This is such a good read! I've been fascinated with how accessible Normal People is since I first read it, it's an amazing study at the sentence-level of how to write readable text. And the DFW/Roth dunk is appreciated, it's reassuring to see other people voice these opinions out loud instead of feeling "too dumb" for their work, like I usually do (w.r.t. eyes glazing over reading DFW). I will say Roth's Goodbye Columbus doesn't demonstrate this as much and it makes me curious when he started doing that kind of thing. Like did it just become in-vogue to intentionally complicate prose?
Ok so I looked up Goodbye Columbus -- maybe just by the nature of first books needing to "prove" themselves, the reader was more in mind when he wrote it! And you could def be right, that it just became cool to be confusing. It could also be the gradual result of success and acclaim, to begin believing your writing just is inherently genius, no matter what it's doing-- but again I only really think white men ever had that luxury of not needing to fight for validation with every book they wrote.
Alyssa sent me this quote the Paris Review put up on Instagram a few months ago from Roth, where he said in the 80s: "I occasionally have an anti-Roth reader in mind. I think, 'How he is going to hate this!' That can be just the encouragement I need." This definitely validated my suspicion that he didn't care about the reader's experience and actually enjoyed the idea of aggravating them. And like, funny his thought was never, "How SHE is going to hate this!" 🙃
It's so true that for many literary stars the success became expected and it's easy to see in their writing and interviews when the ego took over.
I also wonder how much literary maximalism common to much of 1980s-2000s postmodern works (and probably just the rise of postmodernism as a genre) informed these types of run-on (almost intentionally) confusing sentences. Zadie Smith's White Teeth, for instance, suffers from most of the same symptoms we're levying against late-Roth and Wallace and she was often lumped in (very early in her career--maybe only White Teeth, really) with DFW and Pynchon because they fit that same postmodern maximalist bucket. I guess literature did go through a pretty intense metafictional "look at me!!!" phase complete with self-indulgent prose (DeLillo sticks out as a good example too, both in style and in "make the familiar strange" substance).
To that extent, Rooney's writing is more in the trend of Steinbeck or the Dirty Realists or Salinger (especially "Franny and Zooey"-era Salinger): speak clearly and cleanly and let the language disappear; close POVs reveal character through focus and word choice; theme is second-class to emotional connection and indeed any theme is not dictated but inferred.
Sorry for the long reply, but one last thing that comes to mind is how seldom I see characters praised when it comes to postmodern works. It's usually the author. I've never seen a piece praising Infinite Jest mention the reviewer's love for Hal Incandenza as a character, and I've never seen a piece praise Normal People without extolling the lovability of Marianne or Connell (if not both).
I guess it's just too bad that so many writers maybe learned to write by trying to emulate writers in the canon who, it turns out, maybe never needed to be there in the first place. It probably points to an education (MFA) problem -- wasn't this right around when MFA programs were blowing up? (Cue Claire Vaye Watkins' essay On Pandering!) My gut feeling is still that the style stems from insecurity, which creates a sensitive ego-- "look at me!" could basically be "tell me I'm smart / amazing / a genius!" So then when those writers become teachers and hold up that writing as a model.. I mean maybe I'm low key a conspiracy theorist but it's like, really, we now have a whole writing movement built around feeding the ego of a few dudes?
That's why I like your point about the praise of characters vs praise of an author! Our characters are literally responsible for making the story happen, so why hasn't it always been a Number One Concern for them to be well written? I also feel like when I was taught about spare prose it was more about it being a stylistic choice (i.e. Hemingway) rather than as an actual device for telling a better story. The Awakening and The Bell Jar are both great examples of spare prose, yet I never had an English or writing class where either one was taught or even mentioned. Is it because of an assumption that their spareness wasn't a choice, but just the result of lack of skill?
Lol this comment took me like an hour to write, clearly there's a lot to be said and considered.. anyway I'm really glad this post resonated with you and now you know I'm ALWAYS in the mood to discuss these things!!
"Roth and DFW, they’re about sentences for the sake of sentences. That’s where all the fun is for them in being a writer. I honestly don’t think they care about their reader at all. Must have something to do with, idk, male ego competitive BS." YES EXACTLY MARRGGGGGGGG
Also - "Another way to think about tension is something I’m copping from my second term workshop leaders, who explained that 'tension happens when two opposing things are both correct.'" The entire TV section is CORRECT.
