I heard one person say that reading a novel is the only time most people would engage with something that has a complex logical/abstract structure. Must people in their daily lives would not do anything like research or engineering work.
Arguably, novels have been superseded by series. A single fiction book today is a trial balloon. If it sells, sequels, trilogies, and more trilogies follow. Book tours. Merchandise, and a movie or TV deal may follow.
The goal today is to create a brand. The brand may survive the author, as Tom Clancy(tm) has done.
Shakespeare wrote for the box office. Dickens was serialized in newspapers. Real authors sell.
I might amend that to say "professional authors sell."
I don't think someone who labors over their darling story for a decade, self-publishes it, and only sells a dozen copies is any less a "real" author than Tom Clancy or Stephen King ... she's just not as professional. Writing to her is a work of love, a hobby, a passion.
She doesn't just sit down at the keyboard and hammer away until she has her thousand words for the day. That's what makes the professionals professional: they see writing as a job.
This article feels disorganized. He switches context freely without alerting the reader. I cannot tell if it is an intentionally wistful style, or just disorganization. I’m curious, since the author claims to be a novelist and obviously cares deeply about the state of the modern novel, why is it written this way?
If you’re the author, I’d love to hear your response.
Having read the article, I don't think it is disorganized. It makes an assertion, supports the assertion, explores the consequences, then returns to another aspect of the assertion. In the end, she returns to the theme and restates it.
The context switches, such as they are, come with the traditional signal to most readers: the paragraph. Yet each paragraph is built in sequels (like you would a novel): action (assertion), reaction (consequence).
Paragraph by paragraph:
Assertion from title: Novels are still important.
Question: Are they really? Reflection as context.
Assertion: I fear modern media leaves me only frightened.
Contradiction: Realization -- It won't.
Assertion: Novels exist outside of the political upheaval they arise from.
Resolution: Doctor Zhivago as example of proof.
Section break (as a notice to the reader).
Assertion: Novels are an intimate communication between writer and reader.
Contradiction: "No one reads books anymore."
Assertion: People still read books.
Reflection: Orthodoxy of publishing and consumption has changed.
Assertion: The novel's purpose is to encapsulate its own world ("to be what it is").
Reflection: Anna Karenina was not the novel Tolstoy set out to write, but it was the novel he had to write because he was skilled enough to write it. The story was in control.
Resolution: Good novels matter because they exist as complete in themselves without being slaves to the social forces from which they arise.
Break
...
She continues in this form, weaving layers onto the theme, like one writes a novel. It seems to me like a clever way to write an editorial.
Can HN name any living modern novelists who matter? Not science fiction cheese, or mediocrities touted by the NYC circle-jerk; someone who will be remembered in 100 years. Cormac Mccarthy is the only one that comes to mind. Maybe Tito Perdue. That's pretty much all I can think of for English language anyway.
Predicting 100 years ahead is extremely difficult. Just look at authors from 100 years ago.
Toni Morrison is close to a safe bet but sadly doesn’t meet your criteria any longer.
So Pynchon seems like the clear winner. He’s the James Joyce of postmodernism so I’d be very surprised if he isn’t read in 100 years. If you want more accessible literature there is Franzen and Chabon.
I'm not really well-read so others will
have a better idea, but Pynchon, Alice Munro, and Murakami, at least, are living legends. Toni Morrison and Philip Roth just died this year.
Stephen King definitely has a chance, not particularly for his craft, but his memorable characters. Carrie, It, Christine, Annie Wilkes, and Jack Torrance to name a few. Granted, movies will definitely help his longevity.
