I'd have to think about which weekly essays I'd want to see anthologized (your sandman essays maybe) but I would buy a collection of your book reviews in a heartbeat.
I put the Review Index into Readwise Reader, where it functions as a table of contents for the as yet unpublished book. https://johnpistelli.com/review-index/
I appreciate the mention. To clarify, I don't think "difficulty killed the literary novel."
The books today that win the Pulitzers and National Book Awards are largely not post-modern, nor particularly difficult, but the general public still doesn't read them. When D.G. Meyers called 'Salvage The Bones,' "written for ten-year olds," he was being mean, but not exaggerating and it was far from the only recent National Book Award winner to be written at a fifth-grade reading level: 'Tree of Smoke' and 'Let The Great World Spin' have the same lexile score. And of course as you point out, people still read classics and post-modern works are far from anathema to the popular taste.
When I say that most contemporary literary fiction is 'written for the critics' I'm not saying that these books are inherently difficult reads, instead I'm saying that post-1970 authors began to ignore the public's taste (which is not inherently simple or vulgar) in favor of optimizing for critical trends which led to a positive feedback-loop as sales went down. At a certain point minimalism and a sort of social realism supplanted post-modernism in the critical eye and the books followed suit, but still without much regard for whether the public would be interested in reading these books (which were mostly just boring, not difficult).
I don't think this view is inherently antagonistic to Maren's — publishers are conservative and want 'comps' and verification — critical trends encapsulated in awards and who gets NYT Book Review space certainly play a role there and based on some of the anecdotes in ARX-Han's piece I link to, publishers are apparently willing to overuse these metrics and give out deals to authors in critical vogue with no real audience.
Thank you—for purchasing and for clarifying!—and apologies if I traduced your argument for content's sake. On reflection, your argument reminds me of Gore Vidal's in the "American Plastic" essay from the '70s, which argued that academia had colonized the novel both through criticism and through novelists' increasing location on campuses. I think there's something to it. I just worry that over-valuing the public's taste, which can only be inferred from past success, leads to the algorithm problem Maren describes. Not that one should deliberately try to outrage public taste, but there's a danger in pandering to what one perceives it to be.
"I was recently discussing with a professional whether or not I should try for the whole thing—the agent, the big-five publisher, the substantial advance, and all the rest of it—and was told that unless I planned to write a potential bestseller more or less on the stylistic order of Rebecca Yarros, it would be almost pointless, so intolerant have they become of anything beyond the next prospective hit."
I do not think this is the best advice. Holt and FSG and Knopf and all the big literary imprints still exist. They need to keep publishing literary novels. They are not looking for the next Yarros, they are looking for next Ocean Vuong. But in 2025, the next Ocean is probably a white guy--no reason that can't be you! I definitely feel like it's worth you at least attempting to get an agent.
Thanks! I made the conversation sound more one-dimensional than it was for effect. But I was told I'd have to write something more commercial than Major Arcana, which, in my naivete, I thought was pretty commercial!
That seems absurd. Major Arcana is pretty commercial. Much more so than many big press books. I dunno if you should take that one person to heart. Let agents decide.
Thanks for the mention! I should have noted that I enjoyed Stop All the Clocks more as the narrative started to cast doubt on Mona's perspective. I didn't mean to imply that the novel as a whole argues for the "Everything is language" viewpoint - it just happens to be an idea that I have strong opinions on!
I also agree on the cultural fragmentation point, but I think it can be overstated. Samantha Carpenter is currently number 1 on the Billboard 100. Normies might not "know" her the way they "knew" Madonna - but the female pop star is still a figure in the culture in a way that e.g. the male rock star is not. What the not-terminally-online read, watch and listen to is still affected by what everyone in their circle is talking about. The social role that a novel such Portnoy's Complaint played in lending respectability to discussing "taboo" topics is now played almost entirely by "prestige TV". The latest episode of the Brady Brunch probably didn't offer much fodder for cocktail party conversation, but The White Lotus certainly does.
