4 ms·

I love how this article cuts right through a lot of bad trite explanations for literary fiction’s decline that have been pushed by its adherents (“the internet

I love how this article cuts right through a lot of bad trite explanations for literary fiction’s decline that have been pushed by its adherents (“the internet made people stupid”) to really try and analyze the supply side and demand side factors of why not many people buy contemporary literary fiction anymore. His point that people still read challenging literary fiction, just by dead people, also seems an important one (see HN’s recent discussions of reading Ulysses) and rather damning for contemporary literary novelists. So is the point that many good writers who wanted to actually earn a living that way ended up writing for prestige TV in the 2000s instead. I do wish he’d discussed more why Sally Rooney seems to be the exception, in terms of commercial success. What is it about her books that’s different? What did she do (or avoid doing) to appeal to a wide readership? Finally, he seems to draw a pretty hard boundary between literary and “genre” fiction that I’m not sure always exists. Ursula Le Guin is a good counterexample here.

andrewflnr 1y ago
Iain M Banks is another example of "literary sci-fi" or whatever you want to call it.
sitkack 1y ago
If someone likes Le Guin, they also like the writing of Toni Morrison. Morrison follows a more complex but similar abstract structure in her writing.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
mkoubaa 1y ago
Even the most challenging work of fiction wasn't challenging to an 18 year old contemporary reader of average intelligence. The fact that in order to appreciate these works in present day requires more intellectualism doesn't actually say anything about the works themselves.
- Spivak 1y ago
  I feel like this is a pretty bold statement for a population that depending on what year you're calling contemporary was probably somewhere between 30-50% illiterate. I really wouldn't expect reading proficiency to be radically different from the distribution we have today which is to say the distribution centers around levels 2/3 which is "can make basic inferences from text."
  - mkoubaa 1y ago
    In some ways we are 30-50% literate now which means I completely agree with you. I only meant the above about the literate 18 year old. If a 17 year old kid with a 3.2 GPA can't follow the prose without a headache then it isn't the same kind of writing that Tolstoy did. That's not to say that same person would appreciate the content of the novel in its richness.
  - easterncalculus 1y ago
    Yes, and the amount of people being taught to read was a lot lower than "basically everyone" (assuming we're talking about the developed countries where this is measured). Literature being considered a hobby anyone can get into is a relatively recent concept.
  - masfuerte 1y ago
    Charles Dickens was a very popular author. Modern English majors struggle to even "make basic inferences" from the text! https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/college-english-majors-cant-read https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/college-english-majors-...
    - mkoubaa 1y ago
      I think you're confusing critical and analytical reading with narrative reading. It is definitely true that critical reading ability is uncommon but that doesn't mean a typical reader can't follow a story. Sidenote - Dickens is unreadable to me for two reasons: that version of English is not the same language I speak natively and he uses so much visual descriptions and I'm an aphant.
sdenton4 1y ago
Something hinted at in the essay is what I consider a funnel effect. If you have N people starting on some project, N/2 will get distracted after a while, some proportion of those who remain will just suck, some smaller proportion will be OK, and so on until you manage to find a few real geniuses. If you shrink the size of the funnel, you get less geniuses. An important part of having a large funnel is giving people a way to really spend their time doing the thing. For example, writing short stories for magazines was once a reasonable way to support yourself for a few years as a young writer, and led to a very large funnel. Take away that infrastructure for young writers, and you get a smaller funnel, and an attrition in quality of the best work. (Now, consider what happens 10-20 years after we stop hiring new grads for programming jobs...)
stevenwoo 1y ago
One thing I got from reading Sally Rooney is I can relate to the many of the character's situations, thoughts/opinions and emotions even though I am almost forty years older than they are and her books are easy to read for lack of a better description (though this latter features in much contemporary writing). Is that her secret sauce, I dunno.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
  >her books are easy to read for lack of a better description (though this latter features in much contemporary writing). Maybe linguistic evolution is playing a role? Contemporary writing is easiest to read because it's written in contemporary English? I also think The Elements of Style had a real and positive influence, in terms of e.g. sentences getting shorter: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xYn3CKir4bTMzY5eb/why-have-sentence-lengths-decreased https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xYn3CKir4bTMzY5eb/why-have-s...
bigthymer 1y ago
> I do wish he’d discussed more why Sally Rooney seems to be the exception, in terms of commercial success. What is it about her books that’s different? What did she do (or avoid doing) to appeal to a wide readership? I suppose part of the reason is that the Irish have cultivated a strong literary culture. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/20/we-all-read-like-hell-how-ireland-became-the-worlds-literary-powerhouse https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/20/we-all... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/30/irish-literature-thriving-risks-sally-rooney-edna-obrien https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/30/irish-...
all_factz 1y ago
Because Rooney writes dressed-up romance novels. They’re mediocre. But to the author’s point, at least they’re readable and touch on real emotion, even if I find them a bit trite. Some balance could be struck between Rooney and the more highbrow experiments the author bemoans. Elena Ferrante is a decent example here, and she does get sales. But even then, I do think the author understates the competition reading faces from new forms of media - yes, there are more people, but the amount of distraction has scaled disproportionately to the number of new people. Massively.
pjc50 1y ago
> Finally, he seems to draw a pretty hard boundary between literary and “genre” fiction that I’m not sure always exists The litfic people would never agree with this, but litfic is also a genre. It has its tropes, and especially it has its snobbery. I think part of its decline may be exactly that: the social circle which values litfic for exclusionary snob value was always small, but now it has been eclipsed. Apart from specific fandoms like Joyce; the Joyceans are closest to SF fans in the way their fandom operates. They even have conventions.
bonoboTP 1y ago
To me the signaling-spiral inside-baseball hall-of-mirrors as well as the committee-style decision making seem most salient as reasons. The whole thing reminds me of the exponential increase in published scientific papers but comparatively little to show for it in terms of big name discoveries. Both are immaterial prestige games and can fly off into a spiral.

