You may have noticed from my discussions that I don’t read much modern literature. I think Palahniuk’s Fight Club and Choke might be the only works of narrative prose (i.e. – fiction or creative nonfiction) published within the last 25 years on my bookshelf at home. (Correction: I also have Nick Horby’s novel High Fidelity, Jon Krakauer’s nonfiction work Into The Wild, Tao Lin’s short story collection Bed, and one or two others.) There are a few reasons for this. First, I’ve been trying to catch up on many of the “classics” that I missed out on while skirting the reading requirements in high school English classes. More often than not, I managed to patch together a project without reading the entire book — and N64′s “Goldeneye” seemed much more important at the time.
The second reason is more complex, but it relates to my skepticism over the value of contemporary publishing. I’m sure there’s a long catalog of works that try to explain the reasons for the degraded efficacy of modern literature: people watch too much TV and movies, play too many video games, aren’t educated enough, or are tasteless, unrefined cretins. That’s without even mentioning the publishing industry’s concerns over lagging profits. Of course, the assumption there is that the publishers deserved whatever success they had enjoyed up until recent times.
My opinion is quite different. Media is media; corporations are corporations; profit is profit; greed is greed. From a top-down perspective, book publishers are no different than the people who sell movies, shows, or albums. That publishing model undermines the very mission behind literature: to teach, to open minds, to ask important questions, to unveil fears and insecurities — all in all, to push mankind forward.
Now I’m approaching one of the founding concepts behind Supraterranean: to reinvent the way publishing is done. I don’t expect the site to accomplish that goal on its own, just to state it “for the record,” and to contribute to the evolution that is far overdue. And as e-readers begin to proliferate the market, we all have a duty to try and stop the content industry from controlling what people can access on those devices. If it all ends up being subscription-based stuff filtered through a semblance of the Internet, we might as well throw those tablets in the trash.
At the very least, I want Supraterranean to be a resource to ensure that anyone who wants to present their creative work to the public can do so. My biggest issue with the industry (by which I’m referring mostly to companies who publish books and literary journals for for money) is that it’s founded on the concept of authoritarian control. And, at least with the biggest publishers, the goal is not to identify and support the best writers or books; it’s to find and mold the books that can produce the biggest dividends, that book clubs and academics alike will gush over, that can skyrocket to a bestsellers list after being displayed (courtesy of massive payola) at the front of every mega-bookstore in America.
This is really no different than the way I feel about the major labels of the music industry, and (to a lesser exdegree, in terms of anger) about the big film studios. (I’ve ranted about the music industry many times on my MusicEdge Blog, most notably in this comment reply from April ’08. For more thoughts on the book industry, have a look at this Refractor Blog post about literary agents from about a year ago.)
* * *
Now that I’ve vented, re-read what I wrote so far, and had two glasses of wine, I realize that I haven’t even begun to discuss what I had originally planned. Here’s the story. In August 2009 I read the New York Times Sunday Book Review of Zeitoun, a nonfiction book written by Dave Eggers about a single family’s tribulations as Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in late August 2005. I had never read anything by Dave Eggers, but I quickly gathered that he is one of the most well-known writers working today. I was more intrigued after learning that his own company, McSweeny’s, published the book. Perhaps, I thought, an independent publishing venture would allow a much more vivid, more experimental, more truthful account of what actually happened down there. Back when it happened, I was admittedly oblivious to the news reports, and I felt it was time that I learned more about it.
However, if I were to rate the book, I’d probably give it about a 3 out of 5. I’ve come to hate ratings, but here’s it appropriate — since I agree with those who gave it that rating on Amazon.com. Follow this link to see a three-star review by “exBFF,” who calls it a “great first draft.” I think that’s dead on. The comment author also points out the heavy, recurring use of foreshadowing — another keen observation.
I can’t think of a more appropriate word for the book than “mainstream.” And clearly the book is selling well, since it’s it’s been sold out everywhere since Christmas, until mid-February at the soonest. There were some redeeming qualities to the book, despite the fact that I didn’t learn all that much about Katrina, and the story itself wasn’t very captivating. But I’ve crossed my 600-word limit, so I’ll have to get to that tomorrow.
I think the take-home point of this post is that I am trying to expose myself to new literature, partly because I want to be more involved in the “literary scene.” It’s just a long, hard process, and I haven’t had any sort of writing or lit/comp class since 12th grade, so I have no guide here. I’m skeptical about whether the Editors can find and support all the talented writers, and I’m convinced that a good amount of worthwhile writing goes totally unpublished. I think one way the Internet will help is to find the right audience for a certain book or writer, instead of forcing every author to aspire to the tastes of the literary status quo. That’s not so unreasonable a hope, is it?
Similar Posts:
- Time for a Long Break (July 13, 2010)
- Vote for the 100 Best Beach Books Ever at NPR.org (July 15, 2009)
- Once a Monotheism, Always a Monotheism (February 16, 2010)
