My impression is the opposite of yours: I think I would still be blown away by the best literary fiction I've read if I found it unattributed, but I'm not sure about the best nonfiction I've read.
Regarding the merits of fiction "with credentials" vs self-pubbed fiction, I agree that gatekeepers largely determine what qualifies as "good" fiction, but I'm not 100% with you on the notion that "we often can't tell if a piece of fiction is good or not". I think we often can; moreover, it's quite evident that most self-published fiction is absolute crap, so the gatekeepers must actually be doing something.
What are gatekeepers doing, then? Some would say, perhaps, they are guarding the gates of literary quality through careful selection and curation. I would think the process begins earlier: writers who aspire to get published via traditional means approach their work differently. They are patient, and they take some time and effort to improve their craft, to please the editors at least, if not themselves. On the other hand, we live in the age of social media, and as FF points out, it is an anxious age. What FF says about readers goes for writers too. Does it work? Can I make a buck off it? To the 'Zon it goes!
In this sense, gatekeepers may not be doing anything, except, you know, exist.
(In case you're wondering, I've published stuff both in the traditional world and through self-publishing; I don't abhor either. Also, I'm not a native English speaker; I've mostly published my stuff in Spanish.)
Many of us can tell if something's really good or really bad, but I suspect we're all much more impaired regarding the middle (hence why I like hate-reading, because at least I can trust my own judgment when I do it).
I agree that most self-published fiction is bad. But so is most self-published non-fiction, yet we seek it out in droves, at least more so than with self-published fiction. Is it harder to read fiction than non-fiction? Maybe, but it's not like it's harder to watch a movie vs. a documentary.
My hope is Substack starts to do the job of highlighting self-published novels worth reading. I found Incel and Mixtape Hyperborea through Substack - if not yours, then through the Notes feature. I enjoyed this piece a lot and it got to the heart of how people tend to treat literary fiction. If you read Anne Trubek's Substack, she runs a small press and talks a lot about the history of publishing. That was very informative for me. I learned that, in the 19th century, it was fairly common to self publish and also have existing publishers run off a subscription-based model. Another great self publisher was Virginia Woolf, which I just remembered. Hogarth Press was started by her and her husband Leonard.
I've always hated that Gene Weingarten article about Bell, bc it ignored one thing...people do make a living busking on the streets of DC. I once saw a violinist draw a huge crowd at Farragut North's metro station. Weingarten tipped his hand by picking Lenfant Plaza for the experiment. It's a bleak metro station with no shopping and no reason to linger. The only ppl who go there are federal workers who need to clock in. He wanted a certain result, and he got it
Fair point. But even if we'd momentarily admire a busking musician (even giving a dollar!), the vast majority of us still wouldn't be able to tell a world-class musician from a decent one without the stamp of approval from a higher authority.
But even with the stamp of approval, we can't tell. We can merely accept. But do we think the expert themself is unable to tell? Like my wife's parents are classical musicians. I once took her to a house show in Oakland and she was like wow Sean is an incredible musician. I was like...really? I knew he was nice and highly in demand as a band mate, but he didn't go to conservatory or anything. And yet she was certain that he was indeed quite good. If I believed that she was unable to tell a world class musician from an ordinary one without higher authority, then I would no longer believe in the very concept of taste or quality.
Right, that's what I meant. Most of us can only accept when it comes to music. We can probably tell what sucks, what'd mediocre, and what's good, roughly speaking. Especially if we've had some training. But anything finer than that, most of us are trusting the music hall or radio station or record label to have vetted and chosen the best for us.
Nonfiction is more easily forgiven for poor prose than fiction, because it's the ideas that count (to most people, at least). In blogging, flat/simple prose is generally preferred ("blog-to-book" conversions are rarely that good, and often rely on parasocial relationships to sell). In other words, the attributes that make self published nonfiction work usually sink self published fiction. And fiction is time consuming, so why take the risk?
I agree about "ideas" counting more for non-fiction, which is why people don't care as much about prose quality in non-fiction, so long as it's readable. But fiction has "ideas" too. Why aren't these as appealing to readers? I think that reveals a disconnect, with a lot of fiction being too unrelatable (lit fic) or too pandering (fan fic).
Oh for sure! But with fiction (well, the kind of fiction I like at least) the ideas aren't always clear. It asks questions, provokes thoughts, etc, and when it does say something directly there's some ambiguity about if this is what the author believes or just what the character believes. That's appealing to some readers, but not as many, and it's one appeal among many. It's also something that's much harder to get right, so if you're seeking it out you'll probably go directly to the version that's most likely worth your time.
Funnily enough, Virginia Woolf wrote something on the proliferation of non-fiction writing in her own time.
