Relatedly, I just read Jonathan Franzen 2002 article about difficult vs non-difficult literature, in which he critiques himself by way of a reader comment to him about his use of difficult words, and his own experience reading William Gaddis. Franzen divides literature into social contract work and status work, with status being earned by the "difficult" label, and is at best high art or author-personal expression... whereas social contract literature emphasizes connection with an audience (which itself could be high or low in artistic ambition). He comes down in favor of contract literature. There are non-paywalled versions of the essay floating around the internet, which I can't seem to find now. It even has its own wikipedia article?!
Most of my local friends do not read fiction by taste (men), or because they are exhausted from work (women). One woman friend only reads, due to stress, as she will state openly, positive-themed women's empowerment books. The other, who has a master's degree, only reads romance novels, due to stress. I observe this and feel a humbling force at work, pressing down on literature, but I don't want to crumble. I regularly meet with an old college male friend, fellow English major and rugby player, online to chat about novels. I do feel rigid, proud disdain for some difficult novels, but others I delight in working through. Taste may be a factor. I think I have an instinct or willingness to judge that helps me through, and am okay making judgements that keep me moving forward to the next book. Some of my decisions on this I couldn't defend philosophically or with a schematic; they're just taste.
Franzen's essay plunges into Gaddis and splashes up and down again. But without stating simply, he seems to draw a line after "The Recognitions" as a worthy difficult novel (900 some pages), and the ones afterward. It doesn't really make sense in his essay, about his own decision (he says) to choose social contract as a writer of novels. But he writes insightfully about Giddis. So I picked up The Recognitions and also a social contract novel from Franzen's list, Halldór Laxness. I still haven't read any Franzen. Recommendation where to start?
Felix if I may jest, you haven't mention Musil's The Man Without Qualities in a long time, I hope all is okay! Cheers--
Interesting about Franzen. I think that division is sound, although the use of the term 'status' is misleading in the sense that it only applies to today's marketplace. While 19th century authors no doubt had ambitions, I doubt their best art was solely a question of status. What did Melville have to gain in that sense from Moby Dick being a flop? But nowadays, I think Franzen is right. It's too easy to think of an author writing something exceptionally literary and it not ending up like a monument and not a literary work that lives with people. In the past, readers might simply have missed the memo; today, most people don't care if they miss the memo.
It seems the world is conspiring to convince me to finally read William Gaddis. In academia they say The Recognitions was the first postmodern novel from an American. But I'd still be interested in reading it because a few of these early postmodern works - I also have Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds in mind, that being the actual first postmodern novel - were organic creations that did their own thing. In that sense I can't complain about setting the benchmark there in terms of difficulty. Based on that, I reckon Franzen isn't a fan of Danielewski's House of Leaves. (Though it's also true that writers judge contemporaries a lot differently than their predecessors) That, to me, is the ultimate status novel.
I haven't read Franzen yet. But for some time I've had a copy of The Corrections waiting on my shelf. As well as being his first great success story, I liked the familial premise of the novel. From everything I know about Franzen - his reputation, of course, precedes him - he strikes me as doing the opposite of the Slovaks; trying to make high art have appeal in a country dominated by the lowbrow without compromising the character of the highbrow. He's clearly successful: perhaps viewing it like a social contract is how he does it. After he was sidelined by Oprah for caring about having male readers it was beautiful to see him rise back up from the ashes. (Including a new invitation on Oprah)
What you said about your friends is a good reminder that one way of getting people to not read is to simply put them to work. I'll have to write about that some time, though maybe it would help to have some hard data. As for taste, I can sympathize as a Steinbeck fan who has gotten flack for daring to like him as an author. Steinbeck dislike is still a thing and didn't die with the critics of his age. My friends read, but I'm certainly the more fiction-driven: I'm fortunate to have friends who read a lot of philosophy. The big difference is that not all of them always see the merit I see in many novels that are considered "lesser." And, with the Christians, I often find I have to defend Ibsen the artist even if Ibsen the social thinker and Ibsen the individual leave much to criticize. There are people who warrant far greater criticism on the moral front than Ibsen does.
On the topic of Scandinavians, I have heard great things about Halldor Laxness and look forward to him with anticipation. I have Independent People on my shelf - considered his best novel - and Under The Glacier, a later work where he took a different, less realism-driven turn artistically. Laxness is a titan in Iceland to this day; so if there is a social contract in Icelandic, he most certainly knew it to the letter. In a way, though, I think only social contract authors can exist in some countries. It's just how they're built.
As for me, maybe I should read de Tocqueville and cultivate a few ideas that resonate with the social contract. But I don't think it will amount to much. I'm not sure my signature as an individual is still valid on the social contract, not to mention as an artist.
