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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33056 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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The decline of the Literary Bloke: "In featuring just four men, Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists confirms what we already knew: the literary male has become terminally uncool."

Just some scattered thoughts.

The Great Literary Man is no longer the role model he once was. The seemingly eternal trajectory outlined by Woolf has been broken. The statistics are drearily familiar. Fewer men read literary novels and fewer men write them. Men are increasingly absent from prize shortlists and publishers’ fiction catalogues. Today’s release of Granta’s 20 best young British novelists – a once-a-decade snapshot of literary talent – bottles the trend. Four of the 20 on the list are men. That’s the lowest in the list’s 40-year history. In its first year, 1983, the Granta list featured only six women.

It has to be pointed out that any such "great upcoming young novelists" list must be comprised of mostly women, out of necessity. Otherwise the organizers of the list would be painted as sexist and privileged and out of touch and it would probably jeopardize their careers. You don't even need to reach for the more subtle types of criticisms that revisionists make of the traditional canon: "yeah, I know like you feel you were just judging works solely on literary merit, and you just so happened to collect a list of 100 deserving authors where 99 of them are men, but actually you were being driven by subconscious patriarchal bias and you need to escape from your historically ossified perspective and so on and so forth". What's going on now in the publishing industry is far more overt: "it's time to hand the reins over to women, period". In such a cultural context, how could a list of the "20 best young British novelists" be taken as unbiased evidence of anything?

The irrelevance of male literary fiction has something to do with “cool”. A few years ago Megan Nolan noted – with as much accuracy as Woolf on these men in Mrs Dalloway – that it might be “inherently less cool” to be a male novelist these days. Male writers, she continued, were missing a “cool, sexy, gunslinger” movement to look up to. All correct.

It's true that literary fiction is not as cool as it once was, although this in itself is not a great moral catastrophe. It's part of the natural cycle of things. The "cool" things now are happening in TV, film, video games, and comic books. When was the last time a literary fiction author of either gender captured the imaginations of millions of people the way Hajime Isayama did? The literary novel is not eternal (many will argue that historically speaking, it's a relatively recent invention) and it is not inherently superior to other narrative art forms.

The decline of male literary fiction is not down to a feminist conspiracy in publishing houses

Correct, it's not a conspiracy, but only because there is nothing conspiratorial about it. If you were to ask any big (or small!) publishing house if they gave priority to voices from traditionally marginalized groups, they would say yes. If you were to then ask them if women are a traditionally marginalized group, they would say yes.

...

It's not a conspiracy if they just tell you what they're doing!

The most understanding account of male literary ambition was written by a woman.

There's been a meme for some time that goes something like, "men don't understand women, but women understand men - maybe even better than men do themselves", which I find to be quite obnoxious. If there is any "misunderstanding", then it surely goes both ways. There are plenty of things in the male experience that have no natural analogue in the female experience, same as the reverse.

It has to be pointed out that any such "great upcoming young novelists" list must be comprised of mostly women, out of necessity. Otherwise the organizers of the list would be painted as sexist and privileged and out of touch and it would probably jeopardize their careers.

So who is one of these young novelists who is a man that isn't being recognized?

An accusation of "We genuinely just searched for that which is great and good that fit the market and it happened to be comprised mostly of X" cuts both ways, y'know?

It's true that literary fiction is not as cool as it once was, although this in itself is not a great moral catastrophe. It's part of the natural cycle of things. The "cool" things now are happening in TV, film, video games, and comic books.

So you acknowledge that the whole medium is not as cool to men, but then you insist that if upcoming authors' lists are dominated by women, it can't be because they're the ones who comprise most of the market?

The only way to make your argument is to say that, in general, the great men authors of the past were recognized independent of the markets they were a part of. Which you can certainly argue, but I want to see evidence of that claim if you're going to make it.

Correct, it's not a conspiracy, but only because there is nothing conspiratorial about it. If you were to ask any big (or small!) publishing house if they gave priority to voices from traditionally marginalized groups, they would say yes. If you were to then ask them if women are a traditionally marginalized group, they would say yes.

How do you square this with your own admission that literary fiction isn't superior to other, newer forms of media?

If a man today enjoys reading manga, watching YouTube and Netflix, plays video games, etc. but doesn't read a book, why is this a consequence of publishing houses promoting women and minorities instead of just a conclusion of where his interests naturally lay? The engagement from playing Ace Combat is probably higher to many than reading a Hemmingway novel.

So who is one of these young novelists who is a man that isn't being recognized?

Have you not heard of sad puppies drama?

Switch the genders and tell me your argument would be OK.

Which puppies do you think deserved an award? And how many of them ended up on the slate thanks to their own author? Vox Day flogging his own works isn’t a badge of quality.

And yes, flipping the argument is fine. I don’t particularly care if this magazine awards 16/20 or 6/20 or 4/20 awards to women.

I don’t particularly care if this magazine awards 16/20 or 6/20 or 4/20 awards to women.

That's great but not the point. If 4/20 of the awards went to women, there would accusations of sexism, articles written, etc.

All I'm saying is apply the same critical lens. If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe it wasn't a great idea to being with.

No, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m not going to write (or cheer for) such articles, and neither is @drmanhattan16, as far as I can tell.

The proportion of slots on this list doesn’t match the demographics of Britain. Is this because (1) the proportion of lit-fic authors doesn’t match? Because (2) the distribution of skill doesn’t match? Or because (3) the list-makers are sexist?

Drmanhattan and I think it’s likely 1. Lloyd kind of equivocates between 1 and 3. @Primaprimaprima argues for straight 3, if I’m reading him right.

Flipping the genders doesn’t change the valence because I don’t believe 3 is well-supported.

All I'm saying is apply the same critical lens. If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe it wasn't a great idea to being with.

No, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable

Great, what about the point:

All I'm saying is apply the same critical lens

For over a decade now, this critical theory lens has been applied to a lot of things... Usually resulting is accusations of 'isms. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

The fact that you don't care does not change the point. You caring doesn't matter to anyone but you.

I guess I don’t understand what you’re asking. I thought “applying the lens” meant “flip the genders, and see if you feel different.” I did, and I don’t.

What more do you want me to say?

Post is about sexism. You make the hip sexism argument that wouldn't fly (culturally) the other way.

There isn't much to say if you just ignore this.

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