"We are not—there is, alas! no need to prove it—more subject to ideas than our ancestors; we are not, I hope, in the main more egoistical; but there is one thing in which we are more highly skilled than they are; and that is in manual dexterity with a pen. There can be no doubt that it is to the art of penmanship that we owe our present literature of essays. The very great of old—Homer and Aeschylus—could dispense with a pen; they were not inspired by sheets of paper and gallons of ink; no fear that their harmonies, passed from lip to lip, should lose their cadence and die. But our essayists write because the gift of writing has been bestowed on them. Had they lacked writing-masters we should have lacked essayists. There are, of course, certain distinguished people who use this medium from genuine inspiration because it best embodies the soul of their thought. But, on the other hand, there is a very large number who make the fatal pause, and the mechanical act of writing is allowed to set the brain in motion which should only be accessible to a higher inspiration."
Haha, is she saying there were too many hack essayists in her day? Also, what does she mean by "fatal pause"? Does she mean when the mind stops being inspired, or was there a different definition of the word back then?
Self published fiction is a thriving market category! We ready plenty of it! If i want to read a space opera or a legal thriller, im likely going to read someones sdlf pub kindle novel.
What yoy seem to be wondering is why don't we read self published literary fiction. And the reason is that we do, but we just don't know it. Lots of literary fiction comes out from micro presses so small it might as well be self published. The novel you wrote about earlier, I'm a Fan, is a good example. It came out from Rough Trade Books, which is I believe a tiny publishing imprint put out by a London record store.
Oh, interesting fact you just taught me about I'm A Fan. That's encouraging!
It's not even exactly self-published literary fiction I want, if "literary fiction" is defined as finely crafted and erudite literature. I'd just love for there to be a good wellspring of decently written and conversation-starting fiction about the aspects everyday contemporary life, including entire population demographics, that mainstream published fiction ignores.
I think the idea of hobbies as status-signaling-driven leisure activities is a model that absolutely applies to literary fiction, simply because in a televisual era it's become an "elite wordcel"-coded activity (YA decidedly "doesn't count" in this framing). If you look at the value in the "event" of a reading, a chunk of that lies in the value of "being the type of person who goes to readings." That's, of course, not the *only* motivation, but it's a part of it, some % of the time.
Also - I generally enjoyed Roupenian's short story collection, but the other stories didn't really match up to Cat Person, which was just very well crafted.
Yeah, I should read Roupenian's short story collection. I'd also venture to guess that most people who go to readings don't write, or even read that much, but instead are seeking vaguely artsy people who have at least some social skills (and, extra bonus, are hot).
The main self published books I've read are titles for Kindle Unlimited, which is made up primarily of romance subgenres that arent popular among mainstream romance readers like monster or dark romance. They have horror but it's harder to find/not as popular as romance.
I dont actually read literary novels. I made a point to try and read Tar Baby and Native Son for BHM but I am also reading The Passage which is 36 hours long as an audiobook.
I also saw Tale of Two Cities, the musical, and decided to try the book and found it very accessible. Same with Jane Austen (whose works are also adapted as stage plays). I read 1984 over a decade ago on my own and loved it, but I think that's more speculative than literary.
I dont have any friends who read. The only I know who read regularly are people like you, strangers online. And even I myself average about 30 books a year, most of it manga or shorter novels.
I do think people who read exclusively literary books are way fancier than everyone else though. I think you would have to really want to read a book to endure someone's boring inner thoughts. Like, I literally had no idea who Sally Rooney was until someone I followed on Twitter wrote a piece about her several years ago.
But people's inner thoughts aren't boring! I'd love it if more literary fiction said that we truly think. The problem is that they don't and they're heavily filtered to please carefully filtered artistic tastes.
What would be the difference between something like twitter and what you're envisioning? I remember when Lizzo was openly lusting after Chris Evans on her socials and it was very cringe-y! Do you mean something awful like this!?
Or do you feel that people have worthwhile opinions or ideas that cant see the light of day because they're politically incorrect?
I don't know if the "prestige gap" between fiction and nonfiction is inherent, but there's one factor in why the former doesn't take hold on Substack in particular. If I like one of your essays, or even if I dislike it, I can go to the comments section and have a back-and-forth with you (or at the very least, the illusion of a back-and-forth with you). It's difficult to imagine such a conversation happening in the comments of a serially published novel - and more to the point, would you *want* to read a novel by a person who goes online and debates with randos about the themes and ideas of their work?
(This might also be why "new adult" fiction has really taken off, while more literary stuff has fallen by the wayside - why would you make a novel of ideas when you could just blog your thoughts and insert them into the zeitgeist that way?)
