Leonce Gaiter: People Read What They Know

27/08/05 17:09

I have read to enter other worlds. To enter other peoples' heads. The writers that most influenced me were those who most decidedly and deliciously showed me the insides of their heads--the way they viewed the world--with what dread or mirth or contempt they saw this life. They were Faulkner, Pynchon and Robertson Davies. Their worlds bore little resemblance to the one in which I lived. But that didn't matter. That was all to the good. It was what made them so thrillingly entertaining.

But it doesn't seem to work like that now. People read about others who live on blocks just like theirs, who are single like them, or have marriages or kids with problems just like theirs. They read about people who buy clothes from the same designers they do, who drink the same drinks and sup at the same restaurants.

If writers dare delve into the past or into another world, they are rewarded not for creativity, uniqueness, not for vision... but for research. I'm supposed to be impressed that the writer discovered exactly what restaurant stood on what corner in what city in 1912. Make it up, for God's sake. I don't give a rat's ass! Even in evoking other worlds, "serious" writers are now bound to this one.

It's no wonder there's an explosion in fantasy and science fiction. It's the one respite from this desperate literary solipsism that the MFA programs seem to instill these days. And no wonder. It makes writing a paint-by-numbers excercise. "Come on, y'all. Anyone can do it!" Most importantly, though, it makes writing an imminently teachable exercise. Anyone can do it, as long as they are properly instructed to follow pre-defined character arcs and do their research by the scores of writers who make their livings by teaching aspiring writers how to write.

So next time you're reading a glowingly reviewed "literary" novel with a scowl on your face because you can't believe the reviewers were engaged or entertained by the cripplingly dull piece of shit that's invading your lap, remember that too often, you're no longer reading what a writer could envision, imagine, elucidate. Instead, you're reading what a teacher could teach.

I believe that books have lost their hold on the popular imagination because they became echo chamber conversations between academics and their spawn. And in this chamber, the status quo rules. Academia hates nothing like change. The more predictable the fictions, the more ensconced is academia. From agents, to editors to writers to reviewers--we are all her stunted, crippled children.

New worlds, ladies and gentlemen. Show me people I don't know, places distorted beyond recognition by the prisms of your minds. Do not preach to me. If you're writing because, "I wanted to show how love conquers all," or "Racial prejudice is complex," then take your laptop and please beat yourself to death with it before you use it to write anything. Who are you? God? You have nothing to teach me. One of the great truisms was always "write for your best audience." Assume I know more than you do. Assume I have lived and inhabited your theme more thoroughly than you have -- now what do you have to say? If the answer is "nothing," don't write. You are not a writer.

I don't read books as chores to garner cultural merit badges. Reading is entertainment. It's Ann Miller tapping, Duke Ellington swinging, a vaudevillian selling a song. Faulkner, Pynchon and Robertson Davies--they knew this.

Entertain me.