Hahaha. Good point! Things are fine but I should return to Musil. Hopefully I'll finally get to some classic catch-up this summer. I'm thinking: at minimum 2 British classics, a French classic, an American classic, a Californian classic, a Polish classic, an Irish classic, and 2 or 3 others from other cultures. Already read Veli Joze earlier this year for the Croats.
I enjoy this discussion. Yes, high culture and upper class seem to have a false association. Sometimes it’s hard to articulate something you know to be true. This dichotomy is one of those places.
I think that J.R.R. Tolkien showed that an author in the 20th Century could produce a sublime high-brow novel that was also quite popular.
I think that the four great novelists since the rise of Modernism in the 1920s are Tolkien, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vasily Grossman and Elie Wiesel. Is it because all four dealt with the most tragic events in the West in the 20th Century? I'm not sure. Fifth I'd place Hermann Hesse, whose novels overflow with insight into human consciousness, human nature.
Two other great novels of the last century -- Doctor Zhivago and All Quiet on the Western Front -- deal with tragic events of the 20th Century. Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits plunges in its last 100 pages into the tragedy in Chile in 1973.
Two great novels that do not touch on the Big Tragedies are Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, a murder mystery set in a monastery in the 1300s, and, as you mention, David Foster's Wallace's Infinite Jest, which merits a future piece by you.
Looking at this list, I'm not sure that a traditional Judeo-Christian author of the 20th Century achieved what the East-leaning mystic Hesse achieved -- providing new insight into human consciousness / nature without plunging into the Great tragedies of the 20th Century West. Tolkien, Solzhenitsyn, and Wiesel carried on the Judeo-Christian Western tradition in literature in the face of those tragedies.
But I wonder if I'm too hard on the authors since the 1920s who didn't write about the West's 20th Century Big Tragedies.
While the Hobbit - literary, but a light read - gave Middle Earth a very accessible success story, it is true that LOTR was able to stand on its own. Its success was certainly a surprise for Tolkien. LOTR is successful because it has unusually but successfully reconnected Anglophone readers with the primeval. The profundity of such an act cannot be downplayed.
While Orwell wasn't Shakespeare, 1984 is not without its own literary merit. And it is popular. Though a very different scenario from Tolkien, both are unique in that they remain literary and extremely popular. I've wondered if somehow, strangely, they are fated to complement each other. Like two bookends of time.
It's an interesting conversation. If you ask Cormac McCarthy, he would have said he doesn't understand writers (like Proust) that don't deal with life and death. Funnily, I think Suttree was his attempt to make sense of that since it's the most distant from life and death of all his works. As one who believes in the plurality of literature, I think it's more important that literature is true to itself as an art rather than only being about certain things. For you, it might be a need to reckon with the 20th century's most terrible atrocities; it could also be a simple matter of taste. To me, Solzhenitsyn and Grossman are most appreciable for their intellectual stimulation. But I also find Jorge Amado's Double Death of Quincas Waterbray (an awkwardly translated title that doesn't reflect upon the quality of the actual work) to be just as masterful as the literature of the camps, the wars and the gulags, even though it's "merely" about a publicly upstanding guy from Bahia who lived a secret life among the lowlifes of the city. (I think I forgot to add it to the favorites list I sent you; if so, then it should be on that list and ranked fairly high)
I do think the 20th century was quite chaotic compared to the century before it. It is a beautiful chaos. But chaos all the same. On one hand, I think you are a bit hard. But on the other hand, it is normal to be judgmental of a time with so much experimentation. And the ability of all this experimentation to endure is a reasonable discussion point.
Hesse was, in my view, a genius. It is also true that in the 20th century, Hindu/Buddhist ideas were fresh and new compared to Christian ideas. So I don't know if an Oriental/Occidental comparison is helpful here. I would also consider Kafka as one who provided great insight into human consciousness, even though it didn't relate directly to religion. But it's also true that the best Christian literature of that time is marginalized from the psyche. Or incognito. Tolkien is one such incognito writer. I would also consider Narnia to be of that level: its Christian dimensions are not frequently talked about, but once they are accounted for (and especially those in The Last Battle, which is underrated) one cannot look at Narnia the same way again. However, Shusaku Endo's novel Silence would be my nomination for best Christian novel of the 20th century. I really do think you should read it.
You will also find the theme of Pontius Pilate in Bulgakov's The Master & Margarita to be of great interest. One cannot judge the best literature of the 20th century without reading Bulgakov. Which reminds me, I was wondering: what do you think about Camus? He seems like an author you'd appreciate.