Right, serialized fiction that's too responsive to audience feedback would jump the shark very quickly. This happens in TV a lot, as I'm sure you know!
This back-and-forth in the comments of a serially published novel is, I think, the blood pumping through the veins of Wattpad. This kind of fiction is highly sought out by teens. It's also mostly crap, proving your point that this is not the kind of stuff you'd want to read. ツ
I feel like fanfic is an easy punching bag for this sort of thing, which is why I wasn't calling it out by name. (But yes, obviously Sturgeon's Law is ESPECIALLY true somewhere like Wattpad or AO3.) But yeah, serialization in general seems to result in audience capture, even historically - allegedly Dickens changed the ending of Great Expectations at the request of Edward Bulwer-Lytton (a.k.a. the "it was a dark and stormy night" guy - an understatement of his contemporary influence, I'm told, but that's all he's known for today) who really wanted Pip and Estella to get together. The original shipper! :P
I was thinking more, in the context of "literary" fiction, that you really *want* opacity of authorial intent, and a comment section under every chapter where readers can share what they think the work's themes are would strongly reduce that.
Check out Justin Smith-Ruiu’s substack for good fiction. He’s doing interesting stuff, and what’s great about some of his pieces is that you might not realize it’s fiction until you get halfway through and things start to get weird.
About self-published fiction, my personal reason I don’t really read it is that there’s so much good published stuff out there. I’m not talking about contemporary novels, but anything published in the last couple hundred years. I read Jane Eyre for the first time over the summer. I just picked up a Thomas Bernhard novel for the first time and it’s incredible. I know I’m gonna have to go read some of his other books after. I want to read W.G. Sebald but never have. The list goes on.
Also, just saw Metropolitan last month. I laughed out loud when Tom said he’d never read Jane Austen. Reminded me of that SBF quote that was doing the rounds for a while. Shame about the U.H.B.s
Yeah, there IS a lot of really good published fiction that we'll never get around to reading. But I'm thinking self-published fiction mostly consists of shorter stuff, like short stories or novellas. Commute-friendly pieces. And they wouldn't compete with longer published fiction, kind of like how my Substack reading doesn't intrude on my novel reading. Or maybe it's all a zero-sum game.
I guess one question is: how do you even find self published fiction? I don’t know, I’ve never really looked. As far as I can tell, substack is probably the best place for it, especially the shorter type that you describe. Kind of like a serialized novel, to use an example of a publishing style that was common in the past but no longer is.
Is there an online literary magazine with clout that culls these pieces? If not perhaps there should be one? Perhaps you? Like an HTML Giant but for self-published fiction that is worth checking out so you can see their future work.
1. Tom's comment is perfect for this anxious age, an age in which results matter and in fact, results are all that matter, an age in which the only questions asked are "does it work?" and "can I make a buck off of it?" Why bother to read the novel if the Cliff Notes are good enough to get you that coveted A.
I spend a lot of time trying to figure out "what exactly is good art", anyway?
2. "I once read about how, as an experiment, a world-famous violinist busked in a subway station. People would’ve paid hundreds of dollars to see him play at Carnegie Hall, and there he was, giving a free concert. And nobody cared."
The violinist was Joshua Bell. And the people that did stop and listen were kids on their way to school. Some overly starry-eyed yutz said that this is why We Must Put Our Have Faith In The Children. The Children Know.
Bull.
The reason the kids stopped and listened is that listening let them delay their arrival at school. It could be Joshua Bell at his most sublime or a wino farting into a traffic cone and they wouldn't care, as long as it kept them out of school for an extra minute or two.
And yes, much of the classical music audience is seeking social approval, or even internal approval "I am a member of the cultured classes!"
While fiction might be untrue in some biographical or historical sense (eg Anna Karenina was never a biological person), good fiction uses these untruths to explore something that is more enduringly true. This might partially explain the aversion to fiction that hasn't been validated by an authority figure (a critic, a publishing house, etc). While a piece of non-fiction will be fairly easy to evaluate as true/untrue or good/bad, fiction usually reveals itself as good or bad after being completely read and considered, often for weeks, months or years. For some, finishing a ~100,000 word novel is too much of a time investment; this is where critical validation comes in. If a source of authority says that a particular novel is worth spending time with, and that a reader will benefit in some concrete way, then the fear of wasting time is alleviated. A reader still benefits, even if they didn't like the book - they know that they've interacted with a valuable message.
Encountering beauty is a more immediate way of assessing the value of literature, but one that is frequently underappreciated, not conferring the same utilitarian 'benefit' as non-fiction.
Another aspect of this that’s always baffled me: In the ‘90s the coolest thing a band could do is make their own label. Self-publishing music is punk and cool and DIY. Self publishing fiction is the opposite. I never understood why.
