Don't Quote Me on This

[Dana King]

(Cross posted on One Bite at a Time.)

As Lionel Shriver notes in the Wall Street Journal, "Literature is not very popular these days. Anyone who writes literary fiction is happy to tell you it's a bitch to get literary fiction published. The reason it's a bitch is because much of it doesn't sell, and, in fairness to publishers, there's only so altruistic even the most high-minded editor can afford to be before they start turning out the lights and repossessing office furniture.

There are several reasons for this lack of sales potential. It's most often laid at the feet of the unwashed masses who refuse to look beyond American Idol and 24 for entertainment, and who think enlightenment is what happens when the sun comes up. This is, not surprisingly, the literary community's preferred view. Ignored is that community's tendency to turn its collective nose up at any novel that dares to become too popular. The pathology of this condition can easily be guessed at, and could keep a trained psychologist busy for several thousand words.

A key reason for this relegation of literary fiction to the fringes of public consciousness may be that literary writers seem less interested every year in writing for the public they would have buy their books. Please feel free to comment below and call me a block headed, undereducated dilettante, but the literary fiction of the past few decades seems more interested in receiving good reviews from Michiko Kakutani and authors' acknowledged peers than in actually being read. Story is passé; the sentence beautiful is all that matters. ("The sentence beautiful" can alternate with "the sentence indecipherable" to weed out lowbrows as necessary.)

Shriver picks up on this in his discussion of quotation marks. The timing is fortuitous for me, as I recently waded my way through the bramble-laden thickets of arcane prose Cormac McCarthy titled Blood Meridian. Like No Country for Old Men as cited by Shriver, Blood Meridian uses no quotation marks. It's up to you to figure out who is speaking, or if anyone is speaking at all. Given the weight of McCarthy's prose—much of which is, admittedly, beautiful in its nihilistic way—this can be a burden.

I read somewhere that a writer's first responsibility is to give the reader a fighting chance. (That's a paraphrase; I’d cite it properly if I could find it.) Conventional rules of punctuation evolved to do just that. Readers expect it, and use those little non-spoken marks to know where to pause, how long to pause, organize thoughts, and not insignificantly, who is speaking. And when. Readers see those marks and the mind responds accordingly. When missing, the reader's attention is diverted from the story while he figures out what's going on. Writers trifle with this at their peril.

Some may argue that readers fully equipped to appreciate McCarthy or others who dispense with quotation marks will have no trouble navigating the literary landscape without so many signs to clutter the scenery. To borrow the quote from Julie Myerson, "In my experience of the world, there are no marks separating out what I think and what I say, or what other people do." I don't have any trouble separating what I think from what I say, either, because I'm there when it happens. Leaving out quotations marks, or any other accepted punctuation, places the reader in a position where he must read the author's mind to know what’s going on.

Classical music has gone through the same evolution. Orchestras audiences are still primarily attracted to what’s referred to as the “standard repertoire.” Twentieth Century composers became increasingly less interested in appealing to the public than to the critics and other composers who might be able to adequately “understand” the depth and breadth of their musical vision. That’s their privilege, just as it’s okay for a writer to use, not use, or alter the meaning of punctuation—even words—if he wants to. Just don't be surprised when the lines don’t form at your signings.

[Dana King]

DR,
Good point about the indie film producers. Impenetrability does not denote quality in any art form. That's not to say things should be superficial, just that there's a point where the intended audience may become small enough to minimize the message.

John,
I wondered that myself. I wonder what literary fiction becomes when it transcends itself. I love irony.

IJ,
I think we're on the same page. You have an attitude healthy enough to understand why some may not buy your books as a matter of personal taste, to which all writers are subject, not as evidence of a public not willing to make the effort to be worthy of you.

John:
I implied no comment about McCarthy's sales; he was just the most recent example I had of not using quotation marks. He's a good enough writer to get away with it. Few are. I do not begrudge McCarthy any of his success. Whatever gets and keeps people reading is a good thing, whether it's my taste or not..

[John Dishon]

"Ignored is that community's tendency to turn its collective nose up at any novel that dares to become too popular."--I've seen this in the crime fiction world. He's called James Patterson.

And for all this talk about literary writers not getting what readers want, you picked a bad example to use, since Cormac McCarthy has sold plenty of books himself. Of course, if you've seen the interview he did with Oprah, he comes off as a guy who doesn't seem to care too much about book sales (strange idea, I know, but it's true. There are some writers out there, genre and literary, who write what they want because they want to regardless of book sales.)

So maybe you're turning your nose up at a guy who sells more books than you, and all without using quotation marks?

"Just don't be surprised when the lines don’t form at your signings."--Unless you're Cormac McCarthy, if he did book signings (does he?).

[I. J. Parker]

Not all readers are alike. I tend to write for those who are reasonably well educated. I suppose my choice of setting was based on the assumption that readers take an interest in other cultures. I was mistaken. Even those who tried and loved the books sometimes complained about the characters' names. When I taught college English, the characters' names were the primary reason my students used to reject a story by Tolstoy. I should have learned from that.

Similarly, some literary prose requires familiarity with the sources of symbols and allusions in order to be fully comprehensible. It may also require a slower, more attentive reading. Most people buy books for entertainment. They like their reading fast and easy, and their books must be "page turners."

Having said this, I do believe literary prose should also entertain, and that it need not have a style so complex that the reader has to have a dictionary nearby.

[John McFetridge]

So, what she's saying is that in order to sell enough books, a work of literary fiction needs to transcend its genre.

Interesting...

[D.R. MacMaster]

I have to agree with you on that. A problem I have with a lot of "literary" fiction is that many authors who designate themselves as such feel above the simple act of entertaining, and feel that they can only prove their literary brilliance if they make themselves deliberately obscure and hard to connect with. I think it's writing for the critics and academics, not for the average reader.

Independent film has a similar problem, they went from providing work that the audience wanted, but wasn't getting from the mainstream Hollywood into a milieu almost solely targeting elite critics and Hollywood insiders, while completely ignoring or actively shunning the general audience.