My wife is a novelist and our house is filled with galleys in search of a blurb (she can barely go outside without getting a blurb request), for both prose and poetry, so I might be able to add a few more factors to what's caused our sad, drab Age of Sterility.
Most of modern Lit (at least here in America) is written by the same cohort of postcollegiate young suburban women (with the occasional young gay man thrown in), all from good schools who often come with the imprimatur of an upscale magazine or MFA program, all written in the same glib, stilted style and afflicted with a stifling solipsism, always painfully presentist even if set in earlier times, and obsessively focused on the same issues. It's usually the story of a young woman coming to terms with her sexuality and gender awareness, often both boasting of promiscuity while also regretting some of it retroactively, with some career/dating twists and turns where our protagonist learns how shitty the world is, especially men and their cruel and stupid creation called "late-stage capitalism". The theme always seems to be some variation on the most powerful word of our age: TRAUMA.
Most of these books will be pulped and maybe one in a hundred will have real life and style in it, but the vast majority arrive stillborn on the page, with no more lasting value than a blog post. I think there are two reasons for our postliterate literature: first, most of these writers don't seem particularly well-read or that interested or in love with Literature, they're not only NOT grounded in any tradition they seem completely unaware of them, and they write such flat sentences that someone who's read a few thousand more pages of novels would blush to publish. They are much more rooted in pop culture and internet trends than in any lasting works or their authors.
And, second, they all seem to have led such spoiled and sheltered lives, they have limited awareness of the tragic elements of life that made the work of our ancestors so much richer: wars, depressions, real social strife and strictures, illness and death etc, all the various setbacks and sacrifices that provide vital experience in life and depth and tension on the page. They are simply callow children, with a child's biography, worldview and desires.
We're going to need some sort of cataclysm here in the American Empire if our art and artists are going to have anything vital to say and any desire to say it with style, flair and originality. Maybe the upcoming civil war will do it? Almost anything is worth living through if it breaks up our current era of moralistic stagnation where you can't tell a novelist or musician from an HR rep or campus dean.
It’s not just you - sometimes in the final sentence of a comment only the upper half of the letters are visible - or perhaps it’s not the last sentence after all, who knows? I’ve noticed this frequently in the past week or so.
There’s plenty creativity still - although the old adage of ‘nothing new under the sun’ is perennially true - there’s plenty of new ways to express reality, explore the issues that trouble us and explain the trials which hinder us - it’s just that the guardians and influencers of present day society suppress it!
Holy shit, I thought you were kidding about the re-imagined Moby Dick book. But alas, that shit is real. Maybe Jonathan Haidt was onto something with his "Anxious Generation". Is this just the manifestation of that anxiety on arts, politics, and culture? O cursed spite, can your generation make this right?
Plagiarise? The word you seek is vandalize. They vandalize original works.
I can offer you conclusive proof of the death of creativity in Hollywood. When I was a youngster in the 80s, there was a cartoon that came out called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was as if someone had randomly selected some adjectives and nouns, and using them for inspiration, created a whole fictional fantasy world around them.
I didn't actually like TMNT, mind you, but to me its existence symbolized the limitlessness of human creativity. Anyone could pull words out of a sock stuffed full of them, and create a story at least as good as that one. What a simple formula, I thought. And so, I looked forward to the creation of other whole new worlds (much better ones) that would be created ex-nihilo by more talented artists and storytellers than the creators of TMNT.
The first set of movies based on the animated series was released in 1990. At the time I thought, a movie adaptation of this cartoon is absurd. A crap product. But, surely such a thing will never be made again, as there are infinitely superior ideas and worlds to create.
But then, the first set of film remakes were created in 2007. I thought: what the hell is going on? Has humanity run entirely out of ideas?
A second set of movie remakes began in 2014.
A THIRD SET OF REMAKES in 2023!
Three entire sets of movies based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?!! Chris! Humanity HAS RUN OUT OF IDEAS!! For the love of God, please, help us make sense of it!
Reading this in my iPhone made me feel wrong.
