Did you ever know a different world?
July 25, 2023 11:19 AM Subscribe
The Life, Death—And Afterlife—of Literary Fiction. In the golden age of magazines, short stories reigned supreme. Has the digital revolution killed their cultural relevance? By Will Blythe for Esquire.
I have no idea if the actual numbers support this impression, but it feels like many, if not most, of the short stories in venues like the New Yorker are there as teasers for an upcoming book. Not what the author of this piece talks about, authors using the short form to play with ideas that later end up in a long form, but just a thinly disguised extract from the long-form project. (You see this in non-fiction, also, in all of these magazines.) Personally I'm not nearly as interested in an excerpt -- I'd rather just read a review to decide if I want to read the full book -- as I am someone working out early-stage ideas or a genuinely stand-alone short piece.
The piece linked in there by Denis Johnson about the war in Liberia looks really interesting; it is a pity that it is paywalled.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:57 AM on July 25, 2023
The piece linked in there by Denis Johnson about the war in Liberia looks really interesting; it is a pity that it is paywalled.
posted by Dip Flash at 11:57 AM on July 25, 2023
I don't mind the nostalgia the author obviously has for the heyday of literary magazines. It's nice to look back and say, "now that was a time and a place," and describe it for the benefit of those who were not present.
But I begin to differ when he does the expected thing and extrapolates from "things used to be great" to "now they are so different and these kids don't seem to know how to do literature properly." The hand-wringing about smartphones, for instance, is a giveaway and such an easy scapegoat.
The implication is that if his literary fiction can't compete with the rest of the entertainment and edification options out there, it's because there's a problem with the readers, not the fiction. But couldn't it be the other way around: the readers are fine, it's the fiction that has failed them? Because from what I've heard, reading is way up! People are consuming information in whatever form is most convenient to them at astonishing rates. But he wants them to consume it the way he did — the right way — the old way.
And as NoxAeternum points out, the sensitivity thing is another red herring. If you are reasonably confident that your story was primarily going to reach a few score thousand literary-minded, affluent white people (as was likely the assumption if you published in many of these magazines 40 years ago), why would you bother being sensitive to the needs of others? Of groups that resented being excluded or tokenized, or would call out your ignorance or bigotry except that they did not read the summer fiction issue of the Paris Review?
Now when I write something, I am conscious that it is not just visible to the whole world for free, but that if I'm lucky it may get some traction and perhaps millions of people will read it over time — people unlike me in many ways but whom I would like to include if possible or at the very least not actively exclude. Sensitivity readers aren't there to instill or enforce some rigid morality — that is a disingenuous conflation.
Anyhow, literature (including short stories) is alive and well, but some may not recognize much of themselves in it. It's fair for them to mourn that, and to talk about why they valued what it was in the past. But it is absurd and sort of provincial to believe that the intellectual and creative endeavor of which one took part is a high-water mark that kids these days will never truly understand or equal.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:46 PM on July 25, 2023 [12 favorites]
But I begin to differ when he does the expected thing and extrapolates from "things used to be great" to "now they are so different and these kids don't seem to know how to do literature properly." The hand-wringing about smartphones, for instance, is a giveaway and such an easy scapegoat.
The implication is that if his literary fiction can't compete with the rest of the entertainment and edification options out there, it's because there's a problem with the readers, not the fiction. But couldn't it be the other way around: the readers are fine, it's the fiction that has failed them? Because from what I've heard, reading is way up! People are consuming information in whatever form is most convenient to them at astonishing rates. But he wants them to consume it the way he did — the right way — the old way.
And as NoxAeternum points out, the sensitivity thing is another red herring. If you are reasonably confident that your story was primarily going to reach a few score thousand literary-minded, affluent white people (as was likely the assumption if you published in many of these magazines 40 years ago), why would you bother being sensitive to the needs of others? Of groups that resented being excluded or tokenized, or would call out your ignorance or bigotry except that they did not read the summer fiction issue of the Paris Review?
Now when I write something, I am conscious that it is not just visible to the whole world for free, but that if I'm lucky it may get some traction and perhaps millions of people will read it over time — people unlike me in many ways but whom I would like to include if possible or at the very least not actively exclude. Sensitivity readers aren't there to instill or enforce some rigid morality — that is a disingenuous conflation.