Relatedly, I just read Jonathan Franzen 2002 article about difficult vs non-difficult literature, in which he critiques himself by way of a reader comment to him about his use of difficult words, and his own experience reading William Gaddis. Franzen divides literature into social contract work and status work, with status being earned by the "difficult" label, and is at best high art or author-personal expression... whereas social contract literature emphasizes connection with an audience (which itself could be high or low in artistic ambition). He comes down in favor of contract literature. There are non-paywalled versions of the essay floating around the internet, which I can't seem to find now. It even has its own wikipedia article?!
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/09/30/mr-difficult
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Difficult
Most of my local friends do not read fiction by taste (men), or because they are exhausted from work (women). One woman friend only reads, due to stress, as she will state openly, positive-themed women's empowerment books. The other, who has a master's degree, only reads romance novels, due to stress. I observe this and feel a humbling force at work, pressing down on literature, but I don't want to crumble. I regularly meet with an old college male friend, fellow English major and rugby player, online to chat about novels. I do feel rigid, proud disdain for some difficult novels, but others I delight in working through. Taste may be a factor. I think I have an instinct or willingness to judge that helps me through, and am okay making judgements that keep me moving forward to the next book. Some of my decisions on this I couldn't defend philosophically or with a schematic; they're just taste.
Franzen's essay plunges into Gaddis and splashes up and down again. But without stating simply, he seems to draw a line after "The Recognitions" as a worthy difficult novel (900 some pages), and the ones afterward. It doesn't really make sense in his essay, about his own decision (he says) to choose social contract as a writer of novels. But he writes insightfully about Giddis. So I picked up The Recognitions and also a social contract novel from Franzen's list, Halldór Laxness. I still haven't read any Franzen. Recommendation where to start?
Felix if I may jest, you haven't mention Musil's The Man Without Qualities in a long time, I hope all is okay! Cheers--
Interesting about Franzen. I think that division is sound, although the use of the term 'status' is misleading in the sense that it only applies to today's marketplace. While 19th century authors no doubt had ambitions, I doubt their best art was solely a question of status. What did Melville have to gain in that sense from Moby Dick being a flop? But nowadays, I think Franzen is right. It's too easy to think of an author writing something exceptionally literary and it not ending up like a monument and not a literary work that lives with people. In the past, readers might simply have missed the memo; today, most people don't care if they miss the memo.
It seems the world is conspiring to convince me to finally read William Gaddis. In academia they say The Recognitions was the first postmodern novel from an American. But I'd still be interested in reading it because a few of these early postmodern works - I also have Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds in mind, that being the actual first postmodern novel - were organic creations that did their own thing. In that sense I can't complain about setting the benchmark there in terms of difficulty. Based on that, I reckon Franzen isn't a fan of Danielewski's House of Leaves. (Though it's also true that writers judge contemporaries a lot differently than their predecessors) That, to me, is the ultimate status novel.
I haven't read Franzen yet. But for some time I've had a copy of The Corrections waiting on my shelf. As well as being his first great success story, I liked the familial premise of the novel. From everything I know about Franzen - his reputation, of course, precedes him - he strikes me as doing the opposite of the Slovaks; trying to make high art have appeal in a country dominated by the lowbrow without compromising the character of the highbrow. He's clearly successful: perhaps viewing it like a social contract is how he does it. After he was sidelined by Oprah for caring about having male readers it was beautiful to see him rise back up from the ashes. (Including a new invitation on Oprah)
What you said about your friends is a good reminder that one way of getting people to not read is to simply put them to work. I'll have to write about that some time, though maybe it would help to have some hard data. As for taste, I can sympathize as a Steinbeck fan who has gotten flack for daring to like him as an author. Steinbeck dislike is still a thing and didn't die with the critics of his age. My friends read, but I'm certainly the more fiction-driven: I'm fortunate to have friends who read a lot of philosophy. The big difference is that not all of them always see the merit I see in many novels that are considered "lesser." And, with the Christians, I often find I have to defend Ibsen the artist even if Ibsen the social thinker and Ibsen the individual leave much to criticize. There are people who warrant far greater criticism on the moral front than Ibsen does.
On the topic of Scandinavians, I have heard great things about Halldor Laxness and look forward to him with anticipation. I have Independent People on my shelf - considered his best novel - and Under The Glacier, a later work where he took a different, less realism-driven turn artistically. Laxness is a titan in Iceland to this day; so if there is a social contract in Icelandic, he most certainly knew it to the letter. In a way, though, I think only social contract authors can exist in some countries. It's just how they're built.
As for me, maybe I should read de Tocqueville and cultivate a few ideas that resonate with the social contract. But I don't think it will amount to much. I'm not sure my signature as an individual is still valid on the social contract, not to mention as an artist.
Hahaha. Good point! Things are fine but I should return to Musil. Hopefully I'll finally get to some classic catch-up this summer. I'm thinking: at minimum 2 British classics, a French classic, an American classic, a Californian classic, a Polish classic, an Irish classic, and 2 or 3 others from other cultures. Already read Veli Joze earlier this year for the Croats.
