I have been thinking hard about what I like about the books I like because, lately, I have found myself reading a lot of current books I don’t particularly care for and I wonder what is happening.
I published Fifty-Third and Dorchester earlier this year. I have been immersing myself in writing and the meta-world of the craft of writing. These days, everyone has a theory or method for writing a sure-fire hit. I read and listen to several websites and podcasts a week on writing craft. I have shelves of books on every aspect of the craft. Like me, every aspiring writer these days is flooded with advice. MFAs in creative writing abound. Compared to a decade ago, writers are much better educated on craft.
But I have to ask, why don’t I care much for the recently written books I read? My poor choices? A bad attitude? Out of step with the times? Or has political air pollution put a permanent sour taste in my mouth? Chronic dysphoria?
All of those are plausible, but I think it is something else because there are authors whose books continue to bring me pleasure. For example, I reread Dorothy Sayers first Peter Whimsey story last week and enjoyed it immensely. I saw flaws and superficialities that I did not notice the last time I read it, probably twenty years ago, but these are minor hypersensitivities that come from sweating over the imperfections in my own work. The issues highlight the many things that Ms. Sayers got right rather than detract.
My guess, which I intend to explore, is that current writers have lost sight of some sensibilities that older writers took for granted. Current literary crafters are painfully aware of a certain kind of conflict. The craft books almost all say that every scene, paragraph, and word must convey the striving of the character toward some goal or the reader will lose interest. The entire text must be plotted in a polar coordinate system that points to whatever it is that the character wants. This is robust underpinning. But has a bit of ennui slipped in? Is this the only story that can captures a reader’s fancy? Is it possible that a multidimensional cartesian space can be equally or more compelling?