Anyhow, literature (including short stories) is alive and well, but some may not recognize much of themselves in it. It's fair for them to mourn that, and to talk about why they valued what it was in the past. But it is absurd and sort of provincial to believe that the intellectual and creative endeavor of which one took part is a high-water mark that kids these days will never truly understand or equal.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:46 PM on July 25, 2023 [12 favorites]
Just to agree with NoxAeternum and BlackLeotardFront, from TFA:
My perception is that, perhaps because of online mass condemnations, there’s simply too much of an ethical demand in fiction from fearful editors and “sensitivity readers,” whose sensitivity is not unlike that of children raised in religious families who’ve been taught that unless they do everything right, Hell (a longstanding venue of “cancellation”) is their likely destination.
Yeah, no. This is just a white guy looking back with fondness at the time when white guys ran 100% of everything instead of just 99% like they do now. There's never been more literature being written and read in short, medium, and long form than there is now.
He's just pissy because what he thinks of as 'prestige' markets don't hold the same cachet they used to.
posted by signal at 2:05 PM on July 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
My perception is that, perhaps because of online mass condemnations, there’s simply too much of an ethical demand in fiction from fearful editors and “sensitivity readers,” whose sensitivity is not unlike that of children raised in religious families who’ve been taught that unless they do everything right, Hell (a longstanding venue of “cancellation”) is their likely destination.
Yeah, no. This is just a white guy looking back with fondness at the time when white guys ran 100% of everything instead of just 99% like they do now. There's never been more literature being written and read in short, medium, and long form than there is now.
He's just pissy because what he thinks of as 'prestige' markets don't hold the same cachet they used to.
posted by signal at 2:05 PM on July 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
Are you reading this on your phone, swiping up the paragraphs, swipe, swipe, swipe, wondering how far you're going to have to swipe to actually finish this thing? (Just so you know, it’s gonna take a lot of swiping.)
Uh...fuck you too I guess?
posted by East14thTaco at 2:24 PM on July 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
Uh...fuck you too I guess?
posted by East14thTaco at 2:24 PM on July 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
I skimmed it but he doesn't seem to address that part of the problem is the pay or lack thereof. Or that short fiction is alive and well in the genre market.
Here's a piece by Lincoln Michel on the short fiction market that's more in touch with modern times.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:28 PM on July 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
Here's a piece by Lincoln Michel on the short fiction market that's more in touch with modern times.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:28 PM on July 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
In the world of no editorial gatekeeping and reading for free, i.e., fanfic, the short story is the dominant form. Just saying.
posted by praemunire at 2:39 PM on July 25, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 2:39 PM on July 25, 2023 [8 favorites]
There's a lot of old man shouts at clouds, ok boomer energy in that piece. A bunch of classic mistakes: no sense that people *can* read on devices and not have our brains erased; no recognition of the digital arts (hypertext, games, digital storytelling); a fuzzy-eyed romantic past where everyone read literature, man, just everyone.
Plus it has some classic literary snobbery. Notice how the author does mention sf once (as pulp), then never turns to sf for any insights.
posted by doctornemo at 2:47 PM on July 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Plus it has some classic literary snobbery. Notice how the author does mention sf once (as pulp), then never turns to sf for any insights.
posted by doctornemo at 2:47 PM on July 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Ok, so I RTFA and...christ. I wonder if this guy owns a television and what bands he's opened for.
posted by East14thTaco at 2:57 PM on July 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by East14thTaco at 2:57 PM on July 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Blythe, you say your name is?
posted by chavenet at 3:14 PM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by chavenet at 3:14 PM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
In the world of no editorial gatekeeping and reading for free, i.e., fanfic, the short story is the dominant form. Just saying.
And that's the heart of it - he's a cultural gatekeeper who got his pink slip from society, and he doesn't know how to adapt.
Also, his unironic use of "Luddite" really rankles me, especially in light of the several labor strikes we've had this year. People need to stop using anti-labor propaganda just because of cultural osmosis.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:37 PM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
And that's the heart of it - he's a cultural gatekeeper who got his pink slip from society, and he doesn't know how to adapt.
Also, his unironic use of "Luddite" really rankles me, especially in light of the several labor strikes we've had this year. People need to stop using anti-labor propaganda just because of cultural osmosis.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:37 PM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
to quote that prestige publication, The New Yorker: Christ, what an asshole.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 4:02 PM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 4:02 PM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
He mentions working with Rust Hills at Esquire. I learned a lot about how short stories work from Hills’s book Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. I’d recommend that to anyone interested what one editor took away from the golden age of short fiction.