I mostly disagree with you. I'm sure there are people out there who read (or watch, or listen) things as if it was a marathon to be proud having achieved, but I suspect they are not many. Who would they be? Impostors trying to get into a society where they inherently do not belong?
I disagree that quality cannot be discerned. It has not been my experience, anyway. When I open up an esteemed book its job is harder as my expectations are greater. With classics I more often than not found myself surprised: they were great precisely for those unexpected qualities. But I also experienced pleasure when I did not know the authors were somebodies. I picked up Kazuo Ishiguro's debut in my high-school library, then his second (and last available at the library) novel, not having ever heard his name before, nor hearing it again until some twenty years later. Why did I pick it up? Perhaps it was the cover, perhaps it was its Japanese element to which I had an attraction at the time. It's not why I liked it; the very first novel I willingly chose to pick up to read had a similar appeal, yet, despite being the first, I could tell it was not good (the author doesn't have a Wikipedia page even, I think it means something). The reason I picked up Ishiguro's second was because I liked the first.
It was a professor around the same time who recommended me Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. I enjoyed it so much that I did not only recommend it to my then best friend, but checked it out the library for him. I started to read it again on my way home on foot, as if to check that nothing had happened to its lustre in the meantime, but was unable to stop until I finished it a second time. Also Mario Vargas Llosa was not a Nobel prize winner yet. Still, when I recommended the book to another friend —best friend in another time and place— he didn't like it. There's some taste involved; art's "goodness" is not an objective measure.
On the other hand, mere acclaim was not enough. I found your mentioning of Leaves of Grass comical: I didn't like it. If it was longer I probably wouldn't even have finished it.
And I think this goes for music for the non-musician, too. You might not be able to tell that "X is a great violinist," but you would probably tend to pick up music by good musicians over bad musicians — per definition? Not because you have something to prove, but because you want to enjoy yourself. I too heard the one about the Carnegie Hall musician in the subway, and I too felt a rebellious mirth until I realized that it proved nothing except that people in the subway are on their way somewhere, often an appointment they are in a hurry to meet. Subways are not the nicest places to hang out at. People would also feel duped if they paid hundreds of dollars to listen to a concert in a low-ceiling tile-covered tunnel, unless it was to listen to Mozart who had been resurrected from the dead.
Still, I agree there's a social component, though I don't think it's about status. It's nice to meet a stranger who appreciates a piece of work that you have had. It usually means something, too. That matter of taste. And the less popular the work the more it signifies. Not because the masses are stupid but because, however slightly, it suggests that that person might appreciate other things you have had (we don't pick what to read or watch at random) and otherwise share your worldview.
"You’re reading to be able to tell others you’ve read a certain book or author" -> yes, but again not because of "StAtUs". On an instinctual level you might be overjoyed (if you indeed sincerely enjoyed the work), but in addition fiction enriches your language, and you need two to tango (and to hold a conversation). I don't mean that it enriches it through exposure to beautiful prose (but this, too: non-fiction teaches us concrete stuff about the world, and well written narrative teaches us how to tell stories, how to communicate. I mean it.), but by providing a reference. You could describe your situation as Kafkaesque, warn about Orwellian dangers, call somebody Romeo and so on, which you wouldn't be able to do if all the corresponding works did not exist or were not read.
As for self-publishing, I rather doubt that self presenting as a fiction writer would attract a more negative reaction. If you met somebody at a cocktail party who told you they wrote essays, would you necessary think their writing was more so worth checking out than had it been fiction? Or if they were composers or even merely piano players, that their music was worth a listen? That more non-fiction is read online (and offline) than fiction has first of all to do, I think, with the fact that more non-fiction is written. You'd have to actively search for fiction to find it on Substack (I think even under the "fiction" category most posts are about fiction than fiction itself). It's not like we are inundated in fiction and have to home ourselves to non-fiction. And I think it's not only that most self-published fiction is crap, but most published fiction is crap, too. Most English 18th century writers were not Jane Austin, we have just forgotten about the rest. And the same goes for other art forms, movies included. But, really, I think that even if good fiction is harder to write (perhaps precisely because it's about the not real), most non-fiction is crappy too. There's just much more of it, so you can find something worth your time and attention.
My impression is the opposite of yours: I think I would still be blown away by the best literary fiction I've read if I found it unattributed, but I'm not sure about the best nonfiction I've read.
Regarding the merits of fiction "with credentials" vs self-pubbed fiction, I agree that gatekeepers largely determine what qualifies as "good" fiction, but I'm not 100% with you on the notion that "we often can't tell if a piece of fiction is good or not". I think we often can; moreover, it's quite evident that most self-published fiction is absolute crap, so the gatekeepers must actually be doing something.
