For literary folks on DCUM

[Anonymous]

All right, my brain has just exploded. I am buzzing with excitement. For a really long time, I had a problem with how modern literary fiction is becoming increasingly obsessed with overwrought style, affectations, deliberately reducing the action in the novel to appear less "low-brow", and a lot of other things. And full disclosure here, I'm currently working on a fantasy novel myself and I've been really upset about how high-brow, intellectual, literary fantasy fiction gets dismissed by the "literary establishment" while a lot of less thought-provoking (in my opinion) realist novels get short-listed for the Booker. (I'm sorry but Kerri Hulme’s "The Bone People" is actually just...not that great in my opinion, I don't know how that book won the Booker.)

Anyway, I just read B. R. Myers amazing work of literary criticism, The Reader's Manifesto, and my brain exploded. He articulated everything I've ever thought since high school, but way better than I could and with more confidence than I would be able to.

For those of you who don't want to spend money on his book (you should though), here is a highly condensed version of what he's saying, written for The Atlantic:http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/

I know that DCUM has professors, writers, journalists, and all other sorts. Do you agree with Myers and what I think? I can't be the only person who feels this way.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for circulating this article. I read it with great interest and agreed with much of it. Nick Hornby makes much the same point.

[Anonymous]

I agree- I often select books because they have won the Pulitzer and realize quickly that they aren't all that - I wonder whether prizes are political.

I was an english major and find it very difficult to find "new" fiction to read. I have a hard time in book clubs because i just don't get much out of these books. I have to go to "classics" just to get through something and feel my reading time has been well spent.

I agree with the article that there is a place for many types of fiction- many people appreciate light reads but to call them "literary" is just a marketing ploy.

I too am working on a book - but I would never ever in a million years consider anythign I could ever write to be "literary" in the classic sense, with a capital "L" as he says.

hope this is readable - typing at work inbetweeen, well, working. iwth a bandaid on my pinkie.