Monday, February 18, 2008

Thoughts about American Literature

Looking through the shelves of our big bookstores and reading our major newspapers’ Book Sections, one cannot help but notice that the strength of American literature largely derives from our writers’ keen opposition to or enthusiastic support of our country’s political and economical life. Many of America’s best known authors appear to be either active protesters or ardent supporters of whatever political wind happens to be blowing. What has happened here? Many a fiction writer complains that this pragmatic outlook causes non-fiction books to rank higher on publishers’ lists than fictional literature. Is it possible that the cause of this can be found in the way our society developed over the years? More often than not the American novelist creates his or her work in isolation, in a large city or small town, in a towering skyscraper or on a pastoral farm. Our writers live in a country devoid of a cafĂ© culture that enables social gatherings and cultural exchanges like those found in Paris, Madrid, or Buenos Aires, where writers meet other writers and share a spiritual home.

As of late, American literature is handicapped by publishers, often controlled by foreigners, who only pursue financial success, who publish their books guided solely by the aim of promoting them to become bestsellers. The writer’s artistic output, therefore, is subject to commercialization—it is only a product that “has to be sold,” and that’s all. Unfortunately this trend is detrimental to the reader, and oftentimes fatal to the writer. In our new globalized order, it can be said that this persistent diminishing of our writers’ artistic endeavors vis-a-vis the publisher’s practical considerations and financial successes may be limiting the penetration that our American literature should be enjoying in the world.

How likely is it that we will soon reach a new stage where literary merits are based on originality or boldness of style rather than the pragmatism of the idea or the commercial or political value of the covered subject?

Unfortunately, American literature, like most other forms of our artistic output, is falling victim to the subtle but inexorable descend into mediocrity provoked by a relentless market-oriented economy.

5 comments:

  1. I agree with your viewpoint... and is that not the way of all "creative" ambitions.
    Artists find the same vicious circle as writers. Do you write or paint with your "passion" for the subject or visual... or do you write or paint for the final saleable item regardless of how little your true feelings or passion for the subject shows... with the ultimate goal being "will it sell"?

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  2. In today's world everything is for sale. Writers, painters, sculptors, and others are creative artists. Some have a passion to create for creation's sake while others create for profit. Unfortunately there is a fine line between the two and for a story to be published or a painting or sculpture to be sold there must be elements that appeal either to the masses or to a niche audience. And that is where the artists compromise their principles. To sell or not to sell is the question, to paraphrase a well known author. A lot of writers are formula addicts because they know what sells: sex and violence. Character studies of stories with little or no sex or violence generally don't sell and that is the dilemma of all contemporary writers. In the past serious writers wrote cheap novels to earn a living while also writing the serious stuff. Is that a compromise of your principles? I would say not. Everybody has to make a living.

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  3. I agree with your premise and would take it a step further to say that this social handicap has inhibited all forms of communication. There is always a powerful hand that edits every word, every brushstroke, and every snapshot until the original message is completely clouded and what we see before us is unrecognizable.

    To the point of an artist having to compromise and sell in order to make a living, well, that is up to them to decide; however, when an artist chooses to create only as a means to an end (money) then I would say that they are not at all artists but instead businessmen with finely honed skills. Yes, everything in the world is for sale, but it does not mean that we have to sell.

    We need artists in the world who see what we cannot and who tell truths of which we cannot fathom. Principles have nothing to do with it. An artist has an innate urgency, need to let the world know the very thing that they prize and there will never be a bank big enough to put a price on that.

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  4. I agree with your premise and would take it a step further to say that this social handicap has inhibited all forms of communication. There is always a powerful hand that edits every word, every brushstroke, and every snapshot until the original message is completely clouded and what we see before us is unrecognizable.

    To the point of an artist having to compromise and sell in order to make a living, well, that is up to them to decide; however, when an artist chooses to create only as a means to an end (money) then I would say that they are not at all artists but instead businessmen with finely honed skills. Yes, everything in the world is for sale, but it does not mean that we have to sell.

    We need artists in the world who see what we cannot and who tell truths of which we cannot fathom. Principles have nothing to do with it. An artist has an innate urgency, need to let the world know the very thing that they prize and there will never be a bank big enough to put a price on that.

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  5. Bravo, Dayna. Here is someone with an open mind.

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