A Reader's Manifesto by B.R. Myers

[Toby Frost]

I wondered if anyone had read this book, which was first published in 2002. It comes out of an article in The Atlantic, in which B.R. Myers, a professor in Korean history, launched an attack on modern American literary fiction. The authors he savaged included Annie Proulx, Cormac McCarthy and Don Delillo.

Myers attacks modern literary fiction from a number of angles, but his main thrust is that it has become pretentious and false, full of pseudo-poetry and lacking real weight or meaning. Authors are, he suggests, unworthily "talked up" by reviewers and popular commentators like Oprah Winfrey. He has a particular hatred, it seems, of books that comment on consumerism.

I've not read all of the books that Myers attacks, but I take his point. If literary fiction, which is much more about language than plot, isn't written well, what is the point to it? It may be that Myers cherry-picks the examples that he quotes, but some of them are pretty poor.

Anyway, I'd be interested to know if anyone else has read this and what they made of it. Here's a link to the Atlantic article.

A Reader's Manifesto

 

[Vladd67]

it's as if a team of hotel chefs were getting excited about their assortment of cabbages.

Hasn't this more or less come to pass?

 

[hitmouse]

It is an amusing polemic. Like any good polemic it sets itself up for dispute in the interests of debate, in part by taking a position and overstating it.
I have some sympathy with some of his points. I find Dellilo turgid and tedious. Cormac McCarthy, on the other hand, is a wonderful read.

 

[Toby Frost]

Re-reading it reminds me of what I felt when I first read Orwell, but much less strong: the sense that here is someone, rightly or wrongly, who doesn't agree with the consensus of educated minds and is offering another way. I think Myers has some strong points - none of the writing he selects appeals to me personally - but each to their own. For instance, I enjoyed The Road while I read it, but I reckon that it would have been a better book without the King James Bible language and the French quotation marks (but then it would have been a genre novel and we can't have that).

At several points, Myers recommends older books in place of the new ones he dislikes. What I find interesting about this is his claim that they have more to say about the human condition than the books he attacks. I've known several people who have spent their time reading Cabin Crew Confessions for most of the year and occasionally forced themselves through an Ian Mcewan novel, on the grounds that it would be improving. I really ought to look up some of the books Myers mentions: they sound enjoyable.

 

[hitmouse]

Re-reading it reminds me of what I felt when I first read Orwell, but much less strong: the sense that here is someone, rightly or wrongly, who doesn't agree with the consensus of educated minds and is offering another way. I think Myers has some strong points - none of the writing he selects appeals to me personally - but each to their own. For instance, I enjoyed The Road while I read it, but I reckon that it would have been a better book without the King James Bible language and the French quotation marks (but then it would have been a genre novel and we can't have that).

At several points, Myers recommends older books in place of the new ones he dislikes. What I find interesting about this is his claim that they have more to say about the human condition than the books he attacks. I've known several people who have spent their time reading Cabin Crew Confessions for most of the year and occasionally forced themselves through an Ian Mcewan novel, on the grounds that it would be improving. I really ought to look up some of the books Myers mentions: they sound enjoyable.

Re: Cormac McCarthy. Have you tried Blood Meridien, or All the Pretty Horses? More interesting than The Road imho.

 

[Vince W]

Myers attacks modern literary fiction from a number of angles, but his main thrust is that it has become pretentious and false, full of pseudo-poetry and lacking real weight or meaning. Authors are, he suggests, unworthily "talked up" by reviewers and popular commentators like Oprah Winfrey. He has a particular hatred, it seems, of books that comment on consumerism.

A Reader's Manifesto

I have to agree with him on that point. I got into a terrible row with a friend's wife who though Oprah Winfrey was the source of all knowledge. She praised her on getting so many people to read these books she recommended. My friend's wife had purchased a good many of them herself.

I said she got people to buy these books based on her branding them, but I asked her how many she and her friends had actually read. Let's say things have been extremely cool between us since.

 

[Bick]

Many thanks for posting this Toby, I found it a very enjoyable read - not least because Myers eloquently writes what I have felt myself (in an unfocused way) for some time.