Yes, I would say there is *not* still a monoculture in that we now have so many more media channels and cultural objects than in the mass broadcast era, but there *is* still one because at any given time we know what the general "discourse" is. So cultural fragmentation refers to the first point but can be overstated re: the second, since the aggregate of the fragments still adds up to an intelligible whole. The role of an enclassicized[*] form like the novel (the play, the arthouse film, philosophy and theory, etc.) in generating/shaping this discourse, if any, is now to be upstream of bigger and more immediate shapers of culture like podcasts, TV, etc. (Never saw The White Lotus, but supposedly the guy was inspired by Red Scare.)
[*] just made this word up now, I wonder if it'll catch on
Mike White is a great writer of character: the hot girls in Season 1 reading Nietzsche and Paglia by the pool might well be a nod to Red Scare, but his 2011 series Enlightened with Laura Dern was already a hilarious send-up of liberal pieties.
If you're a litfic writer, all the options are bad, even if you have an agent:
1: An agent is the only way to get published by the Big 5. But getting an agent can be as difficult as getting a publisher, and once you have an agent, there's no guarantee of publication - many MS "die on submission." If you do get a Big 5 contract, prepare for disfiguring edits and disheartening delays. Also be aware that the Big 5 put almost all their marketing efforts into pushing a handful of "star" authors. Chances are you're not one of them, so might as well try option
2: Small presses. They can be great to work with, have a nice personal touch, and actually respect what you wrote. But the majority of them have NO marketing muscle (in fact, they often expect you the author to contribute a marketing plan), and they are treated by the industry as afterthoughts. Also, while many can be approached without an agent, some of them put up other barriers (can only submit in March and September; you have to pay a fee or enter a contest; you have to buy one of their books). Many of them are also in a financially precarious position, and might simply disappear one day. So you might as well try option
3: Self-publishing. Anyone can do it and you're not getting the validation that comes from a press choosing to publish you. And if you want to sell copies, you have to be a relentless and clever self-marketer. But it does give you complete control of your book, and that's definitely not nothing. And if things work out really well, you could get picked up by an actual publisher!
Yes, this is well said. Honestly, the "disfiguring edits" are what most frighten me away from the big five, especially since they're marketing power isn't nearly what it was, as you observe. I've had a very good small press experience, though, I have to say, and I think there are large differences between one small press and another, including the issue of how small is small. My publisher did an informative Note about this once:
Yeah, a small press can be anything from a mom-&-pop operation that publishes 5 books a year to something that's fairly large and established. The "small presses" in the latter category - places like Graywolf, Milkweed Editions, Melville House, and Black Lawrence - are precisely the ones that put up the sort of barriers I mentioned (and often prefer agented submissions even if they're open to unagented ones).
Very exciting news! I haven't read every post and apologies for being late to this one, but I do frequently excerpt passages to stash away for myself and I know you said slim, but I can't resist giving a somewhat expansive list of my favourites: 25, 30, 31, 36, 52, 55, 66, 70, 72, 75, 77, 81, 83, 89, 90, 91, 95, 101, 117, 122, 125, 128, 129, 130, 131, 151 (but just the footnotes), 154, 155, 158, 161, 165, 174.
Beine a reader of Grand Hotel Abyss as much or more for the inflammatory footnotes I don’t feel capable of discerning which aesthetic essays should be included. I do think your footnotes from last year – the “critical theory case for Trump” as it were-should be collected for posterity as an artifact of the times. On the other hand, it might make it difficult to pursue some connections. Whatever the case I look forward to the next book!
Joking aside it would be interesting to have a print comp of your writing on comic books, especially if there were some updates, changed perspectives etc. of course you’d want a few volumes of dignified and erudite essays on Kandinsky, Joyce and Woolf out first, but it’s an idea for down the road!
I'd have to think about which weekly essays I'd want to see anthologized (your sandman essays maybe) but I would buy a collection of your book reviews in a heartbeat.
I put the Review Index into Readwise Reader, where it functions as a table of contents for the as yet unpublished book. https://johnpistelli.com/review-index/
Thank you!