What are gatekeepers doing, then? Some would say, perhaps, they are guarding the gates of literary quality through careful selection and curation. I would think the process begins earlier: writers who aspire to get published via traditional means approach their work differently. They are patient, and they take some time and effort to improve their craft, to please the editors at least, if not themselves. On the other hand, we live in the age of social media, and as FF points out, it is an anxious age. What FF says about readers goes for writers too. Does it work? Can I make a buck off it? To the 'Zon it goes!
In this sense, gatekeepers may not be doing anything, except, you know, exist.
(In case you're wondering, I've published stuff both in the traditional world and through self-publishing; I don't abhor either. Also, I'm not a native English speaker; I've mostly published my stuff in Spanish.)
Many of us can tell if something's really good or really bad, but I suspect we're all much more impaired regarding the middle (hence why I like hate-reading, because at least I can trust my own judgment when I do it).
I agree that most self-published fiction is bad. But so is most self-published non-fiction, yet we seek it out in droves, at least more so than with self-published fiction. Is it harder to read fiction than non-fiction? Maybe, but it's not like it's harder to watch a movie vs. a documentary.
My hope is Substack starts to do the job of highlighting self-published novels worth reading. I found Incel and Mixtape Hyperborea through Substack - if not yours, then through the Notes feature. I enjoyed this piece a lot and it got to the heart of how people tend to treat literary fiction. If you read Anne Trubek's Substack, she runs a small press and talks a lot about the history of publishing. That was very informative for me. I learned that, in the 19th century, it was fairly common to self publish and also have existing publishers run off a subscription-based model. Another great self publisher was Virginia Woolf, which I just remembered. Hogarth Press was started by her and her husband Leonard.
Anne Trubek, I'll check her Substack out!
I've always hated that Gene Weingarten article about Bell, bc it ignored one thing...people do make a living busking on the streets of DC. I once saw a violinist draw a huge crowd at Farragut North's metro station. Weingarten tipped his hand by picking Lenfant Plaza for the experiment. It's a bleak metro station with no shopping and no reason to linger. The only ppl who go there are federal workers who need to clock in. He wanted a certain result, and he got it
Fair point. But even if we'd momentarily admire a busking musician (even giving a dollar!), the vast majority of us still wouldn't be able to tell a world-class musician from a decent one without the stamp of approval from a higher authority.
But even with the stamp of approval, we can't tell. We can merely accept. But do we think the expert themself is unable to tell? Like my wife's parents are classical musicians. I once took her to a house show in Oakland and she was like wow Sean is an incredible musician. I was like...really? I knew he was nice and highly in demand as a band mate, but he didn't go to conservatory or anything. And yet she was certain that he was indeed quite good. If I believed that she was unable to tell a world class musician from an ordinary one without higher authority, then I would no longer believe in the very concept of taste or quality.
Right, that's what I meant. Most of us can only accept when it comes to music. We can probably tell what sucks, what'd mediocre, and what's good, roughly speaking. Especially if we've had some training. But anything finer than that, most of us are trusting the music hall or radio station or record label to have vetted and chosen the best for us.
Nonfiction is more easily forgiven for poor prose than fiction, because it's the ideas that count (to most people, at least). In blogging, flat/simple prose is generally preferred ("blog-to-book" conversions are rarely that good, and often rely on parasocial relationships to sell). In other words, the attributes that make self published nonfiction work usually sink self published fiction. And fiction is time consuming, so why take the risk?
I agree about "ideas" counting more for non-fiction, which is why people don't care as much about prose quality in non-fiction, so long as it's readable. But fiction has "ideas" too. Why aren't these as appealing to readers? I think that reveals a disconnect, with a lot of fiction being too unrelatable (lit fic) or too pandering (fan fic).
Oh for sure! But with fiction (well, the kind of fiction I like at least) the ideas aren't always clear. It asks questions, provokes thoughts, etc, and when it does say something directly there's some ambiguity about if this is what the author believes or just what the character believes. That's appealing to some readers, but not as many, and it's one appeal among many. It's also something that's much harder to get right, so if you're seeking it out you'll probably go directly to the version that's most likely worth your time.
Funnily enough, Virginia Woolf wrote something on the proliferation of non-fiction writing in her own time.
"We are not—there is, alas! no need to prove it—more subject to ideas than our ancestors; we are not, I hope, in the main more egoistical; but there is one thing in which we are more highly skilled than they are; and that is in manual dexterity with a pen. There can be no doubt that it is to the art of penmanship that we owe our present literature of essays. The very great of old—Homer and Aeschylus—could dispense with a pen; they were not inspired by sheets of paper and gallons of ink; no fear that their harmonies, passed from lip to lip, should lose their cadence and die. But our essayists write because the gift of writing has been bestowed on them. Had they lacked writing-masters we should have lacked essayists. There are, of course, certain distinguished people who use this medium from genuine inspiration because it best embodies the soul of their thought. But, on the other hand, there is a very large number who make the fatal pause, and the mechanical act of writing is allowed to set the brain in motion which should only be accessible to a higher inspiration."