You'll perhaps have noted that my own reading of 'literary' fiction is mostly from older eras (Balzac, Dickens, Hardy, Walpole, Waugh, Orwell, Maugham, etc.). I read almost no modern literature that wins awards or is highly praised by the likes of the Booker Prize judges, as I've found over the years that most of it is overwritten, light on plot and bores me. I don't think Myers mentioned Richard Ford, but his book Independence Day was pretty boring stuff and a good further exemplar. I forced my way through it, but it really was turgid and unexciting. It won countless awards of course. This book was one of the reasons I started viewing modern award winners with caution.

The funny thing is, that while I agree with the central arguments Myers puts forward and I can cringe at his examples, two books he slams I did actually enjoy: I liked Proulx's Shipping News, and McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. This seems to counter my agreement with the article, but I think it probably just means I would pick different examples to support the same arguments he makes (and perhaps I missed some of the bad writing he referred to in those). In point of fact, Cormac's 'alternative' style of prose works quite well I think in Pretty Horses (and has some superb prose I think), but becomes more difficult in its sequel The Crossing, which did I struggle with. I never read the third book. Had I picked up The Crossing first I would have probably given up on it, as it seemed to put style before substance and was frankly a bit boring. The Road was better though I felt. For a western, you're much better off with Guthrie or McMurtry.

There are some very good non-genre authors writing now who don't get the accolades of the finest of the pretentious lot Myers complains about. Richard Russo is one - his hallmark is unaffected, direct and enjoyable storytelling - doubtless the reason he hasn't won more awards.

I also like Myers last point - there's no reason to read the latest books particularly other than for their newness. If I read every day for the rest of my days I won't get through a small percentage of the great novels that predate 1970 (a date I cite as this is perhaps approximately when purple prose started to be lauded). Why bother reading the latest clever-clogs rubbish? Because it's new? The fact it's new doesn't mean it has any greater relevance to our lives today. Better perspective on the human condition get can gleaned from Balzac's Old Goriot, or Maugham's short stories than many a modern award winner.

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm glad you liked it. For me, the article is as much about raising the point and saying something outside the received wisdom than it is for any particular observation (although some of them feel pretty well-observed).

I've been wary of modern literary fiction for a while, for a couple of reasons: first, a lot of what we call "literary" now wasn't written as such and, second, it's untested. If I read, say, White Teeth in fifty years, would I get anything out of it? I'm not sure, but for me that is one of the tests of greatness. It has to speak to later generations. In 2017, we know that the Martians from The War of the Worlds wouldn't stand a chance in a fight, but the terror and chaos that Wells evokes makes it one of the classics of the genre.

Re Cormac McCarthy: I've heard very good things of Blood Meridien, but I'm wary. Looking back on The Road, I find it hard to say that it's any deeper an experience than reading The Day of the Triffids or even playing the computer game The Last of Us, which cover similar territory. It's just harder work. That said, I probably ought to give it a try. The French style quotation marks are a pet hate of mine and it's unfair for me to mark it down over that.

One particular stylistic thing Myers mentions sticks out for me: the idea of throwing metaphors at an image until it vaguely takes shape. I think it's Proulx he attacks for this, but it's an easy thing to do instead of thinking "What is this really like?"

 

[HareBrain]

I'd second the recommendation of All the Pretty Horses. For me it's the perfect marriage of experimental (to an extent) style, subject, and an interesting plot. Like Bick, I struggled with The Crossing, and didn't get very far, but Pretty Horses has stayed with me since.

 

[Extollager]

I thought No Country for Old Men was a nifty pulp thriller, not necessarily much more than that. I liked some of the lawman's musings. I've read that one twice, but in a library copy; it wasn't something I needed to own. The Road riveted me pretty well and, when a free copy came my way, I kept it. Blood Meridian seemed ridiculously over the top to me, as I recall, and I didn't finish it.

 

[Randy M.]

Blood Meridian is over-the-top and I think was meant to be so.

This argument reminds me of articles I read by Edmund Wilson -- the great genre reader's boogie man -- condemning the "beautiful" writing of Josef Hergeshimer (think that's the right name) and James Branch Cabell. If anyone's interested, the articles are in Classics & Commercials, along with harsh articles on the mystery genre, LOTR, and H. P. Lovecraft. (He liked Sherlock Holmes and The Hobbit, though.)

I don't entirely disagree with the argument, though. As I read American fiction, my interest begins to curdle right around 1950, when the older guard like Faulkner and Hemingway are fading (Fitzgerald already dead) and Styrons and Mailers, Cheevers and Updikes are taking over.

Randy M.