specific author of a sea of incompetents who are mediocre at best seems more of a personal and unprofessional attack than a critical one.

It's worse than that.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I still disagree. The spreadsheet people have optimized publishing now to remove the midlist and tune the marketing to book candy like Foer, Malcolm Gladwell, Coupland, and the rest of the young smart short-attention-span set. I think the writer of that review was entirely justified in a hatchet job on another tool of that machine. There's always a bias towards the young and pretty and explosively new, but at this point it's been rationalized into a business strategy that locks out anyone who doesn't fit from the distribution channels.

Targeting one specific author is what reviewers do!

Re: It's worse than that.

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

Like Marilynne Robinson winning the Pulitzer for Gilead...uh...nevermind.

Wait until Foer's wife's book is released next month. Same basic plot and Amazon's bundling them togethor. The squeaky one gets the grease, and the public is too lazy to look deeper.

I'm a drifing old man here. I remember Spy Magazine went off on Jeff Smith, the frugal gourmet, in some expose. And this was before the child molestation charges came out! The guy went on for pages with nothing but vile hatred, and for what? Guess it's a lot easier to fling a stone and break a window than to put a better one in yourself.

Re: It's worse than that.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Look, just forget I tried to say something, okay?

Re: It's worse than that.

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

Why? Am I making a point? Or am I not up to your intellectual level?

Merely trying to have a discussion in which you put the subject header 'Truth' and linking to an article that has a lot of grey areas.

Plainly: I think Siegel craoosed the line between being a critic and a dick.

I don't have a problem agreeing to disagree.

Re: It's worse than that.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to drop it, because you're being hostile and I don't have the energy to get yelled at today. So, please drop it?

Re: It's worse than that.

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

Hostile?

You link to an article in which the words fraud and hack are paraded about, you call it truth. I disagree and you call me hostile?

Simple disagreement = hostility?

Yeah, I'm out of here.

Re: It's worse than that.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I never called you a fraud, or a hack, or anything at all. I just disagreed with you, and then you got angrier and angrier at me, for reasons I do not understand. It isn't "simple disagreement" when you bait me with "am I not up to your intellectual level" and use hot phrases like "parade about" and "merely trying to have a discussion". That's fight-picking.

Disagree with the article all you want, disagree all you want with me! I'm not telling you not to! You care about this shit and you are honest and forthright, and I really value that about you.

I have nothing bad to say about you at all. I disagreed with you about a matter of literary criticism and you picked a fight, and that is hurtful.

Re: It's worse than that.

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

I'm not going after you personally here either. The writer of the article you linked to, yes. I disagree with more than a few of his opinions. Siegel paraded about the words fraud and hack. I'm not calling you those words, but I'm calling you on them for linking to that article and calling it truth. Note the difference?

I have nothing bad to say about you, nor am I angry.

Re: It's worse than that.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I do note the difference. I'd like you to note another difference. Disagreeing with someone and "calling someone on it" are two different things, and the second one is picking a fight. You win. I'll take my bloody nose home.

Re: It's worse than that.

[chaptal.livejournal.com]

I agreed to disagree earlier. You called me hostile.