Comments on: Why Must the Novel Be Boring?

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:51:41 +0000

FWIW, i read this post just after finishing Half of a Yellow Sun and 2066, which made for an interesting back-to-back reading experience. i ripped through Yellow Sun not just because it was shorter, but because it has a great what-happens-next plot. 2066 was more of a slog because it was so fragmented. on the other hand, the characters in Yellow Sun felt at times like they were in service to the plot, like they were doing things that didn’t feel true but had to happen because of the plot. which reminds me again of the rationale for the modernist experiment: not avoiding plot simply because plot is bad, but in order to find a more true way of telling a story.

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By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:35:13 +0000

Agree with how we are trained to accept on realism as literary, whether by outside influences or the way it permeates our thought process subconciously. It was a little of both when I left college, foolishly torn over the wealth of realistic fiction I had read there, and the fantasy novels that mainly made up my pre-college reading life. How could I do write with both clashing in mind? Then I found writers that do melding writing perfectly well. Gave me confidence and hope.

By: koreanish

koreanish — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:10:17 +0000

George, I’m not saying all non-genre fiction is boring and I hope you didn’t read that and think I did. I am saying that much literary fiction has neglected story for style, to its detriment. And I think practitioners of literary fiction—and teachers of it—see this. My friends and I all year have been talking about the possibilities of cross-genre experimentation.

I’m not asking for style to be abandoned. I couldn’t bear it. As a writer who’s known in large part for his strength as a stylist, that is most certainly not the argument I’m making.

Because otherwise, books would all be like Ender’s Game: http://koreanish.com/2008/01/21/reading-enders-game/

By: George LaCas

George LaCas — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:37:34 +0000

I can’t say I’ve read any YA – at least not since I was a YA – and I disagree that non-genre fiction is “boring.” Difficult does not equal boring, and it begs the question: “Why read in the first place?” If easy-to-read genre fiction is the only thing that will satisfy, why not simply watch TV, go see a movie, or smoke a joint?

However, as a writer and a reader, I do agree very much that story is important, and that much modern literary fiction either lacks it, or tells very … well, boring stories.

As a writer, I’m doing what I can to change this: plot must no longer be anathema to the storyteller.

At the same time, I believe it’s still important to embrace literary fiction, even in its more difficult forms. Style, while difficult, can be beautiful.

By: Sarah Sarai

Sarah Sarai — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:15:41 +0000

What you’re describing — the attempt to write like Gertrude Stein when the writer simply is not and never could be Gertrude Stein — has analogs everywhere. How many East Village hipsters with tattos on their necks — and who work in I.T. divisions of large corporations by day — have punk, etc., pretenses. But they are not necessarily pretenders; more, they are honest fans. And the MFA students (and other writers) who try to mimic Stein or anyone else are, at their best, honest fans. An honest fan does not make an honest writer. We are forced to be fans in our culture. For there to be an American Idol, there have to be American Fans. I’m thinking with my fingers and will continue to do so, here or on my blog (who knows) ( (-:) ).

As for YA novels, I’ve made a point of crusing that section periodically throughout my life. A good YA novel is imaginative or just helps heal and reaheal the eternal scars of youth.

…Sarah

By: Maria

Maria — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:04:20 +0000

It is unnecessary to say once more what a great post that was. You can tell by the response of much more literary people than I am. As a reader, this post made me feel less guilty for a few adult literary books I’ve put aside and never finished reading. I like reading very much, but being a tired, sleepless mother of a young child, books have to achieve one thing first: keep me awake! Therefor a good plot, catastrophe included, is for me the most important thing right now. Do we “degrade” books to the level of films when we give plot such a high importance? Yes, why not? There are surely excellent films that have moved the hearts of excellent authors for good reasons! Of course a good plot is still just the building. What about the characters living inside?
Ms Gibson’s comment was also appealing to me. It made me think of clothes! Some of us the older we get the more we chose clothes, very elegant and expensive perhaps, that hide our curves and aging bodies. Some authors dress their characters’ feelings with words in the same manner. I suppose though, that many of us still want to feel the curves and touch the feelings!

By: Tanya Egan Gibson

Tanya Egan Gibson — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 02:11:39 +0000

Great post — I’ve been thinking about it since I read it yesterday. I agree with so much of what you wrote about how books don’t need to be “painful” and that fun should be had. I agree, too, about the importance of telling a story.

But as someone who unabashedly reads both YA fiction and adult literary fiction, I don’t think that an emphasis on plot/storytelling is the only major difference between the two. For me the major difference is the emphasis YA fiction puts on emotion. Bold, baldfaced emotion. Not emotion that smirks or apologizes for itself or hides behind irony.

I certainly don’t mean to imply that all literary fiction privileges the cerebral over the emotional. But a lot of it does. I get tired of reading things that are too cool for their own good. For me, they smack of a sort of cowardice, the writer afraid to be human.

In YA fiction, I read about unrequited love. The pain of not fitting in. The fear of being alone. The dread of not knowing who you are. It is the heat of these emotions, rather than an emphasis on plot, that keep me riveted, that keep the pages turning, because it’s my heart–rather than my head–that keeps me connected to a text.

By: koreanish

koreanish — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:24:33 +0000

I think Murakami is unafraid of plot and also unafraid of things that might scare off Americans who are trained to believe only realism is literary—like ghosts, mysterious vanishings, magical stones, magical forests, etc. In the US, if he was American, he’d be brow-beaten into obscurity for avoiding writing about identity or for being a science fiction writer with not enough lasers. But we accept from foreign authors what we don’t from our own, for some reason, or we haven’t, until recently.

By: koreanish

koreanish — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:22:11 +0000

Thanks, Laura and Marie.