I appreciate the mention. To clarify, I don't think "difficulty killed the literary novel."
The books today that win the Pulitzers and National Book Awards are largely not post-modern, nor particularly difficult, but the general public still doesn't read them. When D.G. Meyers called 'Salvage The Bones,' "written for ten-year olds," he was being mean, but not exaggerating and it was far from the only recent National Book Award winner to be written at a fifth-grade reading level: 'Tree of Smoke' and 'Let The Great World Spin' have the same lexile score. And of course as you point out, people still read classics and post-modern works are far from anathema to the popular taste.
When I say that most contemporary literary fiction is 'written for the critics' I'm not saying that these books are inherently difficult reads, instead I'm saying that post-1970 authors began to ignore the public's taste (which is not inherently simple or vulgar) in favor of optimizing for critical trends which led to a positive feedback-loop as sales went down. At a certain point minimalism and a sort of social realism supplanted post-modernism in the critical eye and the books followed suit, but still without much regard for whether the public would be interested in reading these books (which were mostly just boring, not difficult).
I don't think this view is inherently antagonistic to Maren's — publishers are conservative and want 'comps' and verification — critical trends encapsulated in awards and who gets NYT Book Review space certainly play a role there and based on some of the anecdotes in ARX-Han's piece I link to, publishers are apparently willing to overuse these metrics and give out deals to authors in critical vogue with no real audience.
And all of this being said, I have ordered a copy and am very excited to read your book!
Thank you—for purchasing and for clarifying!—and apologies if I traduced your argument for content's sake. On reflection, your argument reminds me of Gore Vidal's in the "American Plastic" essay from the '70s, which argued that academia had colonized the novel both through criticism and through novelists' increasing location on campuses. I think there's something to it. I just worry that over-valuing the public's taste, which can only be inferred from past success, leads to the algorithm problem Maren describes. Not that one should deliberately try to outrage public taste, but there's a danger in pandering to what one perceives it to be.
"I was recently discussing with a professional whether or not I should try for the whole thing—the agent, the big-five publisher, the substantial advance, and all the rest of it—and was told that unless I planned to write a potential bestseller more or less on the stylistic order of Rebecca Yarros, it would be almost pointless, so intolerant have they become of anything beyond the next prospective hit."
I do not think this is the best advice. Holt and FSG and Knopf and all the big literary imprints still exist. They need to keep publishing literary novels. They are not looking for the next Yarros, they are looking for next Ocean Vuong. But in 2025, the next Ocean is probably a white guy--no reason that can't be you! I definitely feel like it's worth you at least attempting to get an agent.
Thanks! I made the conversation sound more one-dimensional than it was for effect. But I was told I'd have to write something more commercial than Major Arcana, which, in my naivete, I thought was pretty commercial!
That seems absurd. Major Arcana is pretty commercial. Much more so than many big press books. I dunno if you should take that one person to heart. Let agents decide.
Thanks for the mention! I should have noted that I enjoyed Stop All the Clocks more as the narrative started to cast doubt on Mona's perspective. I didn't mean to imply that the novel as a whole argues for the "Everything is language" viewpoint - it just happens to be an idea that I have strong opinions on!
I also agree on the cultural fragmentation point, but I think it can be overstated. Samantha Carpenter is currently number 1 on the Billboard 100. Normies might not "know" her the way they "knew" Madonna - but the female pop star is still a figure in the culture in a way that e.g. the male rock star is not. What the not-terminally-online read, watch and listen to is still affected by what everyone in their circle is talking about. The social role that a novel such Portnoy's Complaint played in lending respectability to discussing "taboo" topics is now played almost entirely by "prestige TV". The latest episode of the Brady Brunch probably didn't offer much fodder for cocktail party conversation, but The White Lotus certainly does.