I enjoy this discussion. Yes, high culture and upper class seem to have a false association. Sometimes it’s hard to articulate something you know to be true. This dichotomy is one of those places.
Agreed, and good to know you enjoyed the post! It is, I reckon, a fitting discussion to be had in the coffeehouses of Vienna. :-)
Wow. This one is loaded with insights, Felix.
I think that J.R.R. Tolkien showed that an author in the 20th Century could produce a sublime high-brow novel that was also quite popular.
I think that the four great novelists since the rise of Modernism in the 1920s are Tolkien, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vasily Grossman and Elie Wiesel. Is it because all four dealt with the most tragic events in the West in the 20th Century? I'm not sure. Fifth I'd place Hermann Hesse, whose novels overflow with insight into human consciousness, human nature.
Two other great novels of the last century -- Doctor Zhivago and All Quiet on the Western Front -- deal with tragic events of the 20th Century. Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits plunges in its last 100 pages into the tragedy in Chile in 1973.
Two great novels that do not touch on the Big Tragedies are Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, a murder mystery set in a monastery in the 1300s, and, as you mention, David Foster's Wallace's Infinite Jest, which merits a future piece by you.
Looking at this list, I'm not sure that a traditional Judeo-Christian author of the 20th Century achieved what the East-leaning mystic Hesse achieved -- providing new insight into human consciousness / nature without plunging into the Great tragedies of the 20th Century West. Tolkien, Solzhenitsyn, and Wiesel carried on the Judeo-Christian Western tradition in literature in the face of those tragedies.
But I wonder if I'm too hard on the authors since the 1920s who didn't write about the West's 20th Century Big Tragedies.
Thanks Mike!
While the Hobbit - literary, but a light read - gave Middle Earth a very accessible success story, it is true that LOTR was able to stand on its own. Its success was certainly a surprise for Tolkien. LOTR is successful because it has unusually but successfully reconnected Anglophone readers with the primeval. The profundity of such an act cannot be downplayed.
While Orwell wasn't Shakespeare, 1984 is not without its own literary merit. And it is popular. Though a very different scenario from Tolkien, both are unique in that they remain literary and extremely popular. I've wondered if somehow, strangely, they are fated to complement each other. Like two bookends of time.
It's an interesting conversation. If you ask Cormac McCarthy, he would have said he doesn't understand writers (like Proust) that don't deal with life and death. Funnily, I think Suttree was his attempt to make sense of that since it's the most distant from life and death of all his works. As one who believes in the plurality of literature, I think it's more important that literature is true to itself as an art rather than only being about certain things. For you, it might be a need to reckon with the 20th century's most terrible atrocities; it could also be a simple matter of taste. To me, Solzhenitsyn and Grossman are most appreciable for their intellectual stimulation. But I also find Jorge Amado's Double Death of Quincas Waterbray (an awkwardly translated title that doesn't reflect upon the quality of the actual work) to be just as masterful as the literature of the camps, the wars and the gulags, even though it's "merely" about a publicly upstanding guy from Bahia who lived a secret life among the lowlifes of the city. (I think I forgot to add it to the favorites list I sent you; if so, then it should be on that list and ranked fairly high)
I do think the 20th century was quite chaotic compared to the century before it. It is a beautiful chaos. But chaos all the same. On one hand, I think you are a bit hard. But on the other hand, it is normal to be judgmental of a time with so much experimentation. And the ability of all this experimentation to endure is a reasonable discussion point.
Hesse was, in my view, a genius. It is also true that in the 20th century, Hindu/Buddhist ideas were fresh and new compared to Christian ideas. So I don't know if an Oriental/Occidental comparison is helpful here. I would also consider Kafka as one who provided great insight into human consciousness, even though it didn't relate directly to religion. But it's also true that the best Christian literature of that time is marginalized from the psyche. Or incognito. Tolkien is one such incognito writer. I would also consider Narnia to be of that level: its Christian dimensions are not frequently talked about, but once they are accounted for (and especially those in The Last Battle, which is underrated) one cannot look at Narnia the same way again. However, Shusaku Endo's novel Silence would be my nomination for best Christian novel of the 20th century. I really do think you should read it.
You will also find the theme of Pontius Pilate in Bulgakov's The Master & Margarita to be of great interest. One cannot judge the best literature of the 20th century without reading Bulgakov. Which reminds me, I was wondering: what do you think about Camus? He seems like an author you'd appreciate.
Well, this is all very interesting.
I've tried more than once to appreciate Camus. I guess existentialism doesn't appeal to me.
I'll check out Bulgakov. And read Endo. Thank you.
I think everyone thinks of Narnia as Christian literature -- for children and youth.