Haha, is she saying there were too many hack essayists in her day? Also, what does she mean by "fatal pause"? Does she mean when the mind stops being inspired, or was there a different definition of the word back then?
Self published fiction is a thriving market category! We ready plenty of it! If i want to read a space opera or a legal thriller, im likely going to read someones sdlf pub kindle novel.
What yoy seem to be wondering is why don't we read self published literary fiction. And the reason is that we do, but we just don't know it. Lots of literary fiction comes out from micro presses so small it might as well be self published. The novel you wrote about earlier, I'm a Fan, is a good example. It came out from Rough Trade Books, which is I believe a tiny publishing imprint put out by a London record store.
Oh, interesting fact you just taught me about I'm A Fan. That's encouraging!
It's not even exactly self-published literary fiction I want, if "literary fiction" is defined as finely crafted and erudite literature. I'd just love for there to be a good wellspring of decently written and conversation-starting fiction about the aspects everyday contemporary life, including entire population demographics, that mainstream published fiction ignores.
Thanks for the shoutout!
I think the idea of hobbies as status-signaling-driven leisure activities is a model that absolutely applies to literary fiction, simply because in a televisual era it's become an "elite wordcel"-coded activity (YA decidedly "doesn't count" in this framing). If you look at the value in the "event" of a reading, a chunk of that lies in the value of "being the type of person who goes to readings." That's, of course, not the *only* motivation, but it's a part of it, some % of the time.
Also - I generally enjoyed Roupenian's short story collection, but the other stories didn't really match up to Cat Person, which was just very well crafted.
Yeah, I should read Roupenian's short story collection. I'd also venture to guess that most people who go to readings don't write, or even read that much, but instead are seeking vaguely artsy people who have at least some social skills (and, extra bonus, are hot).
The main self published books I've read are titles for Kindle Unlimited, which is made up primarily of romance subgenres that arent popular among mainstream romance readers like monster or dark romance. They have horror but it's harder to find/not as popular as romance.
I dont actually read literary novels. I made a point to try and read Tar Baby and Native Son for BHM but I am also reading The Passage which is 36 hours long as an audiobook.
I also saw Tale of Two Cities, the musical, and decided to try the book and found it very accessible. Same with Jane Austen (whose works are also adapted as stage plays). I read 1984 over a decade ago on my own and loved it, but I think that's more speculative than literary.
I dont have any friends who read. The only I know who read regularly are people like you, strangers online. And even I myself average about 30 books a year, most of it manga or shorter novels.
I do think people who read exclusively literary books are way fancier than everyone else though. I think you would have to really want to read a book to endure someone's boring inner thoughts. Like, I literally had no idea who Sally Rooney was until someone I followed on Twitter wrote a piece about her several years ago.
Just give me zombies or dragons! #PeasantLife
But people's inner thoughts aren't boring! I'd love it if more literary fiction said that we truly think. The problem is that they don't and they're heavily filtered to please carefully filtered artistic tastes.
What would be the difference between something like twitter and what you're envisioning? I remember when Lizzo was openly lusting after Chris Evans on her socials and it was very cringe-y! Do you mean something awful like this!?
Or do you feel that people have worthwhile opinions or ideas that cant see the light of day because they're politically incorrect?
Would be remiss not to mention the novel John Pistelli is almost finished serializing over at Grand Hotel Abyss https://open.substack.com/pub/grandhotelabyss/p/major-arcana-prologue?r=qowxp&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I think this format plays to Substack's strengths, and hope to see more of it.
I don't know if the "prestige gap" between fiction and nonfiction is inherent, but there's one factor in why the former doesn't take hold on Substack in particular. If I like one of your essays, or even if I dislike it, I can go to the comments section and have a back-and-forth with you (or at the very least, the illusion of a back-and-forth with you). It's difficult to imagine such a conversation happening in the comments of a serially published novel - and more to the point, would you *want* to read a novel by a person who goes online and debates with randos about the themes and ideas of their work?
(This might also be why "new adult" fiction has really taken off, while more literary stuff has fallen by the wayside - why would you make a novel of ideas when you could just blog your thoughts and insert them into the zeitgeist that way?)
Right, serialized fiction that's too responsive to audience feedback would jump the shark very quickly. This happens in TV a lot, as I'm sure you know!