Yes, I would say there is *not* still a monoculture in that we now have so many more media channels and cultural objects than in the mass broadcast era, but there *is* still one because at any given time we know what the general "discourse" is. So cultural fragmentation refers to the first point but can be overstated re: the second, since the aggregate of the fragments still adds up to an intelligible whole. The role of an enclassicized[*] form like the novel (the play, the arthouse film, philosophy and theory, etc.) in generating/shaping this discourse, if any, is now to be upstream of bigger and more immediate shapers of culture like podcasts, TV, etc. (Never saw The White Lotus, but supposedly the guy was inspired by Red Scare.)
[*] just made this word up now, I wonder if it'll catch on
Mike White is a great writer of character: the hot girls in Season 1 reading Nietzsche and Paglia by the pool might well be a nod to Red Scare, but his 2011 series Enlightened with Laura Dern was already a hilarious send-up of liberal pieties.
Good piece as usual. Anthologize your footnotes as well...they're always so good and on point and pretty much stand alone.
Thanks! Yes, we'd definitely include footnotes.
If you're a litfic writer, all the options are bad, even if you have an agent:
1: An agent is the only way to get published by the Big 5. But getting an agent can be as difficult as getting a publisher, and once you have an agent, there's no guarantee of publication - many MS "die on submission." If you do get a Big 5 contract, prepare for disfiguring edits and disheartening delays. Also be aware that the Big 5 put almost all their marketing efforts into pushing a handful of "star" authors. Chances are you're not one of them, so might as well try option
2: Small presses. They can be great to work with, have a nice personal touch, and actually respect what you wrote. But the majority of them have NO marketing muscle (in fact, they often expect you the author to contribute a marketing plan), and they are treated by the industry as afterthoughts. Also, while many can be approached without an agent, some of them put up other barriers (can only submit in March and September; you have to pay a fee or enter a contest; you have to buy one of their books). Many of them are also in a financially precarious position, and might simply disappear one day. So you might as well try option
3: Self-publishing. Anyone can do it and you're not getting the validation that comes from a press choosing to publish you. And if you want to sell copies, you have to be a relentless and clever self-marketer. But it does give you complete control of your book, and that's definitely not nothing. And if things work out really well, you could get picked up by an actual publisher!
Yes, this is well said. Honestly, the "disfiguring edits" are what most frighten me away from the big five, especially since they're marketing power isn't nearly what it was, as you observe. I've had a very good small press experience, though, I have to say, and I think there are large differences between one small press and another, including the issue of how small is small. My publisher did an informative Note about this once:
https://substack.com/@notesfromasmallpress/note/c-114770910
Yeah, a small press can be anything from a mom-&-pop operation that publishes 5 books a year to something that's fairly large and established. The "small presses" in the latter category - places like Graywolf, Milkweed Editions, Melville House, and Black Lawrence - are precisely the ones that put up the sort of barriers I mentioned (and often prefer agented submissions even if they're open to unagented ones).
Very exciting news! I haven't read every post and apologies for being late to this one, but I do frequently excerpt passages to stash away for myself and I know you said slim, but I can't resist giving a somewhat expansive list of my favourites: 25, 30, 31, 36, 52, 55, 66, 70, 72, 75, 77, 81, 83, 89, 90, 91, 95, 101, 117, 122, 125, 128, 129, 130, 131, 151 (but just the footnotes), 154, 155, 158, 161, 165, 174.
I finished Infinite Jest, but I must not have understood it.
Beine a reader of Grand Hotel Abyss as much or more for the inflammatory footnotes I don’t feel capable of discerning which aesthetic essays should be included. I do think your footnotes from last year – the “critical theory case for Trump” as it were-should be collected for posterity as an artifact of the times. On the other hand, it might make it difficult to pursue some connections. Whatever the case I look forward to the next book!
Thanks, don't think that would make the book, to be honest, but definitely an interesting document...
Joking aside it would be interesting to have a print comp of your writing on comic books, especially if there were some updates, changed perspectives etc. of course you’d want a few volumes of dignified and erudite essays on Kandinsky, Joyce and Woolf out first, but it’s an idea for down the road!
You're probably right, but I feel a bit over-identified with comics at this point, falling prey to the fate of Moore in trying to chart his problem...