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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30973 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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What's up with fiction?

I haven't read any since high school English class, but my fiancée does. She often buys the trendy stuff that has won some awards and is (I assume) prominently displayed at Indigo. Hanya Yanagihara and and Sally Rooney are two recent examples.

After asking her about her current book over the last couple years, I have come to realize that all of them are mostly based around the following things:

  1. Sexual abuse, especially molestation

  2. Homosexuality or transsexuality

  3. Main character is black or similar, everyone is racist towards them except the good guy(s)

  4. Main character is disabled somehow

While these plot points are basically mandatory to win a book award now, a lot of "classic literature" is just old books that happened to contain these themes. For example, Truman Capote would not be a big deal had he not been a homo who wrote about homo stuff.

None of this is that interesting, but it is weird how well the title of "literature" and book awards launder what is essentially gratuitous descriptions of homosexual molestation into something tasteful and classy. Is this widely known? I get the sense that this is something most right-wing men just have no idea about.

I am confused by this post but because you have said you don't read fiction I suppose some of your assumptions about it (that Capote was famous only because he was a "homo who wrote about homo stuff," that all classic literature contains the themes you listed) can be dismissed with that in mind.

Out of curiosity do you read the books your wife fiancee is reading or just the blurbs or someone else's commentary on them? I ask this not because I have (I haven't read or heard of either of the authors you listed) but because a book's content is no way of judging its literary value, any more than the topic of a poem determines its relative poetry.

You do seem to have informed yourself enough to form opinions about fiction (in that you list what you suggest are popular themes) and I'm wondering if you're imagining this from reading book blurbs, from asking around your friends who read (or who don't read) or some other source.

Your question "Is this widely known?" takes as fact your assumptions (which I would suggest are unwarranted) about the degeneracy of book awards, and because I generally disagree with that assumption I don't think the question is answerable.

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