This back-and-forth in the comments of a serially published novel is, I think, the blood pumping through the veins of Wattpad. This kind of fiction is highly sought out by teens. It's also mostly crap, proving your point that this is not the kind of stuff you'd want to read. ツ
I feel like fanfic is an easy punching bag for this sort of thing, which is why I wasn't calling it out by name. (But yes, obviously Sturgeon's Law is ESPECIALLY true somewhere like Wattpad or AO3.) But yeah, serialization in general seems to result in audience capture, even historically - allegedly Dickens changed the ending of Great Expectations at the request of Edward Bulwer-Lytton (a.k.a. the "it was a dark and stormy night" guy - an understatement of his contemporary influence, I'm told, but that's all he's known for today) who really wanted Pip and Estella to get together. The original shipper! :P
I was thinking more, in the context of "literary" fiction, that you really *want* opacity of authorial intent, and a comment section under every chapter where readers can share what they think the work's themes are would strongly reduce that.
That's a fantastic anecdote!
Check out Justin Smith-Ruiu’s substack for good fiction. He’s doing interesting stuff, and what’s great about some of his pieces is that you might not realize it’s fiction until you get halfway through and things start to get weird.
About self-published fiction, my personal reason I don’t really read it is that there’s so much good published stuff out there. I’m not talking about contemporary novels, but anything published in the last couple hundred years. I read Jane Eyre for the first time over the summer. I just picked up a Thomas Bernhard novel for the first time and it’s incredible. I know I’m gonna have to go read some of his other books after. I want to read W.G. Sebald but never have. The list goes on.
Also, just saw Metropolitan last month. I laughed out loud when Tom said he’d never read Jane Austen. Reminded me of that SBF quote that was doing the rounds for a while. Shame about the U.H.B.s
Yeah, there IS a lot of really good published fiction that we'll never get around to reading. But I'm thinking self-published fiction mostly consists of shorter stuff, like short stories or novellas. Commute-friendly pieces. And they wouldn't compete with longer published fiction, kind of like how my Substack reading doesn't intrude on my novel reading. Or maybe it's all a zero-sum game.
I guess one question is: how do you even find self published fiction? I don’t know, I’ve never really looked. As far as I can tell, substack is probably the best place for it, especially the shorter type that you describe. Kind of like a serialized novel, to use an example of a publishing style that was common in the past but no longer is.
Just coincidentally, I stumbled upon this Note just now: https://substack.com/@joshtatter/note/c-49456612
I'll check out Justin's Substack! Thanks for the rec.
Is there an online literary magazine with clout that culls these pieces? If not perhaps there should be one? Perhaps you? Like an HTML Giant but for self-published fiction that is worth checking out so you can see their future work.
Some friends and I've talked about starting our own thing, but we want to establish ourselves a bit more first.
Exciting
1. Tom's comment is perfect for this anxious age, an age in which results matter and in fact, results are all that matter, an age in which the only questions asked are "does it work?" and "can I make a buck off of it?" Why bother to read the novel if the Cliff Notes are good enough to get you that coveted A.
I spend a lot of time trying to figure out "what exactly is good art", anyway?
2. "I once read about how, as an experiment, a world-famous violinist busked in a subway station. People would’ve paid hundreds of dollars to see him play at Carnegie Hall, and there he was, giving a free concert. And nobody cared."
The violinist was Joshua Bell. And the people that did stop and listen were kids on their way to school. Some overly starry-eyed yutz said that this is why We Must Put Our Have Faith In The Children. The Children Know.
Bull.
The reason the kids stopped and listened is that listening let them delay their arrival at school. It could be Joshua Bell at his most sublime or a wino farting into a traffic cone and they wouldn't care, as long as it kept them out of school for an extra minute or two.
And yes, much of the classical music audience is seeking social approval, or even internal approval "I am a member of the cultured classes!"
We should all mourn the death of the U.H.B. A very misunderstood and underrated class.
U.H.B??
Oh, I thought you'd watched Metropolitan, haha. "Urban Haute Bourgeoisie." It's a joke from the film.
You'd be amazed how many movies I have never seen.
While fiction might be untrue in some biographical or historical sense (eg Anna Karenina was never a biological person), good fiction uses these untruths to explore something that is more enduringly true. This might partially explain the aversion to fiction that hasn't been validated by an authority figure (a critic, a publishing house, etc). While a piece of non-fiction will be fairly easy to evaluate as true/untrue or good/bad, fiction usually reveals itself as good or bad after being completely read and considered, often for weeks, months or years. For some, finishing a ~100,000 word novel is too much of a time investment; this is where critical validation comes in. If a source of authority says that a particular novel is worth spending time with, and that a reader will benefit in some concrete way, then the fear of wasting time is alleviated. A reader still benefits, even if they didn't like the book - they know that they've interacted with a valuable message.