That said, there’s still so much short fiction being written. I wish it paid anything more than a pittance, or was even something you could submit without paying for it. (The latter’s still true in SFFH magazines, and I hope we can hold the line.) But folks are absolutely pushing the form, trying new things, experimenting like whoa. The stories may look different than what Will Blythe is used to seeing, they may be written by people who Blythe’s not used to hearing from, and they may be showing up in online venues that don’t fit Blythe’s idea of actual fiction outlets or are read by his sorts of people, the kind with flip phones and dismissive attitudes about sensitivity readers, but they’re there. I hope he broadens his reading habits and finds them.
posted by sgranade at 4:14 PM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
That said, there’s still so much short fiction being written. I wish it paid anything more than a pittance, or was even something you could submit without paying for it. (The latter’s still true in SFFH magazines, and I hope we can hold the line.) But folks are absolutely pushing the form, trying new things, experimenting like whoa. The stories may look different than what Will Blythe is used to seeing, they may be written by people who Blythe’s not used to hearing from, and they may be showing up in online venues that don’t fit Blythe’s idea of actual fiction outlets or are read by his sorts of people, the kind with flip phones and dismissive attitudes about sensitivity readers, but they’re there. I hope he broadens his reading habits and finds them.
posted by sgranade at 4:14 PM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
I've been hearing about the death of magazines that carry short stories my entire life. As a young teen interested in learning to write fiction, I worried so much over all these "well it's not like how it used to be!" things, but god, it has been decades--and smartphones have only existed a tiny portion of that time.
On the other hand, it seems obvious there's still plenty of room for short fiction--if nothing else, books appear to be getting shorter? The article I linked quotes folks being all, "nobody has attention for long books anymore" but in the golden age of short fiction in magazines, was that because we didn't have attention spans? Or are there are a lot of readers out there looking for a lot of different lengths of story to engage with, and publishers assuming we all want 800-page epics was just a temporary fluke?
posted by mittens at 4:17 PM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
On the other hand, it seems obvious there's still plenty of room for short fiction--if nothing else, books appear to be getting shorter? The article I linked quotes folks being all, "nobody has attention for long books anymore" but in the golden age of short fiction in magazines, was that because we didn't have attention spans? Or are there are a lot of readers out there looking for a lot of different lengths of story to engage with, and publishers assuming we all want 800-page epics was just a temporary fluke?
posted by mittens at 4:17 PM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
I read a lot of short stories and poetry because of the amazing network of small literary magazines that are present on Twitter (although I fucking hate Elon Musk with the passion of a thousand burning suns bc now I don't know where I'm gonna find them now, we are still on there temporarily but still, ugh)
posted by yueliang at 4:17 PM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by yueliang at 4:17 PM on July 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm like 30 words in and it's already policing how I'm supposed to to engage with it like a parent scolding a child for not putting on their dress clothes in exactly the same fashion that they do. I think this is very funny in a 'here's a satirical caricature of an out-of-touch old white guy come to life' sort of way so 6/10 so far
As for “zooming,” well, that just meant we were speeding down the avenue
1000000000000/10
It’s as if the internet, with its ostensibly forthright venues, has actually turned nearly all of its posters into marketers and up-and-down voters, rather than readers and reviewers.
this is a new fresh trope! old man blames technology instead of capitalism, the actual culprit. 1000000000001/10
For me, good literature investigates morality.
what the fuck is this??? this is a good point. this is not what satire does. why would you even satirize this point??? 5/10 for cultural harm
Will readers like us therefore need to become the literary equivalents of the Amish, living peacefully and slightly outside the technological world?