This is such a good read! I've been fascinated with how accessible Normal People is since I first read it, it's an amazing study at the sentence-level of how to write readable text. And the DFW/Roth dunk is appreciated, it's reassuring to see other people voice these opinions out loud instead of feeling "too dumb" for their work, like I usually do (w.r.t. eyes glazing over reading DFW). I will say Roth's Goodbye Columbus doesn't demonstrate this as much and it makes me curious when he started doing that kind of thing. Like did it just become in-vogue to intentionally complicate prose?
Ok so I looked up Goodbye Columbus -- maybe just by the nature of first books needing to "prove" themselves, the reader was more in mind when he wrote it! And you could def be right, that it just became cool to be confusing. It could also be the gradual result of success and acclaim, to begin believing your writing just is inherently genius, no matter what it's doing-- but again I only really think white men ever had that luxury of not needing to fight for validation with every book they wrote.
Alyssa sent me this quote the Paris Review put up on Instagram a few months ago from Roth, where he said in the 80s: "I occasionally have an anti-Roth reader in mind. I think, 'How he is going to hate this!' That can be just the encouragement I need." This definitely validated my suspicion that he didn't care about the reader's experience and actually enjoyed the idea of aggravating them. And like, funny his thought was never, "How SHE is going to hate this!" 🙃
It's so true that for many literary stars the success became expected and it's easy to see in their writing and interviews when the ego took over.
I also wonder how much literary maximalism common to much of 1980s-2000s postmodern works (and probably just the rise of postmodernism as a genre) informed these types of run-on (almost intentionally) confusing sentences. Zadie Smith's White Teeth, for instance, suffers from most of the same symptoms we're levying against late-Roth and Wallace and she was often lumped in (very early in her career--maybe only White Teeth, really) with DFW and Pynchon because they fit that same postmodern maximalist bucket. I guess literature did go through a pretty intense metafictional "look at me!!!" phase complete with self-indulgent prose (DeLillo sticks out as a good example too, both in style and in "make the familiar strange" substance).
To that extent, Rooney's writing is more in the trend of Steinbeck or the Dirty Realists or Salinger (especially "Franny and Zooey"-era Salinger): speak clearly and cleanly and let the language disappear; close POVs reveal character through focus and word choice; theme is second-class to emotional connection and indeed any theme is not dictated but inferred.
Sorry for the long reply, but one last thing that comes to mind is how seldom I see characters praised when it comes to postmodern works. It's usually the author. I've never seen a piece praising Infinite Jest mention the reviewer's love for Hal Incandenza as a character, and I've never seen a piece praise Normal People without extolling the lovability of Marianne or Connell (if not both).
I guess it's just too bad that so many writers maybe learned to write by trying to emulate writers in the canon who, it turns out, maybe never needed to be there in the first place. It probably points to an education (MFA) problem -- wasn't this right around when MFA programs were blowing up? (Cue Claire Vaye Watkins' essay On Pandering!) My gut feeling is still that the style stems from insecurity, which creates a sensitive ego-- "look at me!" could basically be "tell me I'm smart / amazing / a genius!" So then when those writers become teachers and hold up that writing as a model.. I mean maybe I'm low key a conspiracy theorist but it's like, really, we now have a whole writing movement built around feeding the ego of a few dudes?
That's why I like your point about the praise of characters vs praise of an author! Our characters are literally responsible for making the story happen, so why hasn't it always been a Number One Concern for them to be well written? I also feel like when I was taught about spare prose it was more about it being a stylistic choice (i.e. Hemingway) rather than as an actual device for telling a better story. The Awakening and The Bell Jar are both great examples of spare prose, yet I never had an English or writing class where either one was taught or even mentioned. Is it because of an assumption that their spareness wasn't a choice, but just the result of lack of skill?
Lol this comment took me like an hour to write, clearly there's a lot to be said and considered.. anyway I'm really glad this post resonated with you and now you know I'm ALWAYS in the mood to discuss these things!!
"Roth and DFW, they’re about sentences for the sake of sentences. That’s where all the fun is for them in being a writer. I honestly don’t think they care about their reader at all. Must have something to do with, idk, male ego competitive BS." YES EXACTLY MARRGGGGGGGG
remove them all from the canon immediately
Also - "Another way to think about tension is something I’m copping from my second term workshop leaders, who explained that 'tension happens when two opposing things are both correct.'" The entire TV section is CORRECT.
I haven't even read this post yet but I got the notification & had to rush to the comments to say I. cannot. WAIT. to read this post. That is all 💕
please reply again with your thoughts!!!