Say there is a young writer
May 10, 2024 1:15 AM Subscribe
In the dreamworld of the arts, every inanimate thing is animate, every object contains the entire world, millions of years of history and future and feeling. As she writes her story, which is ultimately her life, it can look like anything she wants. The more she thinks about it, the greater the possibilities. The more she’s cast out, the more she must innovate. The more she will be unique, the more her voice will be untamed. Whatever she is, whoever. She has lived for literature from the beginning and so literature will be her; her indomitable will shall make it so. Our young writer, still unpublished, is the essence of the word itself. Any of her books that may, that will come, be published, read—a footnote. from Every Ship Is a Passenger Too: On Publishing Today by Chris Molnar [LARB]
d'oh. yeah that's it, sorry. thanks billjings for pointing it out. I've alerted the mods.
posted by chavenet at 2:49 AM on May 10
posted by chavenet at 2:49 AM on May 10
I am not sure what to think of this. It is presented as a critique of publishing and not someone's true story of being ignored by the industry, but it is also has a sour grapes feel to me. The main character is proudly aware that they are producing uncommercial art, which is fine, but they also seem to feel that by doing all the other stuff the supposed right way, they somehow will get published. But it doesn't really work that way. It also doesn't seem to make that much sense that someone willing to do all of the other stuff (school, work in publishing, etc.) wouldn't also be willing to adapt their style to something that people would be interested in publishing (even at the indie imprint level, which the character also seems to reject). Or self-publish.
In a way, it almost reads like the main character is not a particularly good writer and defends it to themself as being too unique. Then they go into publishing anyway and find fault with everyone else in the industry. So is that the problem with publishing?
posted by snofoam at 4:31 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
In a way, it almost reads like the main character is not a particularly good writer and defends it to themself as being too unique. Then they go into publishing anyway and find fault with everyone else in the industry. So is that the problem with publishing?
posted by snofoam at 4:31 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
It’s one thing to be 19 and think your authorial voice is so! unique! It’s embarrassing to be a full adult with an education and lots of exposure to other writers and still be swanning around and how wildly special and unlike anyone else you are, while decrying the “falsity” of more successful writers.
The writing in this essay doesn’t justify her sense of superiority.
posted by jeoc at 5:01 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
The writing in this essay doesn’t justify her sense of superiority.
posted by jeoc at 5:01 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
“…sense of superiority…” “…sour grapes…”. Yes, I get that reaction, but putting that aside, it is an authentic and and finely observed detailing of the author’s experience of the life of a writer in these unfortunate times.
posted by kozad at 5:21 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
posted by kozad at 5:21 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
As far as I can tell, this is not an autobiographical piece, or at least not presented as such. I think the author is a man and seems to be reasonably successful in the publishing industry. This makes it more interesting since it is neither the whining of a self-centered writer, nor an authentic account of an author’s experience.
posted by snofoam at 6:58 AM on May 10 [3 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 6:58 AM on May 10 [3 favorites]
Chris Molnar (he) is the editorial director of one of Simon & Schuster’s imprints, to at least clarify what the author is *not* doing in this piece of writing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Molnar
posted by toodleydoodley at 7:10 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Molnar
posted by toodleydoodley at 7:10 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
contains the small truth that even indie presses are blinkered. in less than cataclysmic times that would be the story. in less than cataclysmic times i'd debate it.
posted by graywyvern at 7:10 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
posted by graywyvern at 7:10 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
I thought this was a great piece, and c'mon, if you've ever wanted to be a writer but hit a wall with it, something in this piece is going to resonate. He's written a neat little examination of...of not failure really, but of accepting that what feels like a need to write, sometimes can be (partially, a little) satisfied simply by being close to writing, close to the process, somewhere between the writer and the book on the shelf. It's bittersweet but it's not really tragic, I don't think.
However I think if we wanted to identify a misstep--the bit of hubris that could turn it into a tragedy, it would be this: "Her story—the singularity of her life, her mind—isn’t in any of the books she’s read. The meaningful things she’s seen, learned, knows, the trauma she’s endured and needs to write in order to expel." She believes that true writing is autofiction. She believes fiction must be a mirror.
And that brings to mind Allen Bratton's recent blog, which is about the frustration of a world that seems to only want autobiography, only wants a direct connection between the author's life and the words on the page. "I wonder if we would go back to Shakespeare and tell him to give up the Venetian aristocrat shit in favour of plays about an aspiring poet/playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon whose father was a glove-maker. Perhaps not: perhaps we would just continue to believe that Shakespeare could only have written well about power because he was the Earl of Oxford, or even Queen Elizabeth herself."
posted by mittens at 7:11 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
However I think if we wanted to identify a misstep--the bit of hubris that could turn it into a tragedy, it would be this: "Her story—the singularity of her life, her mind—isn’t in any of the books she’s read. The meaningful things she’s seen, learned, knows, the trauma she’s endured and needs to write in order to expel." She believes that true writing is autofiction. She believes fiction must be a mirror.
And that brings to mind Allen Bratton's recent blog, which is about the frustration of a world that seems to only want autobiography, only wants a direct connection between the author's life and the words on the page. "I wonder if we would go back to Shakespeare and tell him to give up the Venetian aristocrat shit in favour of plays about an aspiring poet/playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon whose father was a glove-maker. Perhaps not: perhaps we would just continue to believe that Shakespeare could only have written well about power because he was the Earl of Oxford, or even Queen Elizabeth herself."
posted by mittens at 7:11 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
Nice piece. I think it captures a feeling common in creative fields (maybe all fields?) of success feeling random but the medium's body of work directed by a massive, inscrutable machine. As a reader, I've often wondered what the space of books I have access to looks like compared to all possible books, if the ones that never made it out of submissions to agents or that the author gave up on are so much better than the ones that made it through.
posted by hermanubis at 8:13 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
posted by hermanubis at 8:13 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
With the additional context about the author, is this a takedown or poking fun at a particular “type” in the literary world?
posted by jeoc at 10:06 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
posted by jeoc at 10:06 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
The piece is a bit too on the nose. Talented people who don’t succeed to the level they hoped rarely have good insight about why, and not uncommonly that lack of insight is the “why.”
posted by MattD at 3:01 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
posted by MattD at 3:01 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
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posted by billjings at 2:00 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]