we're back baby. old man believes himself to be a part of an imaginary oppressed class. and he's equating a ritualized, religious ideology fiercely instilled since birth to the ideology of people reading a book and like just leaving their phone on silent. 9/10
Not long ago, I was waiting in a long line to the cashiers at the Barnes & Noble bookstore by Union Square in Manhattan,
evangelizing a totally constructed fiction of a person who was nice to him in the checkout line who probably didn't want to offend him? INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!! we see this on Facebook but Esquire??? 10/10
my intermittently-smart Samsung phone
1000000000000/10
Twenty-five years ago, I wrote and published the following paragraph in the introduction to an anthology
he's going to end with a quote that he himself literally wrote. this is fucking fire. this is a masterpiece. this is something that will be canon. from out-of-touch to straight up egotist? what the fuck are the rest of y'all reading because this was the best thing I've read in years
final score: 2/10 for not being longer and only engaging my attention for a mere 20 minute interval in which I received absolutely zero notifications
posted by paimapi at 4:23 PM on July 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
As for “zooming,” well, that just meant we were speeding down the avenue
1000000000000/10
It’s as if the internet, with its ostensibly forthright venues, has actually turned nearly all of its posters into marketers and up-and-down voters, rather than readers and reviewers.
this is a new fresh trope! old man blames technology instead of capitalism, the actual culprit. 1000000000001/10
For me, good literature investigates morality.
what the fuck is this??? this is a good point. this is not what satire does. why would you even satirize this point??? 5/10 for cultural harm
Will readers like us therefore need to become the literary equivalents of the Amish, living peacefully and slightly outside the technological world?
we're back baby. old man believes himself to be a part of an imaginary oppressed class. and he's equating a ritualized, religious ideology fiercely instilled since birth to the ideology of people reading a book and like just leaving their phone on silent. 9/10
Not long ago, I was waiting in a long line to the cashiers at the Barnes & Noble bookstore by Union Square in Manhattan,
evangelizing a totally constructed fiction of a person who was nice to him in the checkout line who probably didn't want to offend him? INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!! we see this on Facebook but Esquire??? 10/10
my intermittently-smart Samsung phone
1000000000000/10
Twenty-five years ago, I wrote and published the following paragraph in the introduction to an anthology
he's going to end with a quote that he himself literally wrote. this is fucking fire. this is a masterpiece. this is something that will be canon. from out-of-touch to straight up egotist? what the fuck are the rest of y'all reading because this was the best thing I've read in years
final score: 2/10 for not being longer and only engaging my attention for a mere 20 minute interval in which I received absolutely zero notifications
posted by paimapi at 4:23 PM on July 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
This is kind of a bizarre article in that Blythe keeps approaching the answer to his question, why there aren’t as many publications that pay for short fiction as there used to be, without actually getting there.
The answer is technological, he’s correct about that, but it isn’t because people use their smartphones or whatever. The simple answer is that there used to be plenty of venues for short fiction because magazines are extremely efficient technologies for getting advertisements in front of the people most likely to buy the product. The magazines needed to fill their pages with content so that people would subscribe or buy copies at a newsstand, and good fiction was a reliable way to make readers feel they got their money’s worth.
He’s also correct that people put too much faith in algorithms and data, but the gullible fools here are the advertisers, who believe the statistics that Google and Facebook present them with, and think these ads are more efficient ways to spend money than advertising in older forms of media.
So now magazines are going out of business because they don’t attract as much advertising money, and they can’t afford to purchase as much high-quality content for their pages, and so fewer people subscribe or buy issues.
The problem isn’t some shift in how people read, but that the government has chosen to let the advertisement industry remain unregulated, and so three companies, Google, Facebook and Amazon, between them take in almost half of all advertising spending. This money used to be spread around among lots of different media, including magazines, who used that money for sensible things like short stories and in-depth non-fiction. Meanwhile Google uses their money to make automated cars that drive badly, Facebook remakes Second Life and Twitter but worse, and Amazon sends its founder into space.
To cut a long story short, what killed the market for short fiction wasn’t some change in humanity, but poor regulation and billionaires with a lot more money than sense.
posted by Kattullus at 4:46 PM on July 25, 2023 [17 favorites]
The answer is technological, he’s correct about that, but it isn’t because people use their smartphones or whatever. The simple answer is that there used to be plenty of venues for short fiction because magazines are extremely efficient technologies for getting advertisements in front of the people most likely to buy the product. The magazines needed to fill their pages with content so that people would subscribe or buy copies at a newsstand, and good fiction was a reliable way to make readers feel they got their money’s worth.
He’s also correct that people put too much faith in algorithms and data, but the gullible fools here are the advertisers, who believe the statistics that Google and Facebook present them with, and think these ads are more efficient ways to spend money than advertising in older forms of media.