Encountering beauty is a more immediate way of assessing the value of literature, but one that is frequently underappreciated, not conferring the same utilitarian 'benefit' as non-fiction.
Another aspect of this that’s always baffled me: In the ‘90s the coolest thing a band could do is make their own label. Self-publishing music is punk and cool and DIY. Self publishing fiction is the opposite. I never understood why.
I mostly disagree with you. I'm sure there are people out there who read (or watch, or listen) things as if it was a marathon to be proud having achieved, but I suspect they are not many. Who would they be? Impostors trying to get into a society where they inherently do not belong?
I disagree that quality cannot be discerned. It has not been my experience, anyway. When I open up an esteemed book its job is harder as my expectations are greater. With classics I more often than not found myself surprised: they were great precisely for those unexpected qualities. But I also experienced pleasure when I did not know the authors were somebodies. I picked up Kazuo Ishiguro's debut in my high-school library, then his second (and last available at the library) novel, not having ever heard his name before, nor hearing it again until some twenty years later. Why did I pick it up? Perhaps it was the cover, perhaps it was its Japanese element to which I had an attraction at the time. It's not why I liked it; the very first novel I willingly chose to pick up to read had a similar appeal, yet, despite being the first, I could tell it was not good (the author doesn't have a Wikipedia page even, I think it means something). The reason I picked up Ishiguro's second was because I liked the first.
It was a professor around the same time who recommended me Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. I enjoyed it so much that I did not only recommend it to my then best friend, but checked it out the library for him. I started to read it again on my way home on foot, as if to check that nothing had happened to its lustre in the meantime, but was unable to stop until I finished it a second time. Also Mario Vargas Llosa was not a Nobel prize winner yet. Still, when I recommended the book to another friend —best friend in another time and place— he didn't like it. There's some taste involved; art's "goodness" is not an objective measure.
On the other hand, mere acclaim was not enough. I found your mentioning of Leaves of Grass comical: I didn't like it. If it was longer I probably wouldn't even have finished it.
And I think this goes for music for the non-musician, too. You might not be able to tell that "X is a great violinist," but you would probably tend to pick up music by good musicians over bad musicians — per definition? Not because you have something to prove, but because you want to enjoy yourself. I too heard the one about the Carnegie Hall musician in the subway, and I too felt a rebellious mirth until I realized that it proved nothing except that people in the subway are on their way somewhere, often an appointment they are in a hurry to meet. Subways are not the nicest places to hang out at. People would also feel duped if they paid hundreds of dollars to listen to a concert in a low-ceiling tile-covered tunnel, unless it was to listen to Mozart who had been resurrected from the dead.
Still, I agree there's a social component, though I don't think it's about status. It's nice to meet a stranger who appreciates a piece of work that you have had. It usually means something, too. That matter of taste. And the less popular the work the more it signifies. Not because the masses are stupid but because, however slightly, it suggests that that person might appreciate other things you have had (we don't pick what to read or watch at random) and otherwise share your worldview.
"You’re reading to be able to tell others you’ve read a certain book or author" -> yes, but again not because of "StAtUs". On an instinctual level you might be overjoyed (if you indeed sincerely enjoyed the work), but in addition fiction enriches your language, and you need two to tango (and to hold a conversation). I don't mean that it enriches it through exposure to beautiful prose (but this, too: non-fiction teaches us concrete stuff about the world, and well written narrative teaches us how to tell stories, how to communicate. I mean it.), but by providing a reference. You could describe your situation as Kafkaesque, warn about Orwellian dangers, call somebody Romeo and so on, which you wouldn't be able to do if all the corresponding works did not exist or were not read.
As for self-publishing, I rather doubt that self presenting as a fiction writer would attract a more negative reaction. If you met somebody at a cocktail party who told you they wrote essays, would you necessary think their writing was more so worth checking out than had it been fiction? Or if they were composers or even merely piano players, that their music was worth a listen? That more non-fiction is read online (and offline) than fiction has first of all to do, I think, with the fact that more non-fiction is written. You'd have to actively search for fiction to find it on Substack (I think even under the "fiction" category most posts are about fiction than fiction itself). It's not like we are inundated in fiction and have to home ourselves to non-fiction. And I think it's not only that most self-published fiction is crap, but most published fiction is crap, too. Most English 18th century writers were not Jane Austin, we have just forgotten about the rest. And the same goes for other art forms, movies included. But, really, I think that even if good fiction is harder to write (perhaps precisely because it's about the not real), most non-fiction is crappy too. There's just much more of it, so you can find something worth your time and attention.