In today’s Guardian Books section there is a thought-provoking piece by John Lucas on narrative, story and the obsession with plot in our book club culture. It’s a fascinating read. The essential point is that:
“Films won and books lost. That’s the story of the 20th century – the story of where the stories went,” Toby Litt observes. An emphasis on strong plot and the rejection of fiction‘s digressive powers seems to be the order of the day. We just don’t do longueurs anymore. The Richard and Judy culture of book clubs, while laudable in itself, demands strongly-plotted novels with likeable characters as fodder.
Is this really true? Is so, what does this portend for literature?
It seems our digression as a culture, the immediacy of the internet and the instant gratification of modern entertainment has molded us into impatient little media consumers seeking nice, neat action-packed packages.
We want our entertainment pre-chewed.
Is this such a bad thing? Of course it is. I am floored by the notion that William Gaddis might not get published today. I’ve read Gaddis. He’s long-winded and complex, but brilliant and the reward of reading complex fiction are the profound, life-altering and illuminating moments that arrive in a great book and hit your squarely over the head.
Even when I write, I’ve noticed I obsess over action. I think in terms of holding one’s attention, in essence, begging for loyalty. Deep down, I think that my true fear is that they might just click the story off, flip the channel to where the chase scenes are happening.
An arresting story is important. So it capturing someone’s attention. But great literature, a strong narrative is, and should be, like a symphony where one finds crescendos and calmandos that hopefully give way to an unforgettable coda. Now that is an exciting thought.
Great literature is something we experience. In reading with live with the characters, mull them over, merge with the narrative and often miss the characters and the world we invested so many hours in when we’re through. But we never really leave a great novel do we. It stays with us, transforms and shapes us and feeds our soul.
Yet, Lucas wonders:
I often wonder if relentless focus on plot is edging something of value out of our literary culture. Creative writing students are frequently told to “show not tell”, to “get into the scene early”, and make sure their characters are never without motivation. All great advice, except it doesn’t really reflect the way life is.
I wonder, too. Again, this is a reflection, is it not, of our culture. A culture that has little patience for anything too challenging. Give us easy! Give us the Cliff Notes version of life, or art, or story. The hell with reflection. Give us action!
So, can a writer get published anymore without going for the tightly cropped, lean, plot driven story? Should we write like we’re writing for the screen? Should the modern novel succumb to the hollywood ending?
If that’s the case, why even write?
A thought-provoking piece.
It would be interesting to look at the how, if at all, the market for more complex literary fiction has changed over the last 100 years. I don’t think that literary novels have ever consistently outsold romance novels or mysteries, for example. I also wonder how this would correlate with education statistics, considering that more Americans are probably more college-educated now than ever.
Also, another thing to consider is that movies might get edged out by television serials. Shows that last for four to seven years with great writing and acting are able to explore plot digressions, develop characters, and evolve main plots over long periods of time. Though I still love movies, I’ve overall been more excited about television than movies for some time now. You generally just don’t get the same attachment to characters – don’t go through as much with them – as in movies. The downside to television is that it’s hard to avoid plot holes when you can’t go back and revise the first season when you’ve figured out a better place to take the show in Season 3.
Anyway, there must be a market for literary novels because there’s a market for people reviewing literary novels (at least so far as I can tell based on my subscriptions to Harper’s and the New Yorker). Or do people just like to pretend that they are reading these books, and the critics contribute to the fantasy?
I do know that lots of films that don’t fit the “action-packed” model garner loads of attention each year, and there is therefore a market for at least a handful of film types. That said, it may not be so much that the Hollywood Summer Blockbuster has taken over American sensibilities so much as it is itself a correlative symptom of a greater cultural disease. A disease to which the sensibilities of the literary novel have had to constantly build new forms of immunity in order to survive.
On a related note, I think we are at a point where a lot of “genre” fiction should be given a more respectful status within the culture. “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson comes to mind, which does the same sorts of things literary novels do that can’t be translated easily to the big screen. Maybe if the literary world can adopt a model of “good books” and “bad books” instead of “literature” and “genre,” the book industry would do better.
-Dan
Good point about genre fiction. Sometimes genres like Sci-Fi and Mystery are almost seen as throw away categories, but great writing happens, even though sometimes it takes a bit of work to separate the wheat from the chaff. Yet, when one does so, the rewards are great.
I guess whatever makes you happy as a reader?
Regarding movies, there are great stories being told. I feel that this chat, Dan, kind of brings us back to Robert McKee again in talking of telling a great story. A great story, whether told in a film, a book or ever, dare I say it, a graphic novel a la Alan Moore, is a great story.
Literature seems a better vehicle because it affords a depth of insight hard-pressed to be meted out in film. Then again, you mention TV. The character development, when handled beautifully, can reach the levels of depth of a novel, maybe minus the inner perspective?
Still, great literature seizes you in a unique way. The reader is by design a participant in the creation of the universe which unfolds on each page, adding detail, giving shape and makeing imaginative leaps of faith that in part make the book , the characters and the journey one’s own.
I would like to explore graphic novels more. I love the idea of it, and have greatly enjoyed the work of Moore and Neil Gaiman (read a couple of his novels as well), and some others. I’ve gotten behind, but for a good while there I kept up with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel comics after those shows went off the air. They picked up where the shows left off. Angel is especially good. It’s essentially the fantasy genre, but I think fantastical material (which Gaiman also trades in) can tell us a lot about the human experience when it’s done right, such as when the various layers of storytelling resources can work simultaneously at face value and as potent metaphors that underscore generally subtle aspects of human experience. I think mythology and some facets of religion work this way as well at their most effective.
The idea of narrative is really interesting to me in other media aside from writing as well, such as visual art and music, and even philosophy, which have each responded to the post-structuralist/deconstructionist/postmodernist perspectives in different ways.
It seems that with some media, if the artist doesn’t tell a story, the experiencer will put one there (I think this happens a lot with song lyrics, too). With film, I’m not sure how far removed a filmmaker can get from telling a story before the audience simply has to say, “there’s no story here.” In other words, I don’t think a viewer can create a story for a plotless film (or novel either, perhaps) in the way that a viewer can create a story for a photograph or painting, which can be seen as representing an essential moment in a greater narrative.
On the other hand, I’m not sure all viewers want plots to be totally spelled out either. Maybe there’s something to the idea that, with the best films, the viewer and filmmakers are collaborating as storytellers, to create something that particular viewer can really relate to, even if the subject matter is completely foreign to the viewer.