So now magazines are going out of business because they don’t attract as much advertising money, and they can’t afford to purchase as much high-quality content for their pages, and so fewer people subscribe or buy issues.
The problem isn’t some shift in how people read, but that the government has chosen to let the advertisement industry remain unregulated, and so three companies, Google, Facebook and Amazon, between them take in almost half of all advertising spending. This money used to be spread around among lots of different media, including magazines, who used that money for sensible things like short stories and in-depth non-fiction. Meanwhile Google uses their money to make automated cars that drive badly, Facebook remakes Second Life and Twitter but worse, and Amazon sends its founder into space.
To cut a long story short, what killed the market for short fiction wasn’t some change in humanity, but poor regulation and billionaires with a lot more money than sense.
posted by Kattullus at 4:46 PM on July 25, 2023 [17 favorites]
I am amused at the irony of the beginning of this “your digital device is actively fighting your engagement with this lengthy piece” is interrupted by “Advertisement - Continue Reading Below”, followed by a large blank space that fills up most of a screen’s worth of scrolling on the iPad I’m reading it on (adblockers doing their job on what I guess is a giant video ad), followed by a few teasers for other stories on this same site, before resuming the rant about how our attention span is actively being destroyed.
I really hope that positioning of the ad/other stories interruption was carefully chosen by an underpaid intern cutting this essay out of a Word document and pasting it into the CMS. Well done, if so. Well done.
Anyway back to reading about why the market for those interminable short “stories” about a couple of suburbanites having a mild tiff that goes nowhere further than one of them fantasizing briefly about a divorce has dried up along with, well, everything else in magazines that isn’t horrible clickbait, really.
posted by egypturnash at 5:31 PM on July 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
I really hope that positioning of the ad/other stories interruption was carefully chosen by an underpaid intern cutting this essay out of a Word document and pasting it into the CMS. Well done, if so. Well done.
Anyway back to reading about why the market for those interminable short “stories” about a couple of suburbanites having a mild tiff that goes nowhere further than one of them fantasizing briefly about a divorce has dried up along with, well, everything else in magazines that isn’t horrible clickbait, really.
posted by egypturnash at 5:31 PM on July 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
Now he’s ranting about how magazines are afraid of “cancellation”, with a big blank ad unit interspersed every other screen of text, this is hilarious.
posted by egypturnash at 5:33 PM on July 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 5:33 PM on July 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
As a person who reads and writes short fiction, which very, very rarely pays more than a pittance even if you are lucky enough to get published (and I don't have a sense that anyone reads it). I can kind of sort, understand where he's coming from , but where he goes with it makes absolutely zero sense. I mean, this moral fiction thing is such a weird argument. Like, don't we live at the very apex of the Antihero Origin Story universe?
And also, BOOKS ARE ACTUALLY GETTING BANNED RIGHT NOW. I mean, I can appreciate that it's become more complicated to have a breezy conversation about Philip Roth's value as a stylist at a literary party in 2023 (are there still literary parties in 2023? can anyone even afford to buy the booze?), but THEY ARE BURNING BOOKS IN TENNESSEE. And Texas. And Florida. And, for all I know, twenty miles down the road, just outside the boundaries of my deep blue university county in my magenta-tending-scarlet state. The books that are being burned are not about morally compromised protagonists whose actions cause readers to think philosophically about the nature of morality. They're mostly books about Harriett Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr. and trans teenagers finding self-acceptance and girls having their periods and, sure, sexy fairies. It is unconscionable to me that in a time when politicians are LITERALLY CLOSING DOWN LIBRARIES the so-called standard bearers of the Literary World are through 3000 words of my feelings are hurt because I can't get The New Yorker to publish my story about "morally complicated" writer who can only achieve sexual pleasure by yelling racial slurs at strangers' boobs or whatever.
