Modernist Thoughts

My theory, by Me, though I am not Anne Elk: the demand for short stand-alone novels on the part of some critics as the only "good" novels derives from Modernist literary theory. Modernism, however, was never meant to apply to popular culture, and thus the fit is a bad one. All through history, popular literature, and that includes Literature which was popular in its day, has favored the long, involving, multi-character production over the slender and beautifully crafted.

First, let us remember that literary movements often co-exist quite comfortably with their ancestors, no matter how much this vexes the proponents of the latest theories. Although we are all technically living in a "post-Modern world," many academic writers still craft their books according to the tenets of this older system. The critical theories of Modernism have become a kind of gospel, in fact, at least in the USA, and especially in prestigious university writing programs.

People have written entire books about what Modernism is/was. I am about to make some vast oversimplifications for the sake of argument.

When it comes to writing, perhaps the most important strand is the definition of what makes a "story." A lot of genre writers complain that Modernist writing has no "real stories" in it. Certainly if you're looking for action and adventure, you are not going to find excitement of the exotic kind. The antecedents of Modernism lie in writers such as Henry James and Edith Wharton. The flowering of Modernism, with writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, moved the emphases of fiction away from the outer world and into the inner, the worlds of perception, of character, of thought and psychology.

All of these writers do tell stories -- their stories merely take place within. They write novels of consciousness, of moral decision, of intellectual awakening, of sudden psychological insight, and the consequences of all of these things. In the context of late Victorian/early 20th century society, all of these "events" can be quite shattering to the character experiencing them and to the people around that character.

But they are inward events. They require their own ways of telling. And as this "genre of inwardness," I suppose we could call it, got refined, it moved toward plainer and sparer texts. James of course really could go on about things and Wharton too, but their artistic descendants tended to work with a sparer technique.

Another main thrust of Modernism was a reaction against the Culture of the Parents of the time -- full-blown lush Victorianism. The overdecorated Victorian parlors were as much spiritual ancestors of the Seagram's Building as the grain elevators van der Rohe professed to love -- they are both the work of the hated ancestors.. The same holds true in writing. "Three volume novel" was a real sneer from the lips of critics like Pound and Eliot. Popular works like Galsworthy 's Forsythe Saga and the Jalna books and so on were simply just too low-brow for words.

In the 1920s as now, big thick lurid novels sold very well, while thin and elegant examinations of consciousness did not. (Which is a pity to my way of thinking, because I like both.) While Virgina Woolf left literature forever changed, her friend and lover Vita Sackville-West is the one who raked in the pounds sterling with her historical "good reads." The novel of ideas, even in its SF incarnation, which is pretty thin on ideas, has never been a popular item.

When High Culture ideas die, they are reborn as accepted truths. Impressionist paintings were shocking when new; now they show up on greeting cards. The thin spare novel of ideas is dead as literature; some SF critics now think it's the only way to write genre fiction. But is this true?

Enough literary blather! Send me back to the Main Page!