andrewflnr 1y ago

Iain M Banks is another example of "literary sci-fi" or whatever you want to call it.

sitkack 1y ago

If someone likes Le Guin, they also like the writing of Toni Morrison. Morrison follows a more complex but similar abstract structure in her writing.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

mkoubaa 1y ago

Even the most challenging work of fiction wasn't challenging to an 18 year old contemporary reader of average intelligence. The fact that in order to appreciate these works in present day requires more intellectualism doesn't actually say anything about the works themselves.

Spivak 1y ago
I feel like this is a pretty bold statement for a population that depending on what year you're calling contemporary was probably somewhere between 30-50% illiterate. I really wouldn't expect reading proficiency to be radically different from the distribution we have today which is to say the distribution centers around levels 2/3 which is "can make basic inferences from text."
- mkoubaa 1y ago
  In some ways we are 30-50% literate now which means I completely agree with you. I only meant the above about the literate 18 year old. If a 17 year old kid with a 3.2 GPA can't follow the prose without a headache then it isn't the same kind of writing that Tolstoy did. That's not to say that same person would appreciate the content of the novel in its richness.
- easterncalculus 1y ago
  Yes, and the amount of people being taught to read was a lot lower than "basically everyone" (assuming we're talking about the developed countries where this is measured). Literature being considered a hobby anyone can get into is a relatively recent concept.
- masfuerte 1y ago
  Charles Dickens was a very popular author. Modern English majors struggle to even "make basic inferences" from the text! https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/college-english-majors-cant-read https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/college-english-majors-...
  - mkoubaa 1y ago
    I think you're confusing critical and analytical reading with narrative reading. It is definitely true that critical reading ability is uncommon but that doesn't mean a typical reader can't follow a story. Sidenote - Dickens is unreadable to me for two reasons: that version of English is not the same language I speak natively and he uses so much visual descriptions and I'm an aphant.

sdenton4 1y ago

Something hinted at in the essay is what I consider a funnel effect. If you have N people starting on some project, N/2 will get distracted after a while, some proportion of those who remain will just suck, some smaller proportion will be OK, and so on until you manage to find a few real geniuses. If you shrink the size of the funnel, you get less geniuses. An important part of having a large funnel is giving people a way to really spend their time doing the thing. For example, writing short stories for magazines was once a reasonable way to support yourself for a few years as a young writer, and led to a very large funnel. Take away that infrastructure for young writers, and you get a smaller funnel, and an attrition in quality of the best work. (Now, consider what happens 10-20 years after we stop hiring new grads for programming jobs...)

stevenwoo 1y ago

One thing I got from reading Sally Rooney is I can relate to the many of the character's situations, thoughts/opinions and emotions even though I am almost forty years older than they are and her books are easy to read for lack of a better description (though this latter features in much contemporary writing). Is that her secret sauce, I dunno.

0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
>her books are easy to read for lack of a better description (though this latter features in much contemporary writing). Maybe linguistic evolution is playing a role? Contemporary writing is easiest to read because it's written in contemporary English? I also think The Elements of Style had a real and positive influence, in terms of e.g. sentences getting shorter: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xYn3CKir4bTMzY5eb/why-have-sentence-lengths-decreased https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xYn3CKir4bTMzY5eb/why-have-s...

bigthymer 1y ago

> I do wish he’d discussed more why Sally Rooney seems to be the exception, in terms of commercial success. What is it about her books that’s different? What did she do (or avoid doing) to appeal to a wide readership? I suppose part of the reason is that the Irish have cultivated a strong literary culture. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/20/we-all-read-like-hell-how-ireland-became-the-worlds-literary-powerhouse https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/20/we-all... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/30/irish-literature-thriving-risks-sally-rooney-edna-obrien https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/30/irish-...

all_factz 1y ago

Because Rooney writes dressed-up romance novels. They’re mediocre. But to the author’s point, at least they’re readable and touch on real emotion, even if I find them a bit trite. Some balance could be struck between Rooney and the more highbrow experiments the author bemoans. Elena Ferrante is a decent example here, and she does get sales. But even then, I do think the author understates the competition reading faces from new forms of media - yes, there are more people, but the amount of distraction has scaled disproportionately to the number of new people. Massively.

pjc50 1y ago

> Finally, he seems to draw a pretty hard boundary between literary and “genre” fiction that I’m not sure always exists The litfic people would never agree with this, but litfic is also a genre. It has its tropes, and especially it has its snobbery. I think part of its decline may be exactly that: the social circle which values litfic for exclusionary snob value was always small, but now it has been eclipsed. Apart from specific fandoms like Joyce; the Joyceans are closest to SF fans in the way their fandom operates. They even have conventions.

bonoboTP 1y ago

To me the signaling-spiral inside-baseball hall-of-mirrors as well as the committee-style decision making seem most salient as reasons. The whole thing reminds me of the exponential increase in published scientific papers but comparatively little to show for it in terms of big name discoveries. Both are immaterial prestige games and can fly off into a spiral.