Eyes on the fucking prize, people. Real deal censorship is happening. Do us a favor and save your screeds for the actual thing. The fascists will absolutely do their damnedest brainwash a generation while you're sitting around sulking about sensitivity readers. Jesus.
posted by thivaia at 6:12 PM on July 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
And also, BOOKS ARE ACTUALLY GETTING BANNED RIGHT NOW. I mean, I can appreciate that it's become more complicated to have a breezy conversation about Philip Roth's value as a stylist at a literary party in 2023 (are there still literary parties in 2023? can anyone even afford to buy the booze?), but THEY ARE BURNING BOOKS IN TENNESSEE. And Texas. And Florida. And, for all I know, twenty miles down the road, just outside the boundaries of my deep blue university county in my magenta-tending-scarlet state. The books that are being burned are not about morally compromised protagonists whose actions cause readers to think philosophically about the nature of morality. They're mostly books about Harriett Tubman and Martin Luther King Jr. and trans teenagers finding self-acceptance and girls having their periods and, sure, sexy fairies. It is unconscionable to me that in a time when politicians are LITERALLY CLOSING DOWN LIBRARIES the so-called standard bearers of the Literary World are through 3000 words of my feelings are hurt because I can't get The New Yorker to publish my story about "morally complicated" writer who can only achieve sexual pleasure by yelling racial slurs at strangers' boobs or whatever.
Eyes on the fucking prize, people. Real deal censorship is happening. Do us a favor and save your screeds for the actual thing. The fascists will absolutely do their damnedest brainwash a generation while you're sitting around sulking about sensitivity readers. Jesus.
posted by thivaia at 6:12 PM on July 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
Katullus is absolutely correct. There’s no shortage of venues for short fiction—Oregon alone has a couple dozen literary journals in publication. There’s a shortage of paid venues for short fiction, because Google and Facebook gutted the display advertising market just after Craigslist finished gutting the classifieds market. I’m 20 years into a career in alt-weeklies and magazines, and my entire work life has been watching ad sales dry up, scrambling for new revenue streams, and then watching those go away as well. My first year out of college, my paper regularly ran issues at 98 pages. A few years earlier it was often over 128. These days it’s 32 in a smaller format. The magazine I work on now would be impossible if not for government support. We don’t even bother with selling advertising, because it would never bring in enough revenue to be worth the time of a salesperson.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 7:35 PM on July 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 7:35 PM on July 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
I'd like to not-even-humble brag that I recently sold a story to an upcoming anthology and I bought myself a pretty nice bass with it. So, yeah, there are stil paying markets. Maybe not enough to live on, but enough to get yourself a nice bass. Highly recommend.
posted by signal at 8:54 PM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by signal at 8:54 PM on July 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
> "if nothing else, books appear to be getting shorter?"
Huh. Kind of odd that article never once mentions that paper has gotten much more expensive, which affects the decisions publishers make about which books to pick up.
posted by kyrademon at 2:21 AM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
Huh. Kind of odd that article never once mentions that paper has gotten much more expensive, which affects the decisions publishers make about which books to pick up.
posted by kyrademon at 2:21 AM on July 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
I tried really hard to read this - I got at least halfway through, maybe 2/3 of the way, but there was just so much conservative back-patting about how much better things were, and against cancel culture now - it’s just so… tired. There isn’t a market for short fiction because there isn’t a market for magazines in general. It has nothing to do with attention spans. It has to do with market forces making it unacceptable to pay for content anymore. Rail against that.
If anything, the piece felt like a giant irrelevance ouroboros… a now irrelevant voice yelling about its own irrelevance, knowing that the essay itself is irrelevant - which only makes his grievance stronger.
I still remember the furor over Cat Person when it came out in the New Yorker. Short stories can still have relevance when they hit in the right way at the right time. I think in the end his problem is probably himself.
posted by Mchelly at 7:43 AM on July 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
If anything, the piece felt like a giant irrelevance ouroboros… a now irrelevant voice yelling about its own irrelevance, knowing that the essay itself is irrelevant - which only makes his grievance stronger.
I still remember the furor over Cat Person when it came out in the New Yorker. Short stories can still have relevance when they hit in the right way at the right time. I think in the end his problem is probably himself.
posted by Mchelly at 7:43 AM on July 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
He's right, I had trouble getting through it! I used to like to read but I now have the attention span of a pea.
He's also right about Goodreads, although I'm not sure if literary fiction is that badly affected. There's probably more human kindness, curiosity, and solidarity in prisons and trenches than among YA writers, though.
posted by kingdead at 8:30 AM on July 26, 2023
He's also right about Goodreads, although I'm not sure if literary fiction is that badly affected. There's probably more human kindness, curiosity, and solidarity in prisons and trenches than among YA writers, though.
posted by kingdead at 8:30 AM on July 26, 2023
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posted by NoxAeternum at 11:32 AM on July 25, 2023 [6 favorites]