My wife is a novelist and our house is filled with galleys in search of a blurb (she can barely go outside without getting a blurb request), for both prose and poetry, so I might be able to add a few more factors to what's caused our sad, drab Age of Sterility.
Most of modern Lit (at least here in America) is written by the same cohort of postcollegiate young suburban women (with the occasional young gay man thrown in), all from good schools who often come with the imprimatur of an upscale magazine or MFA program, all written in the same glib, stilted style and afflicted with a stifling solipsism, always painfully presentist even if set in earlier times, and obsessively focused on the same issues. It's usually the story of a young woman coming to terms with her sexuality and gender awareness, often both boasting of promiscuity while also regretting some of it retroactively, with some career/dating twists and turns where our protagonist learns how shitty the world is, especially men and their cruel and stupid creation called "late-stage capitalism". The theme always seems to be some variation on the most powerful word of our age: TRAUMA.
Most of these books will be pulped and maybe one in a hundred will have real life and style in it, but the vast majority arrive stillborn on the page, with no more lasting value than a blog post. I think there are two reasons for our postliterate literature: first, most of these writers don't seem particularly well-read or that interested or in love with Literature, they're not only NOT grounded in any tradition they seem completely unaware of them, and they write such flat sentences that someone who's read a few thousand more pages of novels would blush to publish. They are much more rooted in pop culture and internet trends than in any lasting works or their authors.
And, second, they all seem to have led such spoiled and sheltered lives, they have limited awareness of the tragic elements of life that made the work of our ancestors so much richer: wars, depressions, real social strife and strictures, illness and death etc, all the various setbacks and sacrifices that provide vital experience in life and depth and tension on the page. They are simply callow children, with a child's biography, worldview and desires.
We're going to need some sort of cataclysm here in the American Empire if our art and artists are going to have anything vital to say and any desire to say it with style, flair and originality. Maybe the upcoming civil war will do it? Almost anything is worth living through if it breaks up our current era of moralistic stagnation where you can't tell a novelist or musician from an HR rep or campus dean.
All praise to Oxford Sour!
...simply what?! I must know!
....callow children, with a child's biography, worldview and desires.
!!!
what the hell!? Substack keeps cutting off my comments...
Must be trying to tell me something
It’s not just you - sometimes in the final sentence of a comment only the upper half of the letters are visible - or perhaps it’s not the last sentence after all, who knows? I’ve noticed this frequently in the past week or so.
There’s plenty creativity still - although the old adage of ‘nothing new under the sun’ is perennially true - there’s plenty of new ways to express reality, explore the issues that trouble us and explain the trials which hinder us - it’s just that the guardians and influencers of present day society suppress it!
Brilliant.
Holy shit, I thought you were kidding about the re-imagined Moby Dick book. But alas, that shit is real. Maybe Jonathan Haidt was onto something with his "Anxious Generation". Is this just the manifestation of that anxiety on arts, politics, and culture? O cursed spite, can your generation make this right?
Plagiarise? The word you seek is vandalize. They vandalize original works.
I can offer you conclusive proof of the death of creativity in Hollywood. When I was a youngster in the 80s, there was a cartoon that came out called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was as if someone had randomly selected some adjectives and nouns, and using them for inspiration, created a whole fictional fantasy world around them.
I didn't actually like TMNT, mind you, but to me its existence symbolized the limitlessness of human creativity. Anyone could pull words out of a sock stuffed full of them, and create a story at least as good as that one. What a simple formula, I thought. And so, I looked forward to the creation of other whole new worlds (much better ones) that would be created ex-nihilo by more talented artists and storytellers than the creators of TMNT.
The first set of movies based on the animated series was released in 1990. At the time I thought, a movie adaptation of this cartoon is absurd. A crap product. But, surely such a thing will never be made again, as there are infinitely superior ideas and worlds to create.
But then, the first set of film remakes were created in 2007. I thought: what the hell is going on? Has humanity run entirely out of ideas?
A second set of movie remakes began in 2014.
A THIRD SET OF REMAKES in 2023!
Three entire sets of movies based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?!! Chris! Humanity HAS RUN OUT OF IDEAS!! For the love of God